Version 2: Thu, Jun 23, 2026
Benjamin Netanyahu and George Papandreou on a cruise near the isle of Poros, 17 August 2010, photo via Flickr CC - Source: besacenter.org
Must read recent article on The Cradle: (Athanasiadis 2026) on the evolving Greek and Israeli foreign relationship and the repercussions for the whole region.
What follows is additional information and my occasionally suggestive comments.
BDS Greece
“Greek ports and airports are being used for resupply and the transfer of materiel and fuel,” says Dimitris Plionis, member of the Greek chapter of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement.
BDS Greece was established in 2019 https://bdsgreece.net/. Recent article on the site followed with Google translation of the first few paragraphs:
“Shield of Achilles” or “Trojan Horse” of Israel? https://bdsgreece.net/2026/06/13/aspida-toy-achillea-i-doyreios-ippo/ 13 Ιουνίου 2026
The New Democracy government is moving forward with yet another gigantic arms deal with Israeli military industries.
The “Achilles Shield”, worth approximately 3 billion euros, is presented as a modern air defense and missile defense system against “new threats”. However, behind the radars, missiles and command systems lies a deeper political choice: the even greater tying of Greece to Israel’s military, technological and geopolitical ecosystem.
The main contractors, IAI, ELTA and Rafael, are an integral part of the Israeli military-industrial complex and the mechanisms of occupation, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people. Every euro directed to these companies financially and politically strengthens a state that commits genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
At the same time, Greece is committing another 3 billion euros in the first phase, while society is facing precision, underfunding of health and education and serious housing and infrastructure problems. The argument of a “Greek participation” of 25%-30% does not change the essence. Critical software, upgrades, sensors, know-how and maintenance remain under Israeli control. In other words, Greece is paying billions to become more dependent.
Papandreou and Netanyahu
In February 2010, the alliance was formalized through a staged chance meeting in a Moscow restaurant between former Greek prime minister George Papandreou and Netanyahu.
I heard and read variations of this story a number of times over the past few years and tend to believe it.
Papandreou, at the time President of the Socialist International should have avoided Netanyahu because there was ample evidence even in 2010 that the Israeli state was involved in human rights violations, leaving aside the starting crime of illegally occupying someone else’s land.
Certainly after the Gaza Genocide there is no excuse of continuing the ‘strategic alliance’. As far as I know Papandreou has not proposed a change of foreign policy direction that will distance Greece from the Zionist entity.
Dr. Nikolas Kosmatopoulos
Dr. Nikolas Kosmatopoulos is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, as well as the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies at the American University of Beirut. He is also the Founding Director of CELME:
Critical Ecologies Lab in the Mediterranean East (CELME) https://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/celme/Pages/default.aspx
His book is:
Master Peace: Lebanon’s Violence and the Politics of Expertise https://www.pennpress.org/9781512826746/master-peace/ by Nikolas Kosmatopoulos - University of Pennsylvania Press - 2024
From the publisher:
Based on multi-sited ethnographic research centering on Beirut, but tracing international peace work as far as Switzerland and the United States, Master Peace examines the politics of expertise in the application of metropolitan theories of violence and practices of peacemaking in post–civil war Lebanon. Through ethnographic encounters, archival research, and interviews that shed light on the worlds of academic research, UN agencies, NGOs, and think tanks, Nikolas Kosmatopoulos argues that so-called experts, from violence researchers to peace professionals, have often misrepresented and exacerbated the violence they claim to be tackling, through their deployment of racialized tropes of conflict and communalizing peace practices.
It just happens that I only listen to the Greek gov funded radio station ERTNews, limitations of transistor technology being what they are. I can honestly say that Dr. Kosmatopoulos is not a regular guest on the station. To be more precise, I have never heard the guy being invited in any program. There is always something going in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular, so I would have thought that the views of someone living in the area would be relevant and sought after.
But he is not the only academic surprisingly not getting invited, here is another one:
Professor Costas Lapavitsas is at https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/costas-lapavitsas. From the SOAS bio:
Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economics at SOAS University of London and has taught at SOAS since 1990.
His main area of specialisation is monetary theory and the political economy of money and finance. For several years his research focused on the financialisation of capitalism, its characteristic trends, variable forms and manifold implications for contemporary society. He has also worked on the attendant crises of financialisation, including the Eurozone crisis, producing work that has had a considerable impact on the theoretical and policy debates.
Given that that the global crisis even before Trump is not just geopolitical but geo-economical, I would have thought someone like Prof Lapavitsas would be the perfect regular radio guest to explain and comment on the international political and economic trends. Alas, that is not the case.
These two cases are part of what I believe is operating in Greece, a system of “manufacturing consent”. But that will require its own post …
Sources
(Athanasiadis 2026) Greece’s pivot to Israel: Spyware, war corridors, and a risky alliance - From Predator spyware to arms deals and military corridors, Athens has tied its future to Tel Aviv at the very moment the US-Israeli order is losing ground across West Asia https://thecradle.co/articles/greeces-pivot-to-israel-spyware-war-corridors-and-a-risky-alliance by Iason Athanasiadis - The Cradle - Apr 15, 2026
(Lappin 2025) Potential of the Turkish Threat – Direct and Indirect – to Israel; A Situation Assessment https://israel-alma.org/potential-of-the-turkish-threat-direct-and-indirect-to-israel-a-situation-assessment/ by Yaakov Lappin - February 11, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/zzs9k
(Pipis 2024) Israeli Expansion into EU via Cyprus https://kedisa.gr/en/israeli-expansion-into-eu-via-cyprus/ By Theodosis Pipis, Analyst KEDISA - October 8, 2024 - Archive https://archive.ph/A7Tu5
Started: Fri, Jun 26, 2026
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