Israel’s Strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean Step by Step: Cairo’s Maritime Ambitions

Zsolt Csepregi

Questions of a country’s relative geographic position are no alien to a Hungarian audience. Being identified as a Central, Eastern, or East-Central European country is an issue for debate with many consequences in the realm of politics and society, as words and expressions matter greatly in human affairs. Israeli debates regarding their position and geopolitical orientation must be viewed through a similar lens. The Jewish state has been in an uneasy position in the Middle East since its modernday inception in 1948. It is, at the same time, in the heart of the Middle East, has connections to Eurasia and Africa, and serves as the sole bridge between the continents, while it is also discriminated and threatened politically. Through many wars and (much more welcome) peace accords, Israel managed to secure itself to a relatively high degree in the Middle East, with cold peace enduring on its eastern and southern borders. As pressure slowly reduced from the north as well, the previously overlooked Mediterranean aspect of the state came to the foreground. Naturally, Israel has always been an Eastern Mediterranean country and society. Its culture, cuisine, vistas, and outlook on the world resemble much more that of Saloniki, Izmir, or Beirut than of Doha or Aden. That is, if we are talking about the coastal, Tel Avivian or Haifan scene, if we go to the mountains of Israel, visit the vibrant communities belonging to the four Abrahamic religions, the Jewish, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, we can immediately imagine their counterparts in the Meteora in Greece or on Mount Lebanon. Still, there is a debate enduring even in the highest echelons of Israeli strategic thinking on whether the country is a Middle Eastern or an Eastern Mediterranean power, a mixture of the two, or something completely different.

This renewed Israeli interest during the last decade towards its western maritime neighbourhood had its reasons. The underlying causes were, and still are, both positive and negative in their nature and very much interlinked. No other example portrays this dual nature better than the issue of hydrocarbon reserves in Israel’s exclusive economic zone: these resources bring benefits but also threats to those owing or aspiring to owe them. Israeli leaders and society experienced a pleasant shock after 2009 with the discovery of the Tamar gas field, and especially in 2010, when the first exploration of the Leviathan gas field also proved successful. At the time of its discovery, the latter was the largest natural gas deposit in the Mediterranean, containing reserves that can make Israel energy independent for decades to come. This windfall brought about a significant shift in Israeli strategic thinking, as earlier the prevailing self-image in the country was perfectly encapsulated by the somewhat sarcastic remark by late David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, who said that, in His eternal wisdom, the Creator had given to Israel the only place in the Middle East which had no oil. Technically, he was, of course, right, as Israel only has some negligible deposits on land, and he did not imagine that the ever-underestimated sea (Jews and their predecessors, the Israelites, were hardly maritime people even in ancient times) would become such a boon. Israel not only became practically self-sufficient in electricity generation (which is only limited by price considerations) but also came to possess a significant amount of natural gas to export. Having new import sources was a welcome development for Europe, as well, which, thereby, had the opportunity to reduce its dependence

on traditional fossil fuel powers.1 Therefore, from an Israeli point of view, the country gained not only a resource but also an asset to trade and build new and deeper bonds on.2

As mentioned before, these resources had to be defended, since, with greater potential benefits came greater regional competition in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel joined the maritime competition quite late and had to do a lot to catch up. The Israeli navy lagged behind the other branches of the Israel Defence Forces for a long time and served only as a coast guard force.3 Its backwardness is interesting, considering how much Israel is reliant on maritime transportation routes compared to its hostile, or at least unreliable, land borders. During the Cold War, Israel could rely on US support for guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Mediterranean.4 Fiercer regional competition and the relative lack of superpower interest in the last couple of decades, and especially after the Cold War, inspired Israel to develop its navy. Currently, the advanced, nextgeneration Sa’ar corvettes—built by state-ofthe-art German shipbuilding companies—and Dolphin submarines are a powerful deterrent against any regional foes.

The technological advancement parallels a doctrinal expansion in Israeli forces, as newer weapons systems enable more distant and longer-term deployments at sea, both above and under.5 Haifa, the strategic port and industrial city located on the shores of the Mediterranean, is home to the Israeli submarine fleet, which is reportedly Israel’s second, unconfirmed nuclear deterrence pillar, complementing the first, also unconfirmed land-based nuclear missile pillar.6 Besides these activities under cover of the sea, the main role of the navy is to protect the gas platforms from both conventional and

Levant Basin Oil and gas fields

unconventional threats. The former might not be a remote possibility, considering regional tensions between armed forces due to the contested exclusive economic zones in the region. However, it is still not a daily worry of Israeli decision makers and military leadership. On the other hand, asymmetric threats such as land–sea missile attacks from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah or motorboat attacks from other terrorist groups are regular threats that are discouraged by patrolling Israeli navy forces.

Configuring navy forces, doctrine, and force posture is probably one of the most difficult aspects of Israeli military planning due to the ambiguous strategic environment in the region. There are, however, welcome trends from an Israeli point of view mainly due to the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot axis and the continuing Arab–Israeli rapprochement. The emergence of Greek and Cypriot interests in cooperating with Israel are quite a recent phenomenon, as, during the 1990s, Turkish–Israeli cooperation flourished in defence-related issues, balancing a Greek–Syrian–Kurdish axis. This has, of course, changed because of the gradual deterioration of Israeli–Turkish relations and the discovery of hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is important to highlight that the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot cooperation is still developing; therefore, it is clear that the parties dynamically adjust the fields they are aiming to cooperate on.7 Beyond energy infrastructure, the axis apparently has a military and security cooperation aspect to it, as well. Logically, the two mid-tier naval powers, Greece and Israel, and the small yet strategically located Cyprus aim to align their strategies and act as a united front vis-à-vis larger actors such as Egypt and Turkey. I intentionally avoid the expression “acting against,” as the Eastern Mediterranean has until now been quite stable, considering the sizeable disagreements among regional actors. Nevertheless, all of them know that a regional conflict would be damaging to every party and that there are no hegemons in the region which could come out of it as a clear winner. Therefore, regardless of tense relations, any cooperation is welcome, while avoiding armed conflicts with unforeseeable consequences is a must for all actors.

The picture becomes even more complicated if we start factoring in Egypt, which is a slumbering, internally occupied giant in the region that possesses remarkable geographic and demographic potential, while its implosion threatens not only its neighbours but Europe, as well. For now, it seems that Cairo, knowing that it punches well below its weight in foreign and security affairs due to its domestic hardships, bands together with the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot quasi-alliance to make up for its shortcomings. Its efforts are centred around natural gas infrastructure development, which is a convenient and lucrative reason to form a joint platform.8 Naturally, all these efforts by Egypt aim at softly balancing Turkey, which not only threatens Greece and Cyprus with its actions but also agitates Egypt by involving Libya in its schemes to expand its exclusive economic zone.9 In reality, Israel has found that it has become part of a regional coalition, a position the country was hardly used to during decades of relative regional isolation and hostility; therefore, the leadership of the Jewish state will surely make the most of this new-found favourable alignment in its neighbourhood.

A final element of the above picture has emerged with the recent normalisation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While the UAE is not a Mediterranean power,

A view of Haifa, Israel’s strategic port and industrial city

it is interested in the region for two main reasons: first, to position itself as a capable Middle Eastern power and, second, to balance against the Turkish–Qatari axis.10 In the Eastern Mediterranean, these Emirati interests materialise in supporting the Haftar government in Libya against Turkey11 and in aligning with the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot axis to counter Turkish “expansion,”12 which includes military cooperation with the Greek–Cypriot forces.13 As the UAE normalises its relations with Israel (alongside like-minded Bahrain and with Saudi Arabia’s tacit agreement), the cooperative framework between the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean is becoming even denser and more multifaceted. Finally, even Israel’s former enemies are becoming more manageable in the region. While the Iran-supported Hezbollah terror group is a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, its host country (or rather captive), Lebanon, is engaged in indirect negotiations with Israel over maritime borders, showing that the mutual benefits may very well overcome mutual hostilities.14

Beyond regional considerations, the Eastern Mediterranean is an important space where the interests of the major powers such as the US, Europe, China, and Russia collide. Israel cannot withdraw from these competitions, because of its military and economic prowess combined with its strategic location. The prime manifestation of its challenging situation is the recent emergence of Chinese interest in Israeli ports and other strategic assets.15 The United States was quick to reprimand its Middle Eastern partner not to engage too deeply with its global competitor.16 Its greatest fear is that China will come to possess sensitive military technologies from Israel and obtain assets by which it will be well-positioned to spy on US forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, the entryway to the Suez Canal and, thereby, to the Indian Ocean. It is no surprise that the Israeli–UAE normalisation under the wings of the US also led Emirati companies to fill the capital gaps in Israeli infrastructure development in strategic port assets.17 These are minor, yet potentially

The Greece–Cyprus–Israel axis in the making during their 2017 summit on offshore gas (from left to right: Nikos Anastasiades, president of the Republic of Cyprus, Alexis Tsipras, prime minister of Greece, and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel)

significant steps in balancing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims at connecting the two ends of Eurasia through Iran and Turkey. An alternative route is emerging between the Indian Ocean basin and the Eastern Mediterranean through the Israeli–Emirati axis.

From a European point of view, this means more opportunities to be connected to the booming markets of Asia, a welcome possibility in any case. Even though Israel’s most important consideration is to find a balance between its economic interest in engaging with China and its overall strategic interest in maintaining its close multifaceted partnership with the US, other powers have to be factored in, as well. Russia is, of course, acting in Syria as a security guarantor of the Assad regime, and Israel has to conduct its limited anti-Iranian, anti-Assad, and anti-Hezbollah military campaign in close coordination with Russia. While the interests of Jerusalem and Moscow hardly align, the two countries are partners in many affairs and careful to avoid any armed clashes between the Israeli army and the Russian expeditionary forces in Syria. Also, Israel will aim at utilising its blossoming relations with Greece, Cyprus, and Italy to reach EU decision makers and, by offering economic benefits, such as natural gas export, potentially ease the pressure from European capitals with the aid of Athens and Nicosia. As the above examples show, the Eastern Mediterranean is a vital component of virtually all the important foreign relations of Israel, a factor which always has to be taken into consideration and employed in order to reap maximum gains.

Surely, Israel will continue to be an emerging actor in the Eastern Mediterranean in both economic and security affairs. After decades of being reliant on outside energy sources and

experiencing naval blockades by its enemies, it will deepen its engagement in its maritime zone, enhancing its strategic depth. It will act in unison with Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt but will also aim at reducing tensions and foster cooperation with Turkey and achieve at least “live-and-letlive” relations with Lebanon. Certainly, Israel will continue developing advanced naval military capabilities contributing to stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, as the Jewish state possesses a powerful deterrent posture, a much-needed element in the turbulent region. However, Israel’s inherent limitations do not permit it to become an overall global player; its niche capabilities make it a significant, or even, a valuable target in global schemes for accessing its technology and infrastructure assets. Israel is expected to continue making its regional and global cooperative networks denser and manœuvring between the global powers in order to reap the most benefit from its strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean and to enhance its security.

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