Israel, Greece & Cyprus: The New Architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean | Shay Gal

I'm especially glad to have this conversation with you because the Eastern Mediterranean is no longer peripheral to global affairs.

If Delphi was for the ancient Greeks the novel of the world, Today's Eastern Mediterranean may be the Gordian knot of global power.

So Mr. Gull, starting from that wider picture and moving beyond the headlines, the Eastern Mediterranean as a region is often discussed, at least, in the news headlines when there is a crisis.

But the region is more than a crisis map.

It is where geography, energy, trade, identity, religion and military power constantly meet.

What makes the Eastern Mediterranean strategically different from other regional theatres globally?

Well, I would like to add that this totally determined it is indeed not a crisis map.

It's a theater.

It's crisis no longer merely repeat.

They converge.

The Aegean, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Libya, energy corridors, ports, cables, drones, maritime law, migration, intelligence and military access are not separate files anymore.

They form one system, actually.

They form a decision in Syria affects Israel freedom of action.

A Turkish move in occupied northern Cyprus shifts the maritime balance.

A cable becomes sovereignty.

A port becomes leverage.

A map drawn in Ankara is not cartography, it's policy.

For Israel, the Mediterranean is no longer only a coastline.

It is part of the national Paris Metals.

For Greece, the Eastern Mediterranean is not southern flank.

It's a Europe's maritime front, and Europe should acknowledge this.

For Cyprus, the issue is not only division or diplomacy.

Cyprus is where European sovereignty is tested in real time.

And that is what makes the region distinct.

Geography, infrastructure, force, law, and will now operate together.