Tomorrow, a summit of three leaders will be opened in Athens, attended by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Cyprus President Anastasiadis and Greek Prime Minister Mitzotakis. As part of the summit, the seventh in number since 2016, an agreement will be signed for the construction of the "Eastmed" gas pipeline, which aims to transfer gas from the "Leviathan" field in Israel and the "Aphrodite" field in Cyprus to Europe, through Greece to Italy, which is not yet clear if I will sign the agreement.

The agreement is supported by US support to help curb Russia's influence in the Middle East and diversify the EU's energy sources to mitigate its energy dependence on Russia. Along the way, the United States may benefit from strengthening relations with two traditional Russian allies - Cyprus and Greece. The last summit meetings between the three states were attended by senior US government officials, such as Secretary of State Pompeo, and last June the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee also approved the establishment of a "Middle East Energy Center" to coordinate energy operations between the United States, Israel, Greece and Cyprus. . Two weeks ago, a bill was also approved in the US Congress stating that the US embargo on Cyprus will be removed from Cyprus due to the ongoing conflict in the island between Cypriot Greeks and Cypriot Turks, and security assistance will be provided to Cyprus and Greece.

Geographically, it was requested that Turkey serve as a transit country, but the current relations with Israel do not allow this. In the past, a proposal for the establishment of an Israeli-Turkish gas pipeline was considered, which was one of the key factors in signing the normalization agreement between the states in 2016. The deal did not mature, not only because of the tension between Ankara and Jerusalem, but also because of the high price of Israeli gas, and the possibility that the pipeline would pass through Cyprus' economic waters.

In light of the deterioration of Turkey-Israel relations in recent years, the partnership between Israel and Cyprus and Greece sparked. In January 2019, the "Middle East Gas Forum" was set up by Egypt, which includes companies in Greece, Italy, Israel, Cyprus, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Despite Turkey's refusal to participate in the forum due to the deterioration of its relations with Egypt, its establishment is seen as a threat and therefore it is working against it. Thus, in late November, Turkey signed its maritime border demarcation agreement with Libya and increased its military drones presence over gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

Turkey's regional isolation is likely to strengthen Turkey's partnership with Russia on the gas issue as well. Only recently was the construction of the "Turk Stream" gas pipeline, which stretched from Russia to Turkey and was intended to supply gas to southern and eastern European countries. It is conceivable that the project "Eastmead", which did not give Russia a foothold and may even bite on its share of gas margins, is also cynical for Moscow. Russia is also investing in the search for natural gas fields off the coast of Syria and Lebanon, and if you find them, Turkey is likely to be the partner, both in light of its geographical location and the warming of relations between the two countries.

The economic viability of the Eastmead gas pipeline is not self-evident. This is an expensive, complex engineering project with security risks. Many companies refrain from investing in it, and for the time being it is also unclear how willing the EU will be to support it. Even if it is finally completed, there is no guarantee that the gas flowing through it will be able to compete with Russia's gas prices.

But beyond the energetic and economic partnership, the alliance between Israel and Greece and Cyprus improves the balance of power in the region for Israel's benefit. Turkey is now the main security challenge for Cyprus, Greece and Egypt, and last November the three countries even conducted a joint military exercise. Therefore, Israel has a clear interest in tightening the relationship, in order to curb Turkey's future aggression towards it, in terms of "my enemy's enemy - he is my friend".