Thank you for your insights, Alexandros

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Aug 20, 2014 at 05:46

Hi, Alexandros.

Thank you for your answer. I'm still sifting through it...

The polls: yes, they tend to be pretty lame. Whenever a pollster calls me, I simply answer: "I'm not interested. I don't have any opinions." Then I hang up, before they can bother me further. That works every time; but of course, my views don't get recorded and twisted. That said, the Aegean lands and Cyprus seem to stand out as starkly different from the rest of Europe in their responses, so I was curious as to why.

"Greeks invented Philoxenia (friend of the foreign)."

It's refreshing to hear that. I wish Erdogan would get some Philoxenia; he's about as philoxenic as Adolf Hitler.

"...a lot of people see Israel with a different eye nowadays and after the will of the Israeli government to collaborate with Greece, but there is a lack of trust still! Well they would never support Turkey agaisnt Israel for example, the opposite is much more possible. The fact though, that Greece is a NATO member, would make it very difficult politically for Greece to go against Turkey!"

That's pretty much my estimation. Greece, Cyprus and Israel have a common interest in the offshore gas wells and infrastructure, which could become substantial; but as you say, there is not a deep trust between them. I remember that during the NATO attacks against Yugoslavia in the Clinton years, Greece gave moral support to the Yugoslavs but nothing material (because Greece is a NATO member). Israel also sat that war out, and rarely mentioned it in the news, for fear of offending the Americans and Europeans. And as you say, Israel was friendly with Turkey for years, so I can see why the Greeks don't sense much depth in their relationship with Israel. As a matter of fact, with the Edward Snowden revelations, I don't think many countries trust anyone anymore.

"In the end i think that a war between Turkey and Israel is a much more unlikely event to happen compared to a war between Greece and Turkey"

I disagree. Turkey is continually provoking Israel; and the current Gaza War is just a Turkish-Israeli war by proxy. Only Syria is keeping them physically apart from each other; and Syria is disintegrating. That said, I don't know how serious the following is:

"In my opinion actually the Turkish army is being armed in a way that makes it clear that they want to attack Greece. Not that they want to conquer all the land, but most of the Aegean Islands, the rest of Cyprus and Thrace, for sure!"

With Erdogan in power, I would not be surprised if he did attack Greece; though he hasn't spoken hatefully about the Greeks the way he has about the Jews.

I wish Israel and Greece were closer to one another, because Israel seems at times to be completely frinedless. When push comes to shove, though, the Jews of Israel have not been constant allies. In 2000, they left the Lebanese Christians at the mercy of Hizbullah after those Christians gave them years of faithful help. They remind me of the Dwarfs in the last book of the Narnia series -- trusting nobody and fighting everyone. It takes a while to unlearn thousands of years of history.

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