Several months ago I posted that Israel and Greece were forming a new military alliance. Today’s links confirm that this alliance is growing steadily stronger. The first link reports that Greece has permitted the Israeli navy to hold live-fire Israeli naval exercises in Greek waters. When a nation allows another nation to hold live-fire military exercise in its own territorial waters, that is a very strong sign of major military cooperation between the two nations.
The second link reports that the top Greek admiral visited the Israeli nation and received red-carpet treatment. The Greek admiral cited the “strong cooperation” between Greece and the Israelis. Both Greece and Turkey are NATO members, but Turkey and Greece are historic rivals. Turkey had been building a good relationship with the Israelis, but Turkey’s current leader is very anti-Israeli and Turkish-Israeli relations are in the deep-freeze. Greece has gladly moved into a military alliance with the Israelis to fill the void created by Turkey’s exit. That the Israelis are a strong regional nuclear power makes this alliance even more valuable to Greece. Israel benefits by having an ally in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as it gives the Israeli military alternate ports and airbases and strategic depth in the event of a future Mideast war.
Some Christians look at Zechariah 12:3 and form an opinion that biblical prophecy foretells all nations will turn against the Israelis (who are called “Judah” in biblical prophecy). The scripture does not actually foretell such a thing. It states: “…all that burden themselves with it [Jerusalem–the Israeli capital] shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” While this is a promise that God will not abandon the Israelis (the Israelite tribe of “Judah”) in the latter days even if all the other nations of the earth do so, the prophecy does not actually include a declarative statement saying “all nations of the earth shall forsake Judah in the latter days.” God is stressing his faithfulness to Judah during the latter days in this prophecy and the phrase “though all the other nations of the earth” is more of a rhetorical “if” statement instead of a straightforward prophecy that every other nation will forsake the Israelis. The Israelis have allies in the world. The American people (if not the Obama administration) are overwhelmingly pro-Israeli. The Germans build the top quality submarines for the Israeli navy, many European nation enjoy good relations with the Israelis and Greece has become a very strong ally recently. Behind the scenes, the Saudis, Jordanians and other Sunni Arab nations have been drawing closer to the Israelis in a de-facto anti-Iranian alliance as were the Egyptians before the radicals overthrew the Mubarak administration in that nation.
I fully expect that the Israelis will be part of the western alliance at the end of our age, and I expect they will have a goodly number of allies.
