An Israeli reading of the Eastern Mediterranean maritime balance
LIBYA – An analytical article published by the Israeli English-language outlet The Times of Israel has argued that the Libya-Turkey maritime agreement signed in 2019 poses a threat to Israel’s interests, claiming that its ratification by Libya’s House of Representatives has fractured the geopolitical architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean, with consequences that reach beyond regional stability.
Claims of strategic encirclement and disputed maritime rights
The article — followed and summarised by Al-Marsad — said the dispute is not merely a technical bilateral row over hydrocarbon resources, describing the agreement as a “de jure fiction” engineered through close cooperation between Ankara and Tripoli to establish what it called a de facto strategic encirclement.
It claimed that this encirclement threatens maritime trade, regional security and the energy routes that supply Europe from the south, and, in the author’s view, violates the sovereign rights of Greece and Cyprus. It urged readers to look at the balance of naval power to understand its implications.
Turkish expansion versus Greek and Israeli qualitative edge
The article said the Turkish navy is pursuing aggressive quantitative expansion and building a fleet capable of operating on the high seas, set against what it described as the qualitative and technological superiority and decisive tactical readiness of the Greek navy and Israel’s elite naval forces.
It added that the Israeli navy is designed for local defence while Turkey keeps adding vessels, arguing that the combined deterrence of regional allies prevents absolute Turkish dominance, and that Ankara’s use of what it called “legally void instruments”, such as the agreement with Libya, demands urgent attention.
Fears over Israel’s access to the high seas
According to the author, entrenching Turkish naval superiority could directly shift the balance of power and threaten Israel’s freedom of access to the high seas, while the prospect of Egypt gradually drawing closer to Ankara would amount to a “strategic nightmare” for Israel.
The author argued that neutralising or constraining Cairo would bring down what the article described as the wall of moderate, Western-aligned states, leaving Israel squeezed by geopolitical pressure from the north and south-west. The article also accused Ankara of seeking to cut the maritime link between Greece and Cyprus by drawing “artificial lines on a map”.
Accusations of a ‘closed sea’ and a ‘neo-Ottoman lake’
The article claimed that Turkey is trying to impose a modern version of the “closed sea” (mare clausum) concept, or to turn the Eastern Mediterranean into what it called a “neo-Ottoman lake”.
It warned that if regional players and the international community accept what it described as a reality built on “illegal foundations”, the lasting damage, in the author’s view, would be an erosion of Israel’s strategic depth in the Mediterranean, sea lanes left exposed to outside pressure, and a loss of sovereign rights for Israel’s European allies.
Call for action from Israel, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt
The article concluded by calling for an end to what it described as passive observation and for Israel, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt to adopt an immediate and firm counter-strategy towards moves in Tripoli and Ankara, arguing that surrendering any part of maritime sovereignty today would affect their capacity for strategic survival in the future, according to its author.
