In his first interview with a Cypriot media outlet, Israeli analyst Shay Gal speaks to Simerini about the turning point in Cyprus–Israel relations, the importance of joint deterrence against regional threats, and Turkey’s growing role in the Eastern Mediterranean.
He explains why the occupied northern part of the island is not a “frozen conflict” but rather “Turkey’s unsinkable aircraft carrier”, and how the Cyprus–Greece–Israel triangle could transform the region’s geopolitical map under the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) framework.
Part I of the interview follows below:
How would you assess the current level of Cyprus–Israel relations, and do you believe that beyond military cooperation, we should move toward a strategic alliance in order to counter common challenges and threats?
Our relations with Cyprus are at their highest level in history. But this is not mere diplomacy – it is solidarity tested at the moment of truth. In June 2025, during the Twelve-Days War with Iran, Cyprus did not stand aside: it became a shield. Israeli civilian aircraft were quietly relocated to Cypriot and Greek airports to protect them from potential Iranian retaliation. That move alone carried grave risk for Cyprus – and yet Nicosia opened its skies. It later emerged that Iranian agents attempted to strike Cypriot soil precisely because of that choice. Trust is not built in statements – it is tested in crisis, and Cyprus passed the test with courage.
While others preached morality from a safe distance, Cyprus and Greece assumed the risk on their own ground. They became not only friends in words, but allies in deeds – and every Israeli knows it. Therefore I say clearly: beyond exercises and procurement, we must move to a covenant of destiny. When Cyprus is threatened, Israel will stand by her as if Israel itself had been attacked. And when Israel is attacked, Cyprus will be there, as it was last June.
Cyprus is not a distant European periphery to be carved up. It is the heart of the Mediterranean – Europe’s frontline. Together, Israel and Cyprus can anchor a new order of stability and freedom in our sea – not an order of occupation and denial dictated from Ankara, but one of courage, dignity, and the unbroken will of free nations, written from Nicosia, Athens and Jerusalem.
Turkish narrative argues that your article that describes occupied northern Cyprus as an ‘existential threat,’ is just geopolitical fear-mongering designed to dramatize Türkiye’s role. What is your response to that?
I wrote to expose what the international community had long known but preferred to forget: the occupied north is not a frozen dispute but Turkey’s unsinkable aircraft carrier. What is presented as a ‘pseudo-state’ is in practice an Ankara forward base – Bayraktar and Akinci drones operating from Lefkoniko, ATMACA anti-ship missiles threatening shipping lanes and gas platforms, and SIGINT arrays along the Kyrenia ridge that turn Israel and Cyprus into a glasshouse. Casinos, universities and ports are no longer neutral civilian infrastructure; they serve corruption, finance Hamas and enable Iranian networks to penetrate deep into Europe. This is not merely a threat to Israel or to Greece and Cyprus. It is an open wound inside NATO and the European Union – a direct challenge to Europe’s security and credibility.
I presented these facts, not to frighten, but to illuminate. The Turkish reaction proved the point. Ersin Tatar, the puppet ‘president’ of the north, was forced on live television to calm the public. A fifty-page assessment by Turkey’s National Intelligence Academy (MIT) analyzed the “Poseidon’s Wrath” scenario I outlined and placed it squarely on Ankara’s threat map. Even Cem Gürdeniz – the admiral and intellectual father of the “Blue Homeland” doctrine that shapes Turkey’s maritime strategy – wrote an extended response confronting the analysis. When official intelligence and the very theorist of the policy you are pursuing engage with your scenario, you have struck a strategic nerve.
Crucially: none of the technical facts I set out were disproved. Not the presence of armed UCAVs at Lefkoniko, not the deployment and range of ATMACA, not preparations for Tayfun ballistic systems, not the SIGINT arrays on the Kyrenia ridge, and not the documented financial linkages to proxy networks. In public, Ankara offered rhetoric; it offered no operational refutation. That absence of factual denial is itself revealing.
That is why the Turkish posture – angry words, frenzied media coverage, the pseudo-state’s live reassurances – is not confidence. It is fear. A regime that dismisses a factual mapping of its capabilities as “fear-mongering” is trying to move the debate from hardware and logistics to language. When you cannot counter the concrete, you attack the cadence.
This is exactly what “Poseidon’s Wrath” achieved: deterrence through clarity. Deterrence works only when an adversary recognizes three things at once: you know what they are doing; you can expose it; and you are willing to act if red lines are crossed. Publicly framing those calculations moved them out of shadow into daylight. It forced decisions in Ankara, generated analysis in Turkish war rooms, and constrained the pseudo-state’s public posture.
Our red lines are precise and narrow: the deployment of additional long-range missile batteries in the occupied north; sustained armed UAV flights over international shipping lanes; or cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure. Anyone who crosses them will see the scenario leap from paper to practice: neutralize reinforcements launched from the mainland; degrade and destroy air-defense and missile systems; dismantle command and SIGINT nodes; and remove the occupying forces – restoring the internationally recognized sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus.
This is not bravado; it is method. We borrow the lesson proven elsewhere: when something was declared impossible, operators proved otherwise. The campaign against Iran’s program showed that strategic surprises can be executed when necessity dictates. Ankara should read that lesson soberly – especially as it builds projects like Akkuyu under foreign control that create dependencies and vulnerabilities of their own.
So let there be no mistake: naming and mapping the threat was intended to prevent escalation, not provoke it. Public truth narrows avenues for covert escalation. It places the choice where it belongs – on the shoulders of those who occupy and enable the occupation. It tells them plainly: we see you, we measure you, and if you cross our red lines you will face coordinated, concrete consequences.
We do not seek conflict. We prefer the peaceful restoration of Cypriot sovereignty under international law. But peace that depends on silence, forgetfulness or selective blindness is no peace at all. The occupied north is not a Cypriot problem alone; it has become a structural vulnerability for the region and for Europe. By exposing it, by naming the vectors of danger, we shifted the balance: Ankara now faces a choice between continued concealment and costly escalation, or restraint and a return to legal norms.
When the pseudo-state screams “dramatisation,” that cry is the sound of strategic exposure. When the originator of the “Blue Homeland” doctrine writes in response, that is the sound of a doctrine taking stock. When a national intelligence academy studies your scenario, deterrence has already left the op-eds and entered war rooms. And when no factual element is denied, words become evidence.
This is not a threat – it is a compass. It is the instrument by which we avoid the shock of surprise and make restraint rational. If Ankara ignores the compass, the regional democracies that live with the consequences will be ready to act in coordination and with purpose. That is the simple truth – intended to cool, not to inflame.
‘Poseidon’s Wrath’ is not a call for war but a message of capability and alliance, and it has already proved itself. Turkey trembled, its media erupted, and Ersin Tatar was forced into live damage control. A fifty-page MIT assessment examined the scenario in detail. When a concept born in an Israeli article becomes required reading inside Ankara’s intelligence community, deterrence has moved from press rooms to operations rooms.
But deterrence without red lines is meaningless. Ours are clear: additional missile batteries in the north, armed UAV sorties over international shipping lanes, or cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure will trigger a coordinated response. If those thresholds are crossed, Poseidon’s Wrath ceases to be theory – it means neutralizing Turkish reinforcements from the mainland, destroying air-defense systems, dismantling intelligence and command centers, and removing occupying forces to restore Cypriot sovereignty under international law.
The lesson from Iran is clear: what was deemed impossible was ultimately done. As Turkey builds Akkuyu with Russian support, it must understand that history repeats and the warning is unmistakable. Israel does not seek war, nor do Greece and Cyprus. We hope the occupied north will return peacefully to internationally recognized Cypriot sovereignty. But if Ankara persists, other paths exist – and we are prepared.
An occupation born in 1974 will not endure forever. Its days are numbered. If by peace – blessed. If not – by steel. This is our message. This is our compass. This is Poseidon’s Wrath.
How significant is the role of the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications in shaping media narratives in Turkey today such as the «Ζionist Control» of Cyprus ?
The Presidency’s Directorate of Communications is not a press office – it is a propaganda factory, a machine that manufactures narratives and injects them into the media bloodstream as if they were truth.
The difference between public relations and propaganda reveals itself precisely where freedom ends and uniformity begins. There is no need to speculate – reality itself has already provided the proof. When my article on Cyprus drew attention, dozens of Turkish outlets – Hürriyet, Sabah, CNN Türk, Yeni Akit, Haber7, OdaTV, Kıbrıs Postası and many more – published a report about it. Not similar pieces, not different angles, but the same text, word for word. And even the error – a transparent, laughable, easily corrected error – remained identical everywhere. All of them wrote that the article was published in The Times of Israel rather than Israel Hayom. Editors knew exactly where it had appeared, because it was one of the most widely cited articles in Turkish debate that summer, yet not one dared to change even a comma.
This is not negligence – it is method. A text is written at the center, funneled through state-controlled news agencies, passed to the major outlets, and from there to dozens more. Regulators like RTÜK and BİK ensure compliance through fines, advertising bans, draconian “disinformation” laws, and state-issued press cards. The result is that even an error becomes law: it cannot be touched, and newspapers that once competed are reduced to identical clones.
What is being disseminated is not just technical copy. It is an ideological package. This is the model: to script a single narrative, push it into every outlet, and sell it to the world as “free journalism.” That also explains the content of these pieces. Take Daily Sabah, for example: there we find claims that 15,000 Israelis suddenly moved to southern Cyprus, accusations of “Zionist control” over airports, portrayals of the transfer of Barak MX air defense systems as “proof of Jewish-Greek occupation,” and talk of an “unholy alliance” between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. The reality – a legitimate security partnership among democracies defending themselves against Turkish threats – is recast as a story of Zionist infiltration. This is not a grassroots narrative; it is a script written at the top and distributed word for word.
And this pattern repeats everywhere Turkey operates. In northern Cyprus, it manifests as overt presence: tens of thousands of troops, UAV bases, ballistic missiles, intelligence systems, universities and casinos turned into tools of control and corruption. In Africa, it takes the form of an “invisible architecture of power”: in Mogadishu a vast Turkish base trains thousands of soldiers, a port and airport are held under concession, a hospital bears Erdoğan’s name, and a state bank branch – the first in fifty years – ties the economy to Ankara. In Senegal, Turkey built the national stadium and runs the international airport. Across the Sahel, French symbols have been replaced with the crescent and star. Schools, “halal” accreditation standards shaping supply chains, television networks and scholarships all serve the same end: to reshape identity.
In Europe and the Balkans the mechanism assumes another form but the content is the same. The Diyanet – Turkey’s official religious authority – has effectively become a second foreign ministry. Thousands of mosques function as Ankara’s arms, imams are dispatched directly from Turkey, scholarships create generations whose compass points to Istanbul. Monumental mosques rise in Tirana and Sarajevo. In Germany, France, and Austria, entire communities are tied to religious structures whose loyalty is not to their host states but to Ankara. This is not soft power; it is parallel sovereignty.
Here the core emerges: projection. In psychology, projection is the mechanism by which one accuses others of what one does oneself. That is the key to understanding Turkish narratives. Turkey cries “Zionist control of Cyprus” while itself maintaining a fifty-year military occupation in the north. It accuses Cyprus of “surrendering sovereignty to Israel” while it erodes the sovereignty of weaker states in Africa and the Balkans through religion, education, and infrastructure. It hurls charges of “foreign intrusion” while it builds networks of schools, banks, and media to carve out slices of sovereignty abroad. It accuses Israel of infiltration, while it exports its own parallel institutions into foreign societies to shape their consciousness.
This is not hypocrisy by accident – it is deliberate strategy. To turn victim into aggressor, defender into threat, occupier into savior. To paint Israel and Cyprus as exercising “foreign control,” while Turkey itself builds overt and covert systems of control wherever it can.
The error that was replicated word for word is not a trivial detail – it is a symbol. It shows exactly how the system works: not to verify, not to edit, not to question, but to copy and paste. To replicate falsehood as fact. To create perception through repetition. To transform an absurd claim into official narrative.
And so the conclusion is clear: the narrative of “Zionist control of Cyprus” is not just a crude lie. It is evidence that an entire state apparatus has built a propaganda machine that replicates mistakes across dozens of newspapers, invents fantasies of migration that never happened, labels defensive cooperation as occupation, and sells it all as “journalism.” It is a mechanism designed to construct an alternative reality and export it as truth.
But however sophisticated this system may seem, it is transparent. When the same error appears across scores of papers, when the same accusation is repeated verbatim, when the same script is copied into Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East – everyone can see the truth.
And the truth is sharp: Turkey is not simply spinning stories; it is projecting outward exactly what it does itself – occupation in northern Cyprus, invisible architectures of power in Africa, parallel sovereignties in Europe and the Balkans. It blames others to mask its own actions. Projection is not just a psychological term – it is the engine of Turkish propaganda. And once you recognize it, you see that the tale of “Zionist control of Cyprus” is nothing more than a mirror reflecting back the true face of the regime in Ankara.
Could the IMEC corridor transform the Eastern Mediterranean from a conflict-prone zone into a hub of connectivity, and how do you see the Israel–Cyprus–Greece triangle adapting?
The IMEC was never just an infrastructure project – it was the vision of a new order.
Connecting India through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean, and from there to Europe, was designed to transform the region from a fault line of conflicts into a hub of connectivity. The October 7th attack was not only an assault on Israel – it was also a blow against IMEC. It froze the corridor and left the field open for China, with its Belt & Road; for Turkey, with its Middle Corridor; and for Iran and Qatar, who benefited from the pause in normalization.
But IMEC has not been lost – only suspended. Its revival is possible, and necessary. If renewed, it will be more than a conduit of goods – it will be a corridor of sovereignty, a transparent order grounded in law rather than coercion.
This is where the Israel–Cyprus–Greece triangle enters. Cyprus is not peripheral – it is an anchor in the heart of the Mediterranean, the very gateway through which Asia enters Europe. Greece is a NATO pillar. Israel is a technological and security power. Together, this triangle can transform the Eastern Mediterranean into a hub of energy, data, trade, and transport – an alternative to the corridors designed in Beijing and Ankara.
And above all stands India. India is not an accessory to IMEC – it is the axis that gives the corridor its meaning. Unlike Turkey, which surrendered its sovereignty to Moscow, Tehran and Beijing, India does not bow to an anti-Western bloc. It builds strategic autonomy: a member of BRICS with open doors to Washington and Brussels; an investor in Haifa’s ports and Israeli infrastructure; a deepening partner with the Gulf; and a driver of IMEC not as an instrument of dependency but as a project of partnership. India is a democracy that understands real power rests on sovereignty, on transparent cooperation, and on opening markets not by coercion but by reciprocity.
India’s role is therefore twofold. Internally, it breaks the squeeze of the China–Pakistan–Turkey axis pressing it from the east, north and west. Externally, it gives the Mediterranean new meaning: turning it into the entry point to the Indian Ocean. India knows the Indian Ocean begins here, on the shores of Israel and Cyprus, and that whoever secures the Eastern Mediterranean secures the gateway to Asia.
But here is where competition with Turkey intensifies. Ankara promotes its “Middle Corridor” – the overland route connecting China via Central Asia and the Caucasus to Turkey. But it does not merely market its route; it sabotages alternatives to make its own more attractive. It has done this by turning the Houthis into its “unofficial navy.” Since 2017, Ankara, in coordination with Qatar and Iran, has developed direct channels to the Houthis. It tolerated IRGC financial transfers through front companies in Istanbul; it turned a blind eye to weapons shipments smuggled through Turkish ports; and it allowed Turkish intermediaries to facilitate transactions that tied Tehran to Sana’a. German-made sensors found in Houthi missiles passed through Turkish routes; rifles were shipped disguised in sugar and plastic cargo; tens of millions flowed through the Istanbul-based Al-Aman network.
At the same time, Ankara granted political legitimacy: from secret meetings in Ankara and Doha that produced “field understandings,” to favorable coverage on Al Jazeera, to Erdoğan’s own words praising the Houthis for their “successful defense.” The result has been relentless escalation in the Red Sea – over 100 attacks since late 2023 – turning Bab al-Mandeb into a global chokepoint. And precisely as the world sought alternatives, Turkey marketed the Middle Corridor as the “safe” overland route.
Enter the Zangezur Corridor. The planned link between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan through Armenia, coordinated with Turkey, alongside Iraq’s Development Road from al-Faw to Turkey, is designed to fold into the Middle Corridor, bypassing Suez. By enabling Houthi disruption in the Red Sea, Ankara strengthens its Middle Corridor and Zangezur as substitutes. This is not connectivity – it is “managed crisis,” chaos at sea serving overland leverage.
And here the political truth emerges. For decades, Turkey claimed to be Europe’s indispensable bridge to Asia – the gateway through which trade, energy and connectivity would flow. That illusion has collapsed. Ankara has turned corridors into weapons, proxies into navies, and geography into leverage. A state that undermines maritime security to promote its railways is not a bridge – it is a trap.
Today, Cyprus stands where Turkey once pretended to be. The smallest member of the European Union has become the true gateway to Asia – not by size, but by credibility. Cyprus anchors lawful sovereignty where Turkey erodes it. Cyprus offers transparency where Ankara offers blackmail. And Cyprus, unlike Turkey – an eternal candidate that never joins – is already inside the Union, already embodying the European order. This is the reversal no one predicted but all can now see: Turkey has disqualified itself as a bridge; Cyprus has replaced it. In IMEC, Cyprus is not a periphery – it is the alternative. It is the proof that stability, not coercion, is what makes a corridor endure.
Against this stands the Turkey–Pakistan–Qatar axis: not a coalition of partnership but a mechanism of dependency. Turkey turns Cyprus into a base, finances Houthis through IRGC channels, entrenches itself in Suakin and Mogadishu, and markets the Middle Corridor as an instrument of control. Pakistan becomes the arm of CPEC and Turkish leverage in the west. Qatar provides the wallet, Iran supplies the militias. This is not sovereignty – it is coercion.
Opposing it is already a coalition of democracies: Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and India. Four states linking three continents, proposing a different order – not of dependency but of sovereignty, not of coercion but of stability. A coalition that knows the Mediterranean is not a frontier but a beginning; that the Indian Ocean starts here, in the Eastern Mediterranean; and that whoever links Jerusalem, Nicosia and Athens to New Delhi is building not just a corridor, but a new order.
This is why IMEC is not only about trains, roads and ports. It is a symbol – the symbol of choosing between two worlds: one where corridors are tools of coercion, occupation and dependency; and one where corridors are pathways of sovereignty, democracy and transparency. It can transform the Eastern Mediterranean from a battlefield into a web of connections – not if built on weakness, but if anchored in law. Not if led by those who impose control, but by democracies who choose cooperation.
And in that new order, the Israel–Cyprus–Greece triangle is not merely a local focus – it is the European backbone of IMEC. And India is not just a partner at the far end – it is the beating heart, the player that links Asia to Europe, giving the corridor its ultimate meaning: to turn the Eastern Mediterranean from a battleground into the architecture of peace, stability, and global connectivity.
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