Pro-Israel US lobby group Aipac has visited Cyprus to promote what it called “security partnerships in the Eastern Mediterranean” between Israel, Cyprus and the US.
The delegation, led by outgoing Aipac president Bernard Kaminetsky and president-elect Yehuda Neuberger, met President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday, underscoring Cyprus’s growing importance to Israeli interests.
Aipac faces widespread condemnation in the US for its influence over members of Congress and US presidents and for pushing an Israel-first agenda, including backing the war on Iran, which has caused global economic fallout.
The meeting came just days after another pro-Israel lobby group with far-right links, the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), launched parliamentary caucuses in Greece and Cyprus to deepen Israel’s influence in both countries’ parliaments.
Announcing the Cypriot initiative on 14 October after meeting Christodoulides, IAF president Josh Reinstein described Turkey as a “common enemy” of both countries.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Members of the governing Democratic Party (Diko), the opposition Democratic Rally (DISY) and the far-right, anti-Turkish National Popular Front (Elam) attended the inauguration.
The IAF advocates recognition of occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and supports the occupation of the West Bank. It remains unclear which of the group’s positions the participating Greek Cypriot parties have endorsed.
Benny Elon, the far-right Israeli politician who founded the IAF, called for the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland before his death in 2017.
The parliamentary group’s establishment has fuelled controversy amid a growing backlash against the influx of Israeli businesses and tourists into Cyprus, with locals warning that Israeli land purchases and political influence threatens the country’s sovereignty.
'Unprecedented development'
On Monday, the Cypriot leftist Progressive Party of Working People (Akel) warned that the “establishment within parliament of organised groups of MPs working with external organisations whose mission is to promote the interests of a third state constitutes, to our knowledge, an unprecedented development in Cypriot parliamentary practice”.
In late September, a separate network, Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI), also established a Cyprus chapter, with Diko, DISY and Elam attending its launch. TFI operates through the American Jewish Committee’s Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute.
TFI seeks to convince European capitals that Israel forms an integral part of western security, a recurring argument of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he seeks to justify the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
“We believe that the association of MPs and parliamentary parties with such initiatives... require substantive discussion, particularly following the finding by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry that Israel committed genocide in Gaza,” Akel said in an open letter to parliamentary speaker Annita Demetriou.
In Greece, opposition to the IAF initiative has been equally outspoken.
The investigative media collective Reporters United revealed that several MPs, including former Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras, attended a private meeting on 12 October ahead of the caucus’s establishment.
The caucus’s full membership remains secret, prompting demands for transparency and publication of the participating parliamentarians’ names.
The Greek party MeRA25 United Left condemned the initiative as a mechanism for establishing Israeli influence inside parliament.
“Who authorised them to turn the Greek parliament into an office serving Israeli interests? And why are these plans being made behind closed doors?” the party asked.
“The Greek parliament belongs to the Greek people. It cannot be handed over to foreign lobbies, offered to arms dealers or turned into a vehicle for whitewashing war crimes,” the party added.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.