A N A LY S I S PEACE AND SECURITY FES SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE: ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC INTERESTS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Dr. Ehud Eiran April 2021 • The Eastern Mediterranean emerged in the last decade as a new focus of Israeli strategic inter­ests. The discovery of substantial gas depots in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) in the East­ern Mediterranean and Israel’s newly acquired reliance on them for its energy needs turned Israeli attention West. • Part of this turn to the sea includes a quasi-alliance with Greece and Cyprus and involvement in a nas­cent regional organization, the Cairo-based EastMed Gas Forum, founded by the Hellenic states, Egypt, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority and grew later to include France. • With growing tensions between the Hellenic states and Turkey, the EastMed Gas forum and the Israe­li-Hellenic alliance may assume a more significant role as they offer European actors a framework to stabilize and possibly even bene­fit from the region.