Greek Policy in the Levant and the Greek Community of Alexandria, 1947–61

This chapter examines the extent to which the needs of the Greek community of Alexandria determined Greek foreign policy options towards the Middle East between the making of the state of Israel in 1947/1948 and the mass exodus of the Egyptian Greeks, which began in 1961. During this period all Greek governments adopted a pro-Arab stance, while at the same time they refrained from fully normalizing Greece’s relations with Israel. It has been argued that Athens’s concern for the Greeks of Egypt was the ‘official pretext’ for Greek policy towards Tel Aviv. ¹ However, as will be shown, this was not just a ‘pretext’. Although from 1947 to 1961 Greek Middle Eastern policy was determined by other factors as well, such as the Greek security problem and the Cyprus question, the need to protect the interests of the Greek community of Alexandria was one of the most pressing factors.