Countering the Mecca Agreement: The Strategic Case for Israel’s Hexagon Alliance with Greece and Other Partners

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The Mecca Agreement—a trilateral defense arrangement linking Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia that includes a collective-defense clause—represents a notable change in the region’s security landscape. Its effects extend beyond the Middle East into South Asia, even if Indian official circles have so far treated it as an awkward grouping of states with mismatched goals, argues Abhinav Pandya in article published by the Middle East Forum.

Although the agreement looks vague on mutual defense and internally inconsistent, it could still draw additional Muslim-majority states, accelerate an arms race across the Middle East, give Pakistan greater military, financial, and diplomatic weight, and push Saudi Arabia and Turkey closer to nuclear capability. It may also empower jihadist networks stretching from the Gulf to South Asia. Should Bangladesh eventually join, India would face new internal-security pressures in its heartland and the Northeast. For these reasons, Israel and India need a sustained strategic, operational, and intelligence plan to contain it.

One practical way to pressure the three Mecca partners is to build a broader web of counter-alliances. Israel’s proposed Hexagon of Alliances—centered on Israel, India, Greece, and Cyprus, and extending to partners such as the United Arab Emirates and Somaliland—offers a useful framework. Greece and Cyprus can constrain Turkish ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean. Somaliland’s location south of the Bab el-Mandeb gives it leverage over a critical maritime chokepoint. To become effective, the grouping would require institutionalization: a secretariat, defense and technology cooperation, economic and cultural ties, military interoperability, and regular exchanges among think tanks and societies.

In the Gulf, India and Israel can also deepen the existing I2U2 grouping (India, Israel, the United States, and the UAE). At present the forum emphasizes investment and technology; adding intelligence-sharing and defense components would turn it into a stronger check on an emerging Sunni axis.

Farther north, both countries have an interest in the South Caucasus. Armenia, despite its military limitations, remains the most natural partner. Even as Yerevan tries to accommodate Turkish and Azerbaijani pressure through projects such as the Crossroads of Peace and the Trump Route, neither Ankara nor Baku has abandoned expansionist aims. Keeping Armenia functionally independent helps block Turkey’s reach toward Central Asia, especially as Ankara’s security ties with Pakistan tighten.

Inside South Asia, supporting Baloch, Pashtun, and other anti-Pakistan actors can keep Pakistan’s military preoccupied with internal challenges. Baloch groups that describe their campaign as a secular, democratic independence movement have recently inflicted serious losses on the Pakistani army and now control sizable territory in Balochistan. Islamabad is searching for ways to contain the insurgency before it produces another breakaway state.

Pakistan’s weakness is an opportunity for India and Israel—and also for the United States. A Balochistan that slips from Pakistani control would undermine the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a cornerstone of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. China relies on Gwadar to reduce its dependence on the Malacca Strait for oil imports. Disrupting Pakistani authority there would complicate China’s strategic calculations.

The Mecca pact may look modest today. Left unanswered, however, it could evolve into a more cohesive Islamic security bloc. Formalizing the Hexagon Alliance, reinforcing I2U2, backing Armenia, and exploiting Pakistan’s internal fractures together form a coherent long-term response.

READ MORE: Israel, Greece sign €3.1bn ‘Achilles Shield’ air-defense deal in Tel Aviv.

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