Greece: The goat upon whose head the sins of politicians are placed before it is sent across the Aegean Sea. Of course, this is a sarcastic adaptation of Merriam-Webster's biblical definition of a scapegoat: "a goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness in a ceremony for Yom Kippur."

But why does Greece bear the blame for the United States, the United Kingdom and France? Why is it the object of hostility in Turkey instead of those three countries?

The Greek troops did not come to invade Anatolia all by themselves when Britain pressed its knee on the throat of the Ottoman Empire as white police officer Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd, holding it there until Floyd no longer had a pulse.

Perhaps, the Chauvin-Floyd analogy cannot be extended further because the Ottoman Empire still had a pulse after the British removed their proverbial knee from the Ottoman throat. In 1919, the Greek troops lost against the hastily conscripted Turkish division and its four companies despite all the support British Prime Minister Lloyd George and his French counterpart Georges Clemenceau rushed to give Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos to invade Anatolia in the face of Italian objections. Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando did not like the idea of the Greek invasion of Anatolia and portioning Istanbul between the Turks and Greeks. The British and French navies escorted the Greek ships carrying the invading army to Izmir in case the Italian destroyers stopped them. Subsequently, the U.S. Navy would help the British evacuate the remnants of the destroyed Greek invading forces back to Athens two years later. These must be the historical facts President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan keeps reminding Venizelos’s great-grandson Kyriakos Mitsotakis who has been serving as the prime minister of Greece since 2019.

As Jack Savoretti sings: "Too much history/Still feels like the first time..." This is why Greece bears the blame for the U.S., the U.K. and France. Just as the definition goes: it bears the blame for others, but it is not the object of irrational hostility. Turkey restarted strategic talks with Greece three years ago; but amid the high-level talks, Greece contracted a Maltese-flagged research vessel and sent it on a route infringing on Turkey’s continental shelf without permission in waters southwest of the island of Cyprus. The vessel was taken away from Turkish territorial waters. Those "explanatory talks" between Greece and Turkey were just that: all talk but no progress. Greece was hoping that Israeli and Egyptian oil and gas would be carried through the Mediterranean along a 3,000-mile (4,828-kilometer) joint pipeline, producing the most expensive energy resource for Europe. To protect the pipeline, France would give Greece the Dassault Rafale squadrons, twin-engine multirole fighter aircraft, practically for peanuts (but even those peanuts would be on credit). But the project never took off because of economic and financial reasons; and Greece, like a spoiled brat with its carefully orchestrated temper tantrums, has secured more outmoded U.S. tanks in exchange for more U.S. bases on its territory. They say the bases are theoretically against the Russian Federation; but the agreements the U.S. and Greece signed to support the bases created a new alliance between the two countries, which are already NATO allies. If Russia attacks Greece, for instance, Article 5 of the NATO agreement would require the U.S., Turkey and all other members of the alliance to rush and defend Greece. But what do the U.S-Greece Mutual Defense and Cooperation Agreement and its various extensions do? U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said it was a win for increased military cooperation and regional stability. Theoretically speaking, there could be scenarios unforeseen by the NATO agreement, like, for instance, an attack on Greece by, say, a NATO member?

Is this why Mitsotakis lobbied at the White House and in U.S. Congress against Turkey’s request for F-35 combat jets and Patriot air defense systems? Could this be why the Greek prime minister asked the U.N. secretary-general to chastise Turkey for its alleged violations on the Aegean Sea? Was this the reason he bombarded the European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels with 16 fake maps of the islands?

Those Aegean islands are in Greece's hands as long as Greece acts as a "bona fide possessor." In legal texts, "bone fide" means "without intention to deceive." How can Greece show Turkey and the world that it is acting in good faith regarding the agreements that ceded the islands to Greece instead of restoring Turkish suzerainty? The Turks ruled for more than three centuries over all the Aegean and several Mediterranean islands by the right of conquest, and after losing the Turco-Italian War (Tripolitanian War) in 1912, accepted the Italian rule over them in a treaty signed in Ouchy, Lausanne. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne also recognized Italian rule over the islands with the provision that they would not be militarized. Turkey protested several times against the airstrips Italy built that it kept several airplanes on. Later, when Italy sided with Germany and lost World War II alongside the country, the Allied forces put the islands under Greek rule but with the same conditions: No militarization.

There are five international treaties, agreements and protocols in force that strictly forbid the militarization of the Aegean islands and come with legal obligations and responsibilities for Greece. The demilitarization of the Aegean islands is linked to the overriding importance of these islands for Turkey's security. In fact, there is a direct connection between having sovereignty over those islands and their demilitarized status. Greece, in this respect, cannot unilaterally reverse this status under any pretext. However, it has been doing so since 1964 as Turkey continues to protest.

It could have gone on and on had Mitsotakis not boosted his military buildup on the islands and stepped up his anti-Turkey efforts in the U.S. Mitsotakis is not acting as an ally. He is also aiding and abetting the PKK terrorist group's extensions in Syria: Turkey is about to launch a military operation against the PKK’s Syrian branches, the YPG and PYD, along its southeastern border, and Greece is trying to limit Turkey's airspace during the operation by declaring navigational warnings. These terrorists have been on the move in Europe thanks to the diplomatic documents provided by Greece and the regional Greek administration in Southern Cyprus. We have yet to forget that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured in Kenya with a Greek passport.

How can our good neighbors be saved from serving as a scapegoat for clumsy, inept politicians in Athens and Washington? Not only in ancient Jerusalem but also in ancient Greece there were human scapegoats (pharmakoi) used to mitigate calamities. The Athenians chose a man and woman for the festival of Thargelia. After feasting, the couple was led around the town, whipped with vegetation and driven out of the city.

Perhaps this Greek legend is more telling than the Jewish legend.