https://www.jpost.com/international/article-904177
As defense ties deepen, Serbia becomes one of Israel's closest allies in Europe
BEHIND THE LINES: Israel and Serbia’s current common interests and historic friendship combine to form an emerging partnership worthy of greater note.
A recent conference at the National Assembly in Belgrade, in which I participated, cast a fascinating spotlight on an under-reported but significant component of Israeli foreign relations: the Jewish state’s flourishing relations with Serbia.
The connection has accelerated steeply in the nearly three years of war in the Middle East. At a time of deep strains between Israel and several European countries, mainly related to domestic opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the upward trajectory of the Jerusalem-Belgrade connection is of particular note.
The relationship is not without its complexities. Serbia’s close historic connections to Russia – and the desire of its President Alexander Vucic to maintain, at least in public, an equidistant stance in the emergent superpower contest between the US and China – place Serbia at a different point on the geostrategic map with regard to Israel.
But these details shouldn’t obscure the more general picture of growth and consolidation. The deepening ties have certainly been noticed by those opposed to them. UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, on her March visit to Belgrade, admonished Belgrade for cooperating “without shame” with Israel by providing it with military supplies.
Israeli and Serbian leaders would no doubt take issue with Albanese’s stance that these actions are shameful. Still, the UN rapporteur was not imagining things. Serbia played a vital role in the difficult first months of the Israel-Hamas War.
Israel and Serbia expand military and intelligence ties
According to reporting by the Balkan Insight website and Haaretz, Israeli officials contacted their Serbian counterparts as early as October 8, with the Hamas assault only just contained and the military response still in early preparation. Their request was simple: ammunition. The Serbian response came without hesitation. The export order was cleared within four days, and the required munitions were on their way to the Nevatim air base outside of Beersheba.
As the Israeli ground offensive into Gaza began, the Serbian consignments kept coming. By mid-2024, Belgrade had exported a total of €16.3 million worth of munitions to Israel. In 2023, prior to October, the total of arms exported from Serbia to Israel was only €540,000.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a public statement in February 2024 following a telephone conversation with Vucic, expressed gratitude for Serbia’s “unwavering support, both in word and deed,” and described the Serbian president as a “true friend of Israel.”
In the subsequent two years, the value of Serbian arms exports continued to rise exponentially, increasing by 140% in 2025, reaching €114 million that year. Thirty-eight 38 Serbian cargo flights carrying munitions reached Israel in 2025.
Israel remains mainly dependent on the United States for weapons provisions, of course. But the relationship with Serbia is an early example of the realization of Israel’s desire to diversify its supply sources, and develop relationships with peer countries in this region, rather than being exclusively dependent on a superpower patron whose internal politics are undergoing a process of rapid change.
What does Serbia gain from the defense relationship? During the last three years, Belgrade has been able to advance the modernization of its military, thanks to the Israeli connection. Like Israel, Serbia also seeks to diversify its sources of defense equipment.
The relations with Israel enable Belgrade to draw tacitly closer to the West. Traditionally, Russia was Serbia’s main arms supplier. In recent years, China has acquired a significant role in the area of air defense and drones. The growing relationship with Israel, and also to a degree with France, enables Serbia to balance this orientation.
Israeli-Serbian defense ties are centered on a $1.6 billion deal with Elbit Systems. This five-year agreement includes a joint plan between Elbit and the Serbian state-owned SDPR company to produce long- and short-range reconnaissance and combat drones on Serbian soil. The agreement also contains provisions for the development of advanced AI-powered unmanned combat aerial systems, loitering munitions, long-range precision artillery rockets, and electronic warfare infrastructure.
In an earlier agreement, Serbia purchased Elbit Systems’s PULS multiple rocket launcher systems and Hermes 900 surveillance and combat drones.
In 2026, Belgrade and Jerusalem signed an agreement to facilitate intelligence and defense data exchanges, further deepening the relationship in the security sector.
Compatible security interests and the desire to diversify supply sources underlie the growing alliance between Israel and Serbia. From a geostrategic aspect, Serbia is an entry point to Europe from the Middle East, and is therefore a natural point of interest and competition between regional states.
Israel is currently solidifying an alliance with India, the United Arab Emirates, and Greece, at the center of which is IMEC – the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Serbia could potentially act as a significant inland transport and distribution route from southern European maritime hubs further into Europe.
The growing connection has not gone unnoticed by regional rivals. Turkey, which has its own ambitions regarding the Balkans and trade routes to Europe, is watching developments carefully. Ankara is increasing its own defense relationships with Croatia, Albania, and Kosovo, a matter of particular concern to Serbia.
An additional factor to consider is if the Balkans becomes an area of competition between rival de facto trade and connectivity alliances centered on the Middle East. Particularly notable is that these strategic rivalries are devoid of clear affiliation with larger global power blocs.
Both Israel and Turkey are US allies. Croatia is an EU member state, and Serbia is a candidate for membership. This reflects the emergent global reality in which, in contrast to the Cold War period, mid-level powers seek to diversify their relationships and build horizontal connections.
They are doing so in acknowledgment that the big powers, the US and China, take a transactional view regarding their relations with other states, making it advisable for other states to do likewise.
The historic connection between Belgrade and Jerusalem
There are also deeper historic connections between Israel and Serbia. This has two interesting elements. The first relates to the mid-20th century and the period of World War II. The joint Jewish and Serb experience of being targeted by the pro-German Croat Ustasha regime and defended by the very large, Serb-dominated anti-fascist partisan movement in wartime Yugoslavia, is of note in this regard.
Less well known is the role that Serbian national uprisings against the Ottomans may have played during the emergence of modern Zionism. The grandparents of Theodor Herzl lived in Zemun, a suburb of Belgrade. Herzl’s grandfather, Shimon Loeb Herzl, was a close associate of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, one of the very early theorists and advocates of modern Jewish nationalism.
Alkalai, the rabbi of Zemun, was inspired by the example of the successful Serbian national uprisings against Ottoman rule from 1804 to 1817. Theodor Herzl was known to be close to his grandfather, who visited the family in Budapest regularly. His first exposure to the idea of Jewish national revival likely came during his boyhood from his grandfather, Alkalai’s follower.
It is a long way from these fitful dreams to today’s drone deals and munitions consignments, of course. And nations, perhaps, have no long-term friends – only long-term interests. Still, Israel and Serbia’s current common interests, and historic friendship, combine to form an emerging partnership worthy of greater note.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-904177
