As Israel’s relations with Turkey remain rather cold and distant, ties with Greece are growing warmer.
Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas this week paid a one-day visit to Israel and met with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman and signed a new civil aviation agreement.
Moreover, the Israeli army announced that its Air Force concluded a major exercise with Greece in mid-October. The exercise in Greece was meant to enhance skills in helicopter flights around mountains.
Already in July, during the first visit by Socialist Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Jerusalem, the first in decades, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that Israel and Greece would undergo “a major upgrade of relations
But the two countries have denied a connection between Israel's strained ties with once-friendly Turkey and its newfound friendship with Greece.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Droutsas said: “We don’t see any competitive dimension between the relationship we are developing with Israel and our relationship with Turkey.”
“This is because each of these relationships has its own dynamic and its own historical background. What we are doing is writing new pages in the history of Greek- Israeli relations.”
Israeli tourism to Turkey, previously the most popular site for holidays for Israelis, has dropped by an estimated 90 percent. Tourism industry workers say that many Israelis are now traveling to Greece instead. According to Greek figures, some 250,000 Israelis had already visited Greece since the beginning of 2010, compared to 155,000 in all of 2009.
The Greek minister’s visit came about a year after George Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) came into power. Political observers recall that initially there were concerns in Jerusalem about this government, since Israel generally prefers more conservative governments in Europe, and since Papandreou’s father, Andreas, was known for pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel leanings when he was Greece’s Prime Minister in the eighties and the nineties.
Instead, the younger Papandreou decided to write new pages in the history of Greek-Israeli relations.
In the interview with The Jerusalem Post, Droutsas said he is convinced that the European Union can play a very constructive role in the region.
"It is in a position to contribute, with a vast array of tools, to the achievement and consolidation of peace in the Middle East," the Greek minister added.
"I believe that its presence is valuable to all sides. And I believe that the EU and Israel can improve their cooperation, which is mutually beneficial and can contribute to the peace-building process.""Israel has always had very strong historical and cultural ties with Europe. There are certainly ups and downs, but the overall trend in relations between Israel and Europe is on the rise. A lot more can be done, of course, and we are all working in that direction," he said