Ohh politics. Israeli PM Netanyahu is in Greece today, smiling with Turkey’s historical enemy in an effort “re-balance” Israeli foreign policy.

Greece, which has a lot more anti-Western, leftist sentiment than most European countries, traditionally sympathizes with Arabs when it comes to the Middle East—only even having recognized Israel’s existence fairly recently. But the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and so now Greece is looking to replace Turkey as Israel’s favorite tourist destination. The Israeli airforce has also been increasingly using Greek airspace for military maneuvers, while Greece, the biggest military spender per capita in the EU (although that looks due for a change), doubtlessly eyes Israeli military technology.

In the end, Greece can’t really fill the space left by Turkey in Israel’s foreign policy, and there is little popular sympathy for Israel in Greece. But every bit helps when the world (minus America) doesn't like you, and this definitely needles the Turks.

*Hat tip to Aris

P.S. The historical irony of this is probably lost on most people. Many know that the Ottoman Sultan welcomed thousands of Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, but fewer know that the Sultan encouraged Jewish emigration to Thessaloniki, now Greece's second city, until it became the center of Jewry for the entire Ottoman Empire. Thessaloniki was a key port in the region, and the Sultan hoped that bringing in Jews would help dilute Greek domination of Turkey's commerce. Jews soon became a majority in the city, perhaps the only major city in the world with a Jewish majority before being wiped out in the Holocaust. Thessaloniki is also the birthplace of Atatürk, the blue-eyed, blond-haired Turk who founded modern Turkey. More than a few conspiracy theorists (especially Islamists who despise the great modernizer) have mused that Atatürk, coming from a Jewish-majority city, must have been Jewish--of a "dönme" family that had converted to Islam but secretly retained the Jewish faith.