Israel’s Ambassador “Votes” Mykonos: “Israelis Fall in Love With Greece” as Tourism Hits Record High

Pninat Yanay chose Mykonos for a large family holiday and delivered a warm message about Greece — 743,841 Israelis visited the country in 2025, nearly 20% more than a year earlier

Israel’s Ambassador-designate to Greece, Pninat Yanay, has highlighted the increasingly strong people-to-people ties between Israel and Greece with a personal post from Mykonos, where she spent her summer holiday with nearly 30 members of her family.

Against the backdrop of rapidly expanding strategic ties between Athens and Jerusalem, Yanay chose to focus on another important pillar of the relationship: tourism and the growing affection Israelis have for Greece.

And the numbers underline the significance of that relationship. According to figures cited by Yanay, 743,841 Israeli visitors travelled to Greece in 2025, an all-time record and almost 20% more than the previous year.

“Sometimes diplomacy begins around a table”

Yanay shared images and video from her family’s holiday in Mykonos, opening her message with a playful reference to Greek hospitality.

“Sometimes diplomacy begins around a table, on a boat — or even with a plate breaking in a Greek taverna.”

Nearly 30 members of her family gathered on the Greek island for what she described as another unforgettable family holiday.

They sailed through the Aegean waters on a yacht, explored the island, enjoyed Greek cuisine and danced at a local taverna.

Even Yanay’s 82-year-old father — a former school principal whom she described as usually a very serious man — joined his children and grandchildren on the dance floor.

“And perhaps that says something about the magic of Greece,” she wrote.

“Israelis don’t simply come here as tourists”

But behind the holiday snapshots was a clear diplomatic message.

Yanay described the relationship between Israelis and Greece as something deeper than conventional tourism.

“Israelis don’t simply come here as tourists. They fall in love with Greece. With its people, its warmth, its culture, its food, its islands and its unique way of life.” Her remarks come as Greece consolidates its position as one of the most popular overseas destinations for Israeli travelers.

The trend has been particularly striking over the past few years.

According to figures cited in connection with Israeli tourism to Greece, arrivals reached:

• 479,163 in 2023
• 620,805 in 2024
• 743,841 in 2025

That represents an increase of more than 264,000 visitors in just two years, despite the extraordinary geopolitical and security turbulence across the Middle East.

Tourism becomes part of Yanay’s diplomatic agenda

Yanay made clear that expanding these ties will form part of her mission in Athens.

“As Israel’s Ambassador-designate to Greece, I feel a special responsibility to assist this relationship grow even further: to encourage more Israelis to discover Greece, to strengthen tourism in both directions, and above all, to bring our peoples closer together.”

Her choice of words is significant.

The Greece-Israel relationship has traditionally been discussed through the prism of defense, energy, security and the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Yanay is adding another dimension: the direct relationship between the two societies.

“Tourism is much more than flights, hotels and beautiful destinations,” she wrote.

“It is people meeting people. It is friendships being created. It is cultures embracing one another.”

From Mykonos to the Athens-Jerusalem strategic partnership

The Ambassador’s message comes at a time when Greece and Israel have developed one of the closest strategic relationships in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Defense cooperation, military exercises, energy projects, investment, technology and regional security have progressively strengthened ties between Athens and Jerusalem.

Tourism now provides an increasingly important social and economic foundation beneath that strategic partnership.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis visit Athens, Thessaloniki and the Greek islands every year, while Greece’s geographical proximity makes it an especially accessible destination for the Israeli market.

Mykonos, Crete, Rhodes and other Greek destinations have become particularly familiar to Israeli travelers.

For Yanay, however, the importance of this flow goes beyond visitor numbers.

Her message suggests that tourism can operate as a form of people-to-people diplomacy, building familiarity and trust between two societies whose governments are already strategically aligned.

A personal message with diplomatic symbolism

There is also deliberate symbolism in an incoming ambassador using her own family holiday to communicate her vision of bilateral relations.

Instead of an official meeting room, Yanay presented Greece through the experience of three generations of her own family.

A yacht in the Aegean, Greek food, an island taverna and an 82-year-old grandfather dancing with his children and grandchildren became part of a broader message about the warmth Israelis associate with Greece.

It is an unusually personal form of public diplomacy — and one designed to speak directly to citizens rather than only governments.

The growing “people’s alliance” between Greece and Israel

Yanay’s Mykonos post carries more geopolitical weight than an ordinary summer travel update.

At a time of profound instability across the Middle East, Israel’s incoming ambassador is deliberately emphasizing the positive agenda in Greek-Israeli relations.

The strategic partnership between the two countries is already well established at government level.

What is increasingly important is that a second layer has developed underneath it: a relationship between the two societies themselves.

Nearly 744,000 Israeli visitors in a single year are not merely a tourism statistic. They represent hundreds of thousands of personal encounters with Greece, its islands, businesses, culture and people.

That gives Athens and Jerusalem something particularly valuable in geopolitics: a bilateral relationship that does not depend exclusively on governments or temporary strategic interests.

Yanay captured that message in perhaps the most powerful line of her post:

“And between Israel and Greece, that connection already feels like family.” 🇮🇱❤️🇬🇷

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Source: pagenews.gr