After a three-year hiatus, Poland will install an ambassador in Israel on Monday, turning a new page in relations between the countries, the European nation’s embassy in Tel Aviv said on Sunday.
The appointment of the former intelligence and espionage chief Maciej Hunia, 63, as ambassador follows a long rupture in relations between the countries over Holocaust-related issues that was defused last year.
“A warm welcome to our new Head of Mission,” the Polish Embassy wrote in a post on X Sunday. “Mr. Maciej Hunia is joining us in Tel Aviv to strengthen Polish-Israel relations.”
A warm welcome to our new Head of Mission at the @PLinIsrael 🇵🇱 Mr. Maciej Hunia, is joining us in Tel Aviv to strengthen 🇵🇱🇮🇱 relations. Welcome aboard! pic.twitter.com/Qhbh2ZUJ80
— שגרירות פולין (@PLinIsrael) October 13, 2024
A short, touristy video attached to the social-media post highlights Krakow, where the new ambassador was born, as well as the city’s Jagiellonian University where he studied, while shying away from defense and security issues or the contentions of the past.
During a hearing in the Polish parliament ahead of his appointment, Hunia stated that military operations that caused unintended harm to civilians do not constitute genocide as South Africa has claimed in charges brought against the Jewish state at the U.N.'s International Court of Justice in The Hague.
A long-standing disagreement
Ties between the two countries nosedived after Poland’s previous government enacted a law in 2021 that was seen by Israel as whitewashing Poles’ role in the Holocaust, and then banned claims for restitution of seized property by Holocaust victims and their heirs.
Both countries summoned their ambassadors home at the time, with Poland turning from a supporter of Israel to its opponent in international forums and the European Union.
The dispute served to heighten a long-standing disagreement between the countries over the content of Israeli youth visits to Poland for Holocaust education. The visits were frozen during the crisis, and recently restored.
Until the dispute broke out, tens of thousands of Israeli teens routinely traveled to Poland on such educational trips each year, touring former German death camps to learn about the Holocaust and memorialize those murdered. The trip has long been a rite of passage.
During Israel’s current war against Hamas in Gaza, Poland has been a safe place for Israelis in a continent marked by a surge in antisemitism.
In a sign of the warming of relations, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Poland last year for the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the 1943 revolt by Jews in German-occupied Poland.
Israel had previously restored its ambassador to Warsaw.
