Six months after the complete freezing of diplomatic relations between Poland and Israel, the new Israeli ambassador unexpectedly flew to Warsaw. Sudden warming was caused by the crisis on the Polish eastern border.

The head of the Israeli diplomacy, Jair Lapid, informed on Twitter about the arrival of Ambassador Jakow Liwne to Poland. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that he had made this decision in order to improve assistance to Israeli citizens crossing the Ukrainian border with Poland, taking into account the importance of the current events and Poland’s central role in them. The Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, like many other embassies in Poland, deals with the evacuation of its citizens from Ukraine inhabited by approximately 2 thousand Israelis before the outbreak of the war.

This has marked an unexpected turn in the diplomatic crisis that lasted six months between the two countries. Due to the adoption by the Sejm and signing by the president the amendments to the Code of Administrative Procedure, which excluded the descendants of Jewish owners from the right to property lost during the Holocaust in Poland, Jair Lapid asked the Polish ambassador not to return to Tel Aviv after the holidays. The Israeli ambassador then returned to Israel.

Since then, there have been no ambassadors in both countries. Jakow Liwne will submit credentials and formally take up the position on Monday. In diplomatic practice, the submission of letters the day after arrival is rare (the new US ambassador waited several weeks for this date to be set) and means that Poland also wants to end the crisis quickly.

The new Polish ambassador to Israel (the previous one, Marek Magierowski, is already an ambassador to the US) was not nominated, and some time ago the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even announced a reducing the rank of the embassy. Liwne’s arrival in Poland means that Poland will probably send an ambassador to Israel in the nearest future.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński