Tel Aviv – Polish Ambassador Spat At In Israel Amid Rising Tensions

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    Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki arrives at a summit of  the Visegrad Group of central European nations and Japan in Bratislava, Slovakia, April 25, 2019.   REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa/File PhotoTel Aviv – Poland’s ambassador to Israel was spat at while sitting in his car in Tel Aviv, Israeli police said, and the Polish government condemned the incident, which coincided with rising tensions between the two countries.

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    “I am very worried to hear of a racist attack on @PLinIsrael ambassador @mmagierowski. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.

    An Israeli police spokesman said on Wednesday a 65-year-old Israeli man was arrested over Tuesday’s spitting incident. Israel’s Walla News site said the suspect was brought to court on Wednesday and released on bail. It quoted the judge as saying the alleged attack against a foreign diplomat was shameful.

    The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador to Warsaw, Anna Azari, over the matter, a ministry spokeswoman told the state-run news agency PAP.

    “The event is under police investigation. We express our fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said.

    Polish-Israeli relations have deteriorated in recent months over accusations that Warsaw’s nationalist PiS government has tolerated a revival of anti-Semitic behavior, a charge it denies.

    Hundreds of far-right supporters marched in Warsaw on Saturday in protest against a U.S. law on the restitution of Jewish property seized during or after World War Two, an increasingly prominent issue in Polish election campaigns.

    A lawyer for the man suspected of spitting at the ambassador was quoted by Walla News as saying he had been turned away from the Polish Embassy on Tuesday after trying to inquire about restitution.

    The PiS government has said that Poland – which had one of the world’s biggest Jewish communities before it was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi occupiers – was a victim of World War Two and so should not be saddled with any financial obligations.

    In response to the ultra-nationalist march, the World Jewish Congress urged Polish religious and political leaders on Wednesday to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism.

    On Monday the Polish government canceled a visit by an Israeli delegation as it learned that the Israelis intended to bring up the restitution issue, the Foreign Ministry said.


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    4 years ago

    Other sites give more details, claiming, for example, that the Jew had been addressed with pejoratives like the Polish word for “little Jew”, and that the car incident was as follows. He was walking (slowly) in the parking lot (towards his parked car it seems) when the Polish car came up behind him and honked at him to get out of the way, so he walked over to the car and the altercation took over.

    Yitzi1
    Yitzi1
    4 years ago

    They misunderstood the spitting incident. The guy thought the polock was there to clean the floor so he was just trying to help.

    Sholi-Katz
    Sholi-Katz
    4 years ago

    And Jews still live in Poland?? The polish chief Rabbi who is happy living there should have himself evaluated – Polish peasants killed our fathers, maimed our children , raped our daughters, and we still go back for more.
    What is wrong to spit on those who get their antisemitism from their mothers milk?

    4 years ago

    nothing like israeli chutzpah. i applaud this man’s actions. good for him

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    4 years ago

    Class, you cannot fake class. You have to be born with it.

    StevenWright
    Member
    StevenWright
    4 years ago

    So what?
    Cursed Polish dogs do much worse to visiting Jews in Poland.