The agreement organizes and improves the previously scattered rules for young Israelis’ trips to Poland, which have been held for three decades. It also opens possibilities of similar study visits for Polish students to Israel. Thus Poland has ensured reciprocity and balance.

MFA believes that the agreement will help ease mutual stereotypes and strengthen people-to-people contacts. Poland firmly believes that relations between young people from Poland and Israel based on historical truth are the key to harmonious relations between our societies.

As a result of the negotiations, Poland achieved its goals:

a) under the agreement an important item on the youth visit programmes will be meetings of peers from Poland and Israel. Meeting together is the best antidote to hurtful and untrue associations on both sides;

b) care was taken to ensure that the programme of visits of young Israelis to Poland did not focus exclusively on memorial sites relating to the history of the Holocaust. The programme will also include teaching about Polish history, the almost 1000 year-old heritage of Polish Jews, and equally old Polish-Jewish relations;

(c) it has been established that the responsibility for ensuring the safety of groups of young people — Israelis in Poland and Poles in Israel — will rest with the host country. Armed security will only be allowed in the host country by the host country’s consent.

The signing of the agreement closes a difficult stage in Polish-Israeli bilateral relations. At the same time, it opens up prospects for more balanced relations that are based on mutual respect. Current bilateral issues were discussed during the political consultations on the occasion of the Israeli foreign minister’s arrival in Warsaw.

 

Łukasz Jasina

MFA Spokesperson