JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli man was convicted of assault for spitting at the Polish ambassador to Israel.
Arik Lederman, 65, accepted a plea deal that dropped the charge of threatening the ambassador, Marek Magierowski, in the May incident, The Times of Israel reported.
Lederman, of Herzliya, stood in the middle of a Tel Aviv road to block the ambassador’s car from moving, slammed his fist on the roof and then opened the door and spit twice on Magierowski.
Lederman claimed that he did not know that the ambassador was in the car, only that it had Polish diplomatic plates. He said the car honked at him for blocking the road, which angered him.
He apologized days later at a court hearing, saying that his family suffered during the Holocaust and he was at the embassy to inquire about recovering property abandoned during the Holocaust. Lederman said the embassy guard called him a Jewish slur in Polish – “zydek,” meaning “yid” or “little Jew” — and he was upset when he came across the car with Polish diplomat plates on the street.
The incident occurred days after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared that his government would not pay compensation for property lost during World War II since, he said, Poles were the war’s major victim.
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