There has been no official statement from the embassy yet, but the news has already been reported by Israeli media. The new Israeli ambassador to Rome will be Lior Haiat, a 52-year-old who currently serves as the deputy director-general for North America at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Haiat has previously served as Israel’s consul general in Miami and as director of the ministry’s Central America and Caribbean division.
The Israeli government approved his appointment following a recommendation by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar. Haiat will succeed outgoing ambassador Jonathan Peled, who will assume a new position in November, representing Israel at the United Nations Office in Geneva.
Born in Petah Tikva in 1974, Haiat studied at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He began his diplomatic career in 2001 as a spokesman and cultural attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.
Since then, he has held several senior communications and diplomatic positions, including spokesperson at the Israeli Embassy in Spain, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, head of the National Strategic Communications Directorate, and media adviser to the prime minister. He was appointed to the latter position by then-Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Haiat is a strong supporter of the Abraham Accords and spent years overseeing communications around the agreements. “Since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, one million Israelis have visited the United Arab Emirates,” he said in a July 2023 interview.
At the time, Haiat was optimistic that Saudi Arabia would eventually join the initiative. However, this prospect now seems more distant following the chain of events set off by the October 7 massacres.
“It’s not a question of if, but when,” he said. “An agreement between our two countries would change the entire region and inspire more Arab and Muslim countries to follow suit.”
In 2021, Bahrain’s first ambassador to Israel, Khaled Yousif Al-Jalahma, participated in an “interview marathon” organized by Haiat to commemorate the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords.
A total of 99 consecutive interviews were conducted over 15 hours that day. While it may not have set a record, it came pretty close.