Israel recognised Croatia in January 1992, and the official diplomatic relations were established in 1997 when also Croatia opened its embassy in Tel Aviv.
The bilateral relations were far from ideal while the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman was in power. The visits were exchanged seldom, and the first senior Croatian official to visit Israel at the time was the then Foreign Minister Mate Granic who toured Israel at the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israel side took exception to what Franjo Tudjman wrote in his book titled 'Bespuca Povijesne Zbiljnosti' (in the English edition 'Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy') and the relations were not so good also because of some segments of the then official policy of Zagreb which Israel found unacceptable. In 2000 the then Israeli Justice Minister Yossy Beilin claimed that Tudjman tried to deny the Holocaust.
The first sign of warming up relations was the decision of Israel to send a Deputy Foreign Minister to the inauguration of the newly elected Croatian President Stjepan Mesic in early 2000.
In January 2001, Croatia and Israel signed an agreement on the abolishment of visas, and the agreement took effect in October the same year.
Croatian President Mesic visited Israel from 30 October to 1 November 2001, and addressing the Israeli parliament Knesset, he apologised for crimes which the regime of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) committed against Croatian Jews from 1941 to 1945.
Since then the political relations have been developing in what can be described as friendly.
Israeli President Moshe Katsav paid a return visit to Croatia on 11-13 July 2003. He was the first president of the Israeli state to visit Zagreb.
In March 2004, three Croatian ministers - Miomir Zuzul, Dragan Primorac and Petar Cobankovic - were in Israel and on that occasion an invitation was sent to Prme Minsiter Sanader to visit Israel.
This year, Education and Science Minister Primorac was again in Israel and President Mesic attended the ceremony of opening the new Yad Vashem museum in Israel on 16-17 March. On that occasion Mesic met with his Israeli counterpart Katsav, and also travelled to Ramallah for a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.
Croatia and Israel have so far signed seven agreements on cooperation in tourism, on the revocation of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports, on air traffic, the mutual investment stimulation and protection, on trade and economic cooperation, on the revocation of visas for holders of officials and regular national passports, and on cooperation in culture, education and science.
The trade between the countries came to moderate 15.4 million dollars in 2003, and therefore the two sides are intensifying their efforts to improve economic cooperation. The Croatian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the economy, Damir Polancec, who will accompany PM Sanader on the forthcoming visit, will hold meetings with a group of eminent Israeli business people.