Poland Demands Israeli Response Over ‘Racist’ Holocaust Comments

(Bloomberg) -- Poland demanded a response from Israel in a deepening dispute over the Holocaust, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemning comments from the Jewish state’s foreign minister as "racist."

Morawiecki canceled sending a delegation to Jerusalem, where he was slated to meet his counterparts from the Visegrad Group of eastern European nations Monday, after Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was reported as saying last week that the Polish nation cooperated with Nazi occupiers during World War II.

While Israel said Netanyahu had been talking about “individuals, and not the whole nation,” the comments drew swift reaction from the government in Warsaw, which has passed laws criminalizing the act of blaming Poland or its people for the crimes committed against Jews and other minorities.

The situation escalated when Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said in a television interview that “Poles imbibed anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.” Katz was citing former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a Holocaust survivor.

“We’re awaiting a categorical reaction on shameful, unacceptable, and racist words by the newly appointed foreign minister," Morawiecki said. He added that no one from the Polish government would attend the Visegrad 4’s first meeting to take place outside of Europe.

Polish opposition leader Grzegorz Schetyna also demanded an explanation from the Israeli side, and the Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador, according to Channel 13. The European Union country has long argued it shouldn’t bear responsibility for acts committed against Jews and others at death camps run by the Nazis on Polish soil.

It’s not the first time Poland and Israel have sparred over the issue. The latter took issue with the Holocaust law passed by the nationalist Law & Justice government last year. The law was later softened, and both countries signed a joint statement condemning anti-Semitism and “anti-Polonism.”

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