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Israeli FM Refuses to Apologize for Saying Poles ‘Suckle Anti-Semitism’

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Comments by Yisrael Katz last week caused the Polish cancelation of a visit to Israel, but the minister insists he never said all Poles are anti-Semites.

Israel’s acting foreign minister tried to defuse the diplomatic spat with Poland on Monday, but he is still refusing to apologize for his remarks last week regarding anti-Semitism in that country.

Warsaw has demanded an apology for Yisrael Katz’s statement that “the memory of the Holocaust is something we cannot compromise about, it is something clear and we won’t forget or forgive. Poles collaborated with the Nazis, and as [former prime minister] Yitzhak Shamir, whose father was murdered by Poles, said, ‘they suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.’”

Those comments were a follow-up to a controversy that erupted after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, during a visit to Poland the previous week, that “Poles collaborated with the Nazis. It is a fact.”

The prime minister’s statement led to a Polish decision to downgrade a delegation that was to visit Israel last week from the level of prime minister to foreign minister. After Katz made his subsequent remarks, Warsaw canceled the visit altogether.

Poland said the comment by the acting foreign minister was racist. The U.S. echoed the sentiment.

Speaking on Kan public radio on Monday, Katz stressed that there is “close cooperation” between Israel and Poland and that Warsaw has been involved in efforts to stabilize the Middle East, referring to the recent Warsaw conference, which brought high-level Arab officials together with Netanyahu around the same table.

“The foreign policy of the Polish government entails close cooperation with Israel,” Katz said.

Last week, the Jewish Voice reported that Poland pulled out of the Visegrad Group (V4) summit in Jerusalem, as diplomatic tensions between Israel and Poland continued to worsen.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that his country would not send a delegation to the V4 summit in Jerusalem, in protest of comments by Israel’s newly appointed Foreign Minister on anti-Semitism in Poland

“The words of the Israeli foreign minister are racist and unacceptable,” said Morawiecki. “It is clear that our foreign minister Czaputowicz will not be travelling to the summit.”

Prime Minister Morawiecki had originally been slated to attend the V4 but cancelled his appearance over the weekend following a diplomatic row with Israel over his country’s Holocaust censorship law. Last Sunday, Poland said the country’s foreign minister would be taking Morawiecki’s place.

             (World Israel News)

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