Remarks Attributed To Senior Israeli
Officials Spark Diplomatic Row
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called off his trip to Jerusalem following anti-Polish remarks attributed to Israeli government chief Benjamin Netanyahu. The Jerusalem Post reported Netanyahu saying at a Warsaw news briefing… “the Poles collaborated with the Nazis.” That statement greatly rattled official Warsaw, but Israeli officials claimed his words had been taken out of context. He had actually said: “I have never heard of anyone being sued for saying Poles collaborated with Nazis.” But Morawiecki replied that even having such accusations circulate in the international media was unacceptable. After which Israel’s interim foreign minister Izrael Katz said that “many Poles collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust,” because “Poles suckled anti-Antisemitism with their mother’s milk”. Morawiecki pulled Poland out of a planned two-day summit between Israel and of the four Visegrad nations – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – which was then canceled altogether.
– Robert Strybel
Warsaw Correspondent
Poland will not pay for Nazi German crimes – Prime Minister
The issue of property restitution to the American citizens of Jewish ancestry has been settled once and for all, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki emphasized in an interview with the Poland’s PAP news agency. “Several years ago we signed an indemnity agreement with the United States which releases our country from that responsibility,” he said. During a recent mideast security conference in Warsaw, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised that issue, presumably at the request of interested Jewish Americans. Morawiecki reminded the US that asking Poland to pay compensations for Nazi German crimes was a”fundamental misunderstanding.”