Poland is still awaiting an apology from Israel over its acting foreign minister’s comments on the alleged anti-Semitism of the Poles.
The argument led Warsaw to pull out of a key Jerusalem summit, according to Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski.
Poland asks Israel to apologise for ‘slanderous’ remarks https://t.co/wdgwW91eUl pic.twitter.com/kB8EYIyS8y
— Andrew Ivan (@AndrewIvan9) February 20, 2019
Leaders of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, known as the Visegrad group (V4) were to meet in Israel for two days beginning on Monday.
Poland’s withdrawal came after acting Israeli foreign minister Yisrael Katz said on Sunday that Poles “collaborated with the Nazis” and “sucked anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk”.
Poland and Israel Try to Improve Ties, but History Intrudes https://t.co/4kdnsEFptj
— Jose Mora (@jemora13) February 20, 2019
Israeli authorities must “reject this declaration … and apologize”, Szynkowski told reporters on Tuesday.
He added:
“We leave it to Israeli leaders to choose what form of reaction they will have and who will react, but it should be a unified and definite one.”
Israel should apologize to Poland in Holocaust row: U.S. ambassador to Warsaw https://t.co/Jbkk4hCF6w And, War Crimes should not go unpunished!
— David (@DavidS_N1970) February 20, 2019
While the V4 summit has been canceled, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis of the Czech Republic, Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are already in Israel and would instead hold bilateral meetings with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu was looking to the V4 summit to help burnish his diplomatic credentials before Israeli elections on April 9.
(AJE, PC, Social Media)
