No place in Polish-Israeli ties for offensive remarks: US ambassador

“Among close allies, such as Poland and Israel, there is no place for such offensive comments as… [the] statement by Israel’s foreign minister,” the American ambassador, Georgette Mosbacher, wrote on Twitter in Polish.

Polish-Israeli tensions flared after Israel’s interim foreign minister reportedly claimed that Poles “suckled anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.”

Israel Katz also reportedly accused “many Poles” of collaborating with the German Nazis during the Holocaust.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded on Monday by announcing that Warsaw was pulling out of a regional summit in Jerusalem.

The meeting of the Visegrad Group, a regional cooperation platform which brings together Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was called off.

Amid an escalating spat, Morawiecki slammed Katz for “reprehensible, unacceptable and simply racist words.”

Morawiecki told reporters: “This is an example of racist anti-Polonism.”

Morawiecki pointed out that Poles had saved a huge number of Jews after Nazi Germany instigated the Holocaust.

The efforts of thousands of Poles who risked their lives by helping Jews during World War II have been recognised by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

(pk)