Foreign Minister Yair Lapid recalled on Saturday Israel’s charge d’affaires in Poland, after Polish President Andrzej Duda approved a controversial law that will restrict the possibility of restitution claims for property stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II and nationalized by the postwar communist regime.
Lapid said that Poland passed “an antisemitic and immoral law,” and that he has instructed Israel’s Charge d’affaires in Warsaw, Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon, to return immediately to Israel for consultations for “an indefinite period of time.” He added that Israel’s new ambassador to Poland, who has yet to depart, will not be going.
He added that “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommends that the Polish ambassador to Israel continue his vacation in his country,” saying that the ambassador should use his time in Poland to “explain to the Polish people what the Holocaust means to the citizens of Israel and how we will not tolerate contempt for the memory of the victims and the memory of the Holocaust.”
Israel and the United States, Lapid said, are holding talks on possible responses to Poland’s move.
“Poland has tonight become an anti-democratic, non-liberal country that does not honor the greatest tragedy in human history,” Lapid said, declaring that “Israel and the Jewish people will not remain silent.”
Israel and the United States have expressed stark opposition to the law, which has led to tensions between Warsaw and Jerusalem. Duda’s final approval makes the legislation official, but it will take 30 days for the law to go into effect.
The Polish president explained that he signed the bill “after thorough analysis” and that he is of the opinion that the law rectifies a current injustice, “will put an end to an era of legal chaos” and “the uncertainty of millions of Poles and the disrespect of the basic rights of the country’s citizens.”
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He mentioned one of the stated goals of the law – to fight the corruption and involvement of unreliable figures – some of them criminal – who have taken advantage of Poland’s bureaucracy for their benefit in order to take control over property that is not theirs, and to evict downtrodden tenants throughout the country.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this week that America is “deeply concerned” about the Polish parliament’s move “severely restricting the process for Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to obtain restitution for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era.”
Blinken urged Duda not sign the bill into law or that, in line with the authority granted to him as president, he refers the bill to Poland’s constitutional tribunal.
The law passed a parliamentary vote on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. Lapid said that the law “damages the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims,” and that Israel is re-examining a 2018 joint statement issued by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, which rejected blaming Poland for the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators.
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