Paweł Jabłoński, the deputy foreign minister of Poland, has responded to remarks by Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, saying that Lapid's accusatory tone is an unwelcome turn in relations between the two countries. "We are surprised that these words are being used in the context of foreign relations," he told Channel 11 Kan's Antonya Yamin in an exclusive interview, "Because they are absolutely unsubstantiated and uncalled for. There is no reason to talk this way while trying to build diplomatic relations."
"Lapid has claimed that members of his family were murdered by Polish Nazis, in Polish death camps," he added, "Which, as anyone who familiar with the history can tell you, is false."
Jabłoński also addressed the recent instances in both Israel and Poland of recalling diplomatic personnel. "We have had instances where even the ambassador himself was physically attacked. We are worried that the bad attitude against Poland will get stronger in the coming days."
According to Jabłoński, the Polish government would prefer to continue its relationships with Israel. "We would prefer to continue the relationship on the level of an ambassador," he says, "but if Israel does not want that, that is their right, and Poland will have to act accordingly."
The background for the unpleasant turn in relations is a new Polish law limiting the degree to which Holocaust survivors may reclaim their stolen property, one of several laws in Poland which historians claim are intended to build a narrative in which Poland was the real victim of the Holocaust. Some scholars have been prosecuted in Poland for suggesting that the Polish people bear any blame for the Holocaust; one historian recounts that she was threatened with three years in jail for writing that Poland was not the true victim of the Holocaust.