Poland is pulling out of a key summit of Eastern European countries convened in Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu after a fresh spat broke out between the two countries over the Holocaust.
Members of the Visegrád Group — which includes representatives from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as Poland — were due to meet in Jerusalem this week, following months of diplomatic maneuverers by the Israeli Prime Minister.
But Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday he would not attend the summit after Mr Netanyahu remarked that “Poles had cooperated with the Nazis” during the Second World War.
On Monday, Mr Morawiecki confirmed his country would send no delegation at all after Yisrael Katz, Israel's newly-appointed foreign minister, said Poles had “collaborated with the Nazis” and “sucked antisemitism from their mothers' milk”.
The summit was subsequently cancelled, with Czech, Slovak and Hungarian leaders due to hold bilateral meetings in Jerusalem instead.
Polish officials reject suggestions that their country collaborated with the Nazis during the war, arguing that they were under Nazi occupation at the time.
Mr Netanyahu’s remark on Friday revived a dispute between the two countries that began early last year over Poland’s so-called Holocaust law.
The controversial legislation made it a criminal offence to blame the Polish nation for involvement in Nazi crimes. Scholars say many individual Poles assisted German occupiers in rounding up Jews in hiding.
No individual is known to have been prosecuted under the law and the proposed penalties upon conviction have since been watered down.
