Historical give-and-take is taking place again between Poland and Israel. According to Jarosław Kaczynski, the leader of the Polish PiS party, the Israeli foreign minister is "naughty", according to Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, the Poles would rewrite history.
, according to a previous article on mandiner.hu, "a spectacular memory political conflict with the right-wing Eastern European countries" would satisfy the needs of both Israeli camps - national religious and leftist.
This year, on June 24, the Polish lower house adopted an amendment to the law, which aims to provide greater legal certainty to the current owners of pre-war properties against historical claims dating back to the time of the Nazi German occupation. The amendment would impose a thirty-year statute of limitations on claims whose foundations were confiscated from the original owners by the Polish communist regime after World War II.
However, according to critics, the legislation may effectively prevent descendants of Jewish families from claiming properties left vacant during the Holocaust. And Israel condemned the legislation as "immoral".
Israel's charge d'affaires in Warsaw was also summoned in the case, but the Polish ambassador in Israel was also summoned.
Polish ambassador Marek Magierowski tried to explain the Polish position on social media. According to him, foreign real estate agents keep hundreds of Polish families in terror with the possibility of eviction, citing vague legal claims and easily falsified documents. Other Polish public figures expressed little tact, according to Dariusz Matecki, founder of the Anti-Polish Monitoring Center, "when Israel writes about morality, it's like when Russia writes about human rights."
Yair Lapid/Source: The Times of Israel/illustration
According to Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the entry into force of the new Polish legislation will make it more difficult to claim compensation related to the Holocaust in the country. "No law can change history," Lapid said, adding that the bill was "a disgrace that will not erase the horrors or the memory of the Holocaust."
Lapid has not had a good reputation in Poland so far either, because according to the Polish right, he made false statements about the history of the Second World War, for example he once announced that "Polish death camps" really existed. (This is a mistake, the death camps were not set up by Poland, but by Nazi Germany, in the case of Auschwitz, for example, on the territory of occupied Poland).
There were more violent reactions than Lapid, Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, for example, said: "The time has come for the international Jewish community to reevaluate its relationship with a government that behaves with unimaginable insensitivity and follows the worst traditions of Polish history in the best and most uplifting traditions." instead of."
Mateusz-Morawiecki/Source: mindenszo.hu/illustráció
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded directly to Lapid's words:
"As long as I am the prime minister, Poland will not pay for German crimes: not a single zloty, euro or dollar."
The Polish Foreign Ministry said Lapid's comments about the bill were wrong, and said the new legislation was passed because the Polish government considers it unconstitutional and a "gross violation of the law" that there is no time limit for enforcing previous administrative decisions.
From a Hungarian point of view, the dispute is surprising and hardly fits into the system of good relations that Israel has maintained with the Visegrad countries; all that can be seen in it is that the anti-Israel tone still has the power to gain domestic political capital in Poland, and vice versa.
The conflict, on the other hand, fits into the new policy of Foreign Minister Lapid, which he announced just a few days ago before the EU's Foreign Affairs Council.
"Israel has common interests with the EU - but more than that, we have common values: commitment to human rights, LGBTQ and community rights, basic elements of democracy: free press, independent judiciary, strong civil society, religious freedom," he said. Lapid. "We are committed to the common fight against the climate crisis, international terrorism, racism and extremism".
As analysts pointed out, Lapid would move away from the V4, his intentions may foreshadow an attempt to approach the left-progressive countries of Western Europe.
Source: mandiner.hu
Featured image: Monument to the heroes of the ghetto in Warsaw/mandiner.hu
