Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will skip the V4 Summit, set to take place in Israel this week, Kan, Israel's public broadcaster reported on Sunday.
In his place, Morawiecki will send Jacek Czaputowicz, the country's foreign minister.The Visengrad Group— Poland, Hungary, the Czech Repubic and Slovakia— will be in Israel on February 18 and 19. It will be the first time the V4 group will meet outside Europe.
Poland's participation was in doubt after a diplomatic crisis with Israel erupted over the weekend over quotes attributed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Polish cooperation with Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
At issue was whether Netanyahu held the Polish nation complicit for Jewish deaths in the Holocaust.
Netanyahu told reporters that “Poles cooperated with the Nazis” during World War II.
He spoke while in Warsaw as he sat in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, located in the heart of what had been the Warsaw Ghetto.
“I am saying it here. There is no argument about this,” Netanyahu said. He differentiated between the past and the present, however, as he explained that today antisemitism is worse in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe.
Journalists who listened to him, believed he had spoke of “the Poles,” a phrase that implies the Polish nation. Some media, including The Jerusalem Post, reported his comments as "The Poles", sparking the crisis with Poland.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
