Israel’s anti-Polish remarks derail summitBy ASSOCIATED PRESShome/News/World/Israel’s anti-Polish remarks derail summitJERUSALEM: Poland on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) withdrew from a European summit in Jerusalem, derailing the meeting and embarrassing its Israeli hosts, to protest claims by Israel’s acting foreign minister that Poles collaborated with the Nazis and “suckled anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk.”The abrupt cancellation marked a new low in a bitter and long-running conflict between Poland and Israel over how to characterize Polish actions toward its Jewish community during World War 2. It also was a diplomatic setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had touted the gathering as a milestone in his outreach to the emerging democracies of central and eastern Europe. Netanyahu has courted these countries to counter the criticism Israel typically faces in international forums. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, announced Sunday that he was pulling out of the summit and that his foreign minister would go instead. But Morawiecki canceled Polish participation altogether after the comments made by Israel’s acting foreign minister, Israel Katz, that he denounced as “racist” and “absolutely unacceptable.”Katz, who was only appointed to the foreign minister’s post on Sunday, made his remarks in a pair of TV interviews.

Source: Manila Times February 19, 2019 17:00 UTC