JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Saturday he had ordered the country’s charge d’affaires in Warsaw to return after the Polish president approved an “anti-Semitic” law curbing World War II-era property claims.
“Poland today approved — not for the first time — an immoral, anti-Semitic law,” Lapid said in a statement.
“This evening I instructed the charge d’affaires at our embassy in Warsaw to return immediately to Israel for consultations, for an indefinite period of time,” he said.
“The new Israeli ambassador to Poland, who was scheduled to depart to Warsaw, will remain in Israel for the time being,” Lapid added.
The law, approved Saturday by Polish President Andrzej Duda, sets a 30-year time limit on challenges to property confiscations — many of them relating to Poland’s once thriving Jewish community.
Since confiscations mostly occurred during the Communist era in the aftermath of the war, the law will effectively block many possible claims.
Lapid said the foreign ministry would recommend that the Polish envoy to Israel, currently on vacation, “continue his vacation in his country.”
“He should use the time on his hands to explain to Poles the meaning of the Holocaust to Israelis,” Lapid said.
Israel was joined by the US in its opposition to the legislation, and Lapid said Israel was conducting talks with the Americans on further courses of action.
“Poland has this evening become an anti-democratic and illiberal country that does not respect the greatest tragedy in human history,” Lapid said.
“The world cannot remain silent,” he said. “Israel and the Jewish world certainly won’t.”
Six million Poles, half of them Jewish, were killed during World War II in Poland.
After the war, Communist authorities nationalized vast numbers of properties that had been left empty because their owners had been killed or fled.
While the law covers both Jewish and non-Jewish claimants, campaigners say Jewish owners will be disproportionately affected because they were often late in lodging claims after the war.
Israel recalls Poland envoy over ‘anti-Semitic’ property claims law
https://arab.news/g7hwm
Israel recalls Poland envoy over ‘anti-Semitic’ property claims law
- "Poland today approved -- not for the first time -- an immoral, anti-Semitic law," Israeli Foreign Minister said
- The law, approved Saturday by Polish President, sets a 30-year time limit on challenges to property confiscations
Britain, Japan agree to deepen defense and security cooperation
- “We set out a clear priority to build an even deeper partnership in the years to come,” Starmer said
- Takaichi said they agreed to hold a meeting of British and Japanese foreign and defense ministers this year
TOKYO: Britain and Japan agreed to strengthen defense and economic ties, visiting Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday, after his bid to forge closer links with China drew warnings from US President Donald Trump.
Starmer noted that Japan and Britain were the leading economies in a trans-Pacific that includes fellow G7 member Canada, as well as other international trade and defense pacts.
“We set out a clear priority to build an even deeper partnership in the years to come,” Starmer said as he stood beside Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after a bilateral meeting in Tokyo.
“That includes working together to strengthen our collective security, across the Euro-Atlantic and in the Indo-Pacific.”
Takaichi said they agreed to hold a meeting of British and Japanese foreign and defense ministers this year.
She said she also wanted to discuss “cooperation toward realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, the Middle East situation and Ukraine situation” at a dinner with Starmer later on Saturday.
Starmer arrived on a one-day Tokyo stop after a four-day visit in China, where he followed in the footsteps of other Western leaders looking to counter an increasingly volatile United States.
Leaders from France, Canada and Finland have all traveled to Beijing in recent weeks, recoiling from Trump’s bid to seize Greenland and tariff threats against NATO allies.
Trump warned on Thursday it was “very dangerous” for its close ally Britain to be dealing with China, although Starmer brushed off those comments.
Tokyo’s ties with Beijing have deteriorated since Takaichi suggested in November that Japan could intervene militarily during a potential attack on Taiwan.
China regards the self-ruled democratic island as its territory.
Starmer met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang on Thursday, with both sides highlighting the need for closer ties.
He also signed a series of agreements there, with Downing Street announcing Beijing had agreed to visa-free travel for British citizens visiting China for under 30 days.
No start date for that arrangement has been given yet.
Takaich said the two leaders agreed during discussions on economic security that a strengthening of supply chains “including important minerals is urgently needed.”
There is concern that Beijing could choke off exports of the rare earths crucial for making everything from electric cars to missiles.
China, the world’s leading producer of such minerals, announced new export controls in October on rare earths and associated technologies.
They have also been a major sticking point in trade negotiations between China and the United States.
Britain, Japan and Italy are also developing a new fighter jet after Tokyo relied for decades on the United States for military hardware.
