The Polish government has decided to freeze implementation of its controversial "Holocaust Law," which makes it illegal to accuse the Polish nation of Nazi war crimes committed during World War II or attribute responsibility for the Nazi death camps that operated in Poland to the country or the Polish people.
The decision comes in response to vehement opposition to the law in Israel and in the Jewish community abroad.
On Saturday evening, Israeli government officials announced that as a result of "Israeli pressure" on Poland's justice minister, the law will not be implemented until a Polish constitutional court has a chance to rule on it.
The officials added that a Polish delegation was due to visit Israel for talks intended to reword the law so that it is acceptable to both Israel and Poland.
The Ruderman Family Foundation, which was heavily involved in a U.S. campaign against the law, welcomed the news that implementation of the legislation had been put on hold.
"We are thankful for the Polish government's decision to freeze the law. The pressure exerted by the dozens of thousands who signed our petition did its job. We call on the Polish government to announce a complete retraction of this law," the foundation said in a statement.
Meanwhile, amid a spike in anti-Semitic incidents in Poland in the wake of the controversial legislation, European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday that Poland's ruling party must do everything it can to stop anti-Semitic remarks that are hurting Poland's standing in the world and putting its interests at risk.
Speaking at a press conference, Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, said after he met Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki that discussions with other European leaders showed the situation in Warsaw was "very serious."
"I told the prime minister the situation has a direct impact on Polish interests, Poland's reputation and Poland's standing in the world," Tusk said, adding that Morawiecki understood that.
"There is only one solution. Everything needs to be done to stop … the wave of bad opinions about Poland, which today resembles a tsunami, and the second wave of silly and indecent incidents, anti-Semitic statements in Poland," he said.
"The ruling party has all the tools to stop both these waves if it really wants to," he continued. "We have all worked hard … over the last 30 years on Poland's good relations with the world, including Israel and the Jewish community. We cannot allow someone to ruin all that within a few weeks."
"It is not too late for concrete action, just as it is not too late for common human decency," he said.
Speaking to journalists at a conference of world leaders in Munich last Saturday, Morawiecki exacerbated the controversy surrounding the Holocaust legislation by suggesting Jews themselves had a hand in the Holocaust.
Asked to explain the law, Morawiecki said: "You're not going to be seen as criminal if you say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators as well as Ukrainian perpetrators – not only German perpetrators."
Naming "Jewish perpetrators" in the same breath as Nazis triggered outrage in Israel and added to growing concern about the rise in nationalism in Poland and tacit government support for far-right views since the Law and Justice party took power in late 2015.
