A senior official in Polish President Andrzej Duda's office dismissed a Jewish Insider report claiming that the Polish leader had accused Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz of causing an uptick in anti-Semitic attacks in Poland.
The official said the report was "fake news" and the accusation was never made.
According to Jewish Insider, during a meeting with Jewish leaders in New York this week, Duda reportedly said that Katz caused the increase in incidents in his country because the Israeli chief diplomat accused Poles of "suckling their anti-Semitism with their mother's milk," causing a diplomatic war of words between the two countries.
According to the report, Duda said Katz's comments, which were a reiteration of a famous accusation uttered by the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, "were a humiliation and were the reason for an increase in antisemitic attacks against Jews in Poland."
Later, the office issued an official statement. The Spokesperson of President Andrzej Duda, Błażej Spychalski, said: "The quote is not only inaccurate. It is plainly not true. President Duda never said that 'Israel is responsible for recent anti-Semitic attacks in Poland.' All participants of the said meeting can corroborate this. Jewish Insider made this up."
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The Jewish Insider report also noted that Duda "told the group – which included representatives of [pro-Israel lobby in Washington] AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League – that people in his country had advised him not to travel to Israel until Katz apologizes for the comment. "
Duda's statements blaming Katz for violent attacks caused an uproar at the event, according to Jewish Insider, which cited two witnesses at the meeting.
The recent tension between Israel and Poland stems from a law that makes it a civil offense to claim that the Polish people as a whole or the Polish state were responsible for the Nazi atrocities against the Jews.
Katz's statements, made just as the two sides were trying to put this issue behind them, outraged Warsaw and led to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki canceling his visit to Israel.
