Poland's parliament late on Thursday passed a draft bill which is expected to make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and kept by postwar communist rulers, in a move set to fuel tensions with Israel and the United States.
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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke out against the draft bill late Thursday, saying, "Israel will stand up to the law like a wall. The law is inconceivable and immoral."
"Preserving the memory of the Holocaust, making sure Holocaust survivors receive their rights and the entire issue of restoration of Jewish property that was stolen during the Holocaust are major components to Israel's identity," Lapid said.
"This is an important aspect of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's activity. It is a moral and historical obligation, which we all bear with pride," he added.
Lapid went on to warn that if Poland moved ahead with the legislation, it would comprise a serious blow to Israeli-Polish relations. "No law will change history. It's a disgrace that won't erase the horrors and the memory of the Holocaust. Israel will stand up for the memory of the Holocaust and the dignity of survivors, and for their property.
"Poland, on whose land millions of Jews were murdered, knows the right thing to do," Lapid said.
Poland was home to one of the world's biggest Jewish communities until it was almost entirely wiped out by the Nazis during World War II. Jewish former property owners and their descendants have been campaigning for compensation since the fall of communism in 1989.
In 2015, Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled that there must be a deadline set, after which faulty administrative decisions can no longer be challenged. In March, a parliamentary committee proposed a bill to implement that ruling with deadlines ranging from 10-30 years.
Critics say that would put a time limit on requests for restitution.
Earlier this week, President Reuven Rivlin wrote to Polish President Andrzej Duda expressing concern over the rules.
The law, which introduces a 30-year deadline, passed through the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, with 309 votes in favor, no votes against and 120 abstentions, according to Polish state news agency PAP, and is now expected to be discussed by the upper house of parliament, the Senate.
A group of Western diplomats in Warsaw also wrote to the Polish officials to voice their worries.
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