Polish Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski received a summons on Sunday to meet with head of the Foreign Ministry's political department, Alon Bar, over a Polish draft bill that would make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and kept by postwar communist rulers.
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The lower house of the Polish parliament passed the draft legislation on Thursday.
According to a Foreign Ministry communique, Bar expressed Israel's extreme disappointment that the legislation had passed the lower house and warned Magierowski that if it became law, it would have an adverse effect on Polish-Israeli relations.
Bar told the Polish envoy that Israel's objection to the bill had nothing to do with any ideological debate about responsibility for the Holocaust, but was anchored in Poland's responsibility to its former citizens, whose property was stolen.
On Thursday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke out against the draft bill, 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.
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