Israel on Saturday condemned Poland’s approval of the restitution law that restricts the rights of Holocaust survivors or their descendants to reclaim property seized by the country’s former communist regime and announced it was recalling its top diplomat in protest.
The move ignited a diplomatic crisis between Israel’s new government and the nationalist conservative government in Poland. After years of close ties under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s new government, which includes top officials who are the children of Holocaust survivors, has taken a far more confrontational approach.
Polish President Andrzej Duda earlier in the day signed the law, which addresses appropriations done by the communist government that ruled Poland from the end of World War II until 1989.
The law itself says nothing about the Holocaust or World War II. Instead, it establishes that any administrative decision issued 30 years ago or more can no longer be challenged, meaning that property owners who had their homes or business seized in the communist era can no longer get compensation.
It is expected to cut off for all time the hopes of some families — both Jewish and non-Jewish — of reclaiming property seized during that era.
Both the U.S. and Israeli governments had strongly urged Poland not to pass the law and Israel had warned it would harm ties.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Duda’s signing of the law “a shameful decision and disgraceful contempt for the memory of the Holocaust” and said “Poland has chosen to continue harming those who have lost everything.”
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that he had instructed Israel’s charges d’affaires in Warsaw to return home immediately and that the new Israeli ambassador to Poland, who was scheduled to leave for Warsaw, will remain in Israel.
The Israel Foreign Ministry also said it was recommending that the Polish ambassador, who is on a vacation home, not return to Israel.
“Poland today approved — not for the first time — an immoral, anti-Semitic law,” said Lapid, whose late father was a Holocaust survivor.
Defense Minister Defense Minister Benny Gantz, noting that he was the son of Holocaust survivors, said he was “deeply disturbed.”
“Property restitution is a small yet significant part of the process to fulfill the rights of those who have survived and to acknowledge those who have perished in one of the world’s biggest genocides,” Gantz said.
Duda said Saturday that he had analyzed the matter carefully and decided to sign the law to end legal uncertainty and fraud linked to properties whose ownership remains in doubt decades after their seizure.
The law does not distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish claimants, and Duda said he strongly objected to anyone suggesting that the law was directed specifically against Jews who survived the Holocaust.
“I unequivocally reject this rhetoric and say it with all my strength,” Duda said. “Linking this act with the Holocaust raises my firm objection.”