Netanyahu talks to Polish PM, says ‘all options on the table’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he spoke with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki by phone following his comments the day before, in which he said Jews also perpetrated the Holocaust, telling the leader that Israel did not accept the remarks.

“I told him there’s no basis for this comparison, between the act of Poles and the acts of Jews during the Holocaust,” Netanyahu tells Israeli reporters following his speech at the Munich Security Conference.

Responding to the calls for Israel to return its ambassador in Poland to Israel, the prime minister says the government is trying to resolve the issue without taking such a dramatic measure, but “all options are on the table.”

The prime minister says Israel plans to send a Foreign Ministry delegation to Poland in order to clarify Israel’s issues with the recently passed Polish law, which makes it illegal to accuse the Polish government of taking part in the Holocaust.

Netanyahu stressed the differences between Jews who collaborated with the Nazis facing a certain death sentence and the gentile Europeans who volunteered to help the Nazis.

The prime minister said he spoke with the Polish leader for a long time in order to reach an understanding, this included giving a personal example of willing Polish collaboration with the Nazis.

“I gave him an example from my wife’s family. They were hidden by Poles — by righteous gentiles,” he says.

“But as the Germans were leaving the city, the Poles ran after the fleeing Germans and said, ‘There are more Jews hiding here.’ And they killed my wife’s grandfather,” Netanyahu says.

“If he says this is about investigating the truth. Here’s an example, investigate the truth,” the prime minister adds.

In its attempt to highlight the onus of Nazi Germany for the Holocaust, Poland seems to have opened the door for historical revision, he says.

“You can’t fix one distortion with another distortion,” Netanyahu says.

— Judah Ari Gross