Poland's deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński announced on Monday that Poland would reexamine trips Israeli high schools take annually to concentration camps in Poland, saying that it would make "appropriate decisions" on the matter, in an interview with Polskie Radio Program III.
The statement comes amid a diplomatic squabble between Israel and Poland surrounding a law affecting World War Two property restitution.
Addressing what he called anti-Polish speech in Israel, the deputy foreign minister stated that "There are many reasons for this situation, but one of them is certainly the way in which Israeli youth is educated and raised."
"This propaganda, also based on hatred of Poland, is poured into the heads of young people from an early school age," said Jabłoński, adding that the way the visits to concentration camps by students currently take place is "clearly not the right way."
"We are reviewing this and we will be making decisions about it," said the Polish official, adding that the public would be informed about the government's next steps in the coming days.
Jabłoński claimed that Lapid's statements that "Gone are the days when Poles harmed Jews without a response" prey on historical ignorance and incite hatred against Poles and Poland.
The deputy foreign minister also bemoaned what he said was a situation in which Poland wants such good relations with Israel but is not reciprocated. "In fact, it faces hostility, attacks, and aggression that we have not seen when it comes to Israel's actions against its greatest opponents," said Jabłoński to Polskie Radio Program III.
Amos Hermon, CEO of Israel Experience, one of the organizers of trips from Israel and the Diaspora to Poland, responded to the official's comments, stressing that "the trips to Poland contribute to strengthening the identity, historical knowledge, memory and lessons of the Holocaust of young Jews in Israel and the Diaspora."
Hermon stressed that the trips by no means educate Poles.
"Visiting the extermination camps is important for anyone who wants to learn about the Holocaust and allows acquaintance with today's Poland and meetings with Poles while experiencing irreplaceable experience. Everything must be done to continue this important project for future generations," said Hermon. "We must not mix the existing historical debate in Israel on the importance of travel to Poland with the worsening of the relations between the two states around the passage of the Polish Property Law."
Poland's ambassador to Israel has been recalled until further notice, the foreign ministry said on Monday, in a further sign of the deteriorating relations between the countries.
On Saturday, Poland's president signed a bill that would set limits on the ability of Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and retained by post-war communist rulers, bringing into law regulations that Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid branded "antisemitic and immoral."
Lapid said the head of Israel's embassy in Warsaw was being called back immediately.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he had decided to provide safe transport back to Poland for the children of Ambassador Marek Magierowski, amid what he called "an increased hatred of Poland and Poles" in Israel.
In response to a request for comment, the Israeli foreign ministry sent a statement from Lapid originally released on Sunday in which he said, "We do not fear antisemitic threats, and have no intention of turning a blind eye to the shameful conduct of the anti-democratic Polish government."
Before World War Two, Poland had been home to one of the world's biggest Jewish communities, but it was almost entirely wiped out by the Nazi Germans. Jewish former property owners and their descendants have been campaigning for compensation.
Up to now, Jewish expatriates or their descendants could make a claim that a property had been seized illegally and demand its return, but Polish officials argued this was causing uncertainty over property ownership.
In 2015 Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled there should be specific deadlines after which administrative decisions over property titles could no longer be challenged. Changes to the law were adopted by the Polish parliament last week.
The bill sets a 30-year limit for restitution claims.