Once robust, ties  took a turn for the worse in 2018 when Poland pushed forward legislation criminalizing suggestions that the Poles were complicit in the Holocaust and making it a punishable crime to say “Polish death camps

A year later, on a trip to Poland, Netanyahu infuriated the Poles when he was erroneously quoted as saying that “the Poles” collaborated with the Nazis, rather than that “Poles” -- implying “some Poles “ -- collaborated with them.

As a result of this, then-Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki canceled a trip to Israel to take part in a high-level summit. 

Two days later, Israel Katz, who had just become foreign minister, exacerbated the crisis even further when he said in relation to the brouhaha: “I am the child of Holocaust survivors, and like every Israeli and Jew, I will not compromise over the memory of the Holocaust.

We will not forgive nor forget, and there were many Poles who collaborated with the Nazis.

How did Yitzhak Shamir put it – they killed his father – ‘the Poles imbibe anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.’.”