A Polish government official said Tuesday that Warsaw is still waiting for Israel's government to apologize for comments that acting Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz made about Poles and their role in the Holocaust.
Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said the "shameful, scandalous and slanderous" comments by Katz require an "unequivocal and definite" reaction.
Szynkowski vel Sęk said it was up to Israel to choose the form the apology takes and how it is delivered. He said more education is needed about what happened during World War II on Polish soil.
Katz said Sunday that Poles collaborated with Nazi Germans during the war and "suckle anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk."
The "mothers' milk" remark repeated a 1989 comment by Israel's then-prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, which drew condemnation at the time as well.
In response to Katz, Poland pulled out of a summit of central European nations in Jerusalem scheduled for this week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instead hosted a series of sit-downs Tuesday with his Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian counterparts.
U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher wrote on her Polish-language Twitter account that Katz's comments were "offensive" and out of place between such "close allies as Poland and Israel."
"I just felt that two strong allies like Israel and Poland, of course they are strong allies of the United States, shouldn't be using that kind of rhetoric. We are too important to each other not to work these things out," Mosbacher told reporters.
Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, speaking in Jerusalem, urged Poland and Israel to resolve their dispute.
The Hungarian prime minister and counterparts from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as stated, met with Netanyahu in lieu of the formal gathering of the central European Visegrád Group of countries that also includes Poland.
After meeting Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Orbán, who was asked by a reporter if he was disappointed by Poland's absence, said: "I think it would be better that they would be here."
"When you have two friends having discussions with each other the only hope you can have is that they will talk directly with each other and improve the situation. That's my hope also," Orbán said.
Netanyahu, who was standing at the podium with Orbán when the question was asked, did not respond directly, saying only that the Hungarian leader was a "superb diplomat."
The diplomatic row with Poland has been escalating since Friday, when some Israeli media reported remarks by Netanyahu in which he appeared to accuse the Polish nation of involvement in the Holocaust.
Netanyahu's office said he had been misquoted in his response to a reporter's question during a visit to Warsaw about Polish legislation related to Holocaust remembrance, and that he had not cast any blanket blame.
Many Poles refuse to accept research showing thousands of their countrymen participated in the Holocaust in addition to thousands of others who risked their lives to help the Jews.
Many of the 6 million Jewish dead perished in camps in Poland during its occupation by Nazi Germany.
Tensions between Israel and Poland also rose last year after Poland introduced new legislation that would have made the use of phrases such as "Polish death camps" punishable by up to three years in prison.
After pressure from the United States and an outcry in Israel, Poland watered down the legislation, scrapping the prison sentences.
