A Scandalous Ban
This reckless, foolish decision will have negative repercussions for Poland for years to come. I write this so that every Jew who might come across this text knows that there are Poles who consider the ban on the Israeli leader’s pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau a moral and political scandal.
.Israel’s leader will not visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, a place of utmost sanctity and mourning for the Jewish community, due to arrest threats from… the son of late Władysław Bartoszewski. A decade ago, I couldn’t have imagined a Polish political affair this surreal, even if I’d tried. The concept of ‘Polishness as an abnormality,’ famously coined by Donald Tusk in his youth, has hardly ever been more evident in Polish politics. Even if we leave aside for a moment the political and historical substance of the matter, it is quite remarkable that someone in the Polish government (Tusk? Sikorski?) should have had such a wry sense of humour as to appoint Władysław Bartoszewski’s son to officially announce the plan to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister on the eve of the celebrations marking the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Bartoszewski was, after all, a prisoner of this camp, a member of the famous Żegota, and a Catholic publicist and activist who devoted half his life to building trust between Poles and Jews, becoming an icon of this work, both in Poland and in Israel. Today, he must be turning over in his grave as his son is so easily manipulated into sullying his work.
But appointing Bartoszewski to this role is just a clownish extension to the core of the problem. It is common knowledge that opinions among Jews regarding Netanyahu as a political figure are conflicting and divisive. To be more precise, liberal and left-wing Jews hate the Israeli prime minister, possibly surpassing the disdain for Ziobro or Kaczyński among the left in Poland. They’d be ecstatic if a Hague tribunal order led to Netanyahu’s arrest and transport to face the judges. It is also well known that a wave of anti-Jewish revolt, using the Gaza war as a pretence, is sweeping through American and European universities, with Netanyahu’s response to Hamas’s October 7th massacre of Jews as the catalyst, given his declared aim of eliminating the criminal organisation. It is no secret that these events have sparked an unparalleled surge of hatred towards Netanyahu and antisemitism in the West, unlike anything seen in the democratic world since WWII. And this wave is already being sympathised with by openly left-wing political leaders in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland (with which Israel has broken off diplomatic relations) and some other countries in the democratic West.
I am only stating these obvious facts to avoid any misunderstanding that I’m unaware of the current situation in Poland, or that I’m trying to silently ignore the facts that are unfolding before our eyes and that form the backdrop to the Polish government’s current position.
The Hague judges who issued the arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister are not all that keen on arresting the bloodiest tyrants of the modern world. The examples are so blatant that there is no need to mention them. However, these judges also have a passionate hatred of Netanyahu, only for entirely different reasons than the war in Gaza. Israel’s right-wing prime minister has been trying to break the political hegemony of the judges in his country, where the courts have – in a move that is difficult to comprehend – assumed the right to overrule not only laws but also political decisions of the Israeli cabinet, for example, on military matters (under the so-called ‘clause of reason’). Western politicians are aware of this, even if they don’t talk about it openly. This is one reason why the prosecution of Netanyahu by the Hague judges has been called a ‘scandal’ by the US president, and why the governments of France, Germany and Italy have decided not to comply with the judges’ directives. In Berlin, when the green head of diplomacy began to hint at the obligation to obey the judges’ orders, her stance was undercut by the chancellor’s spokesman, who called the arrest of the Israeli prime minister in Germany ‘unthinkable’.
It turns out, however, that it is perfectly conceivable in Poland, even if the arrest were to take place during the anniversary pilgrimage of the Israeli Prime Minister to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The meaning and overtones of this Polish announcement need to be understood very clearly. From the state’s point of view, Tusk’s government, acting against the position of Washington, Paris, Berlin or Rome, is aligning itself with the standpoint of fanatics, mainly from the anti-Jewish left. Tusk’s government apparently labels anyone opposing judicial power grabs as enemies. This approach has alienated those who were not previously enemies of Poland. It is well-known that left-liberal Jews, such as those at the New York Times, have consistently targeted Poland’s interests for harm. Unlike the Zionist right, which has long sought strong alliances with the countries of our region – Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary – alongside the United States.
But even worse is the second, historical and emotional aspect of the matter. Neither Tusk nor Sikorski, not to mention the son of Władysław Bartoszewski, should harbour any illusions about this. True, Jews are politically opposed to each other today, and one might ask when they weren’t. But the question of their special rights to Auschwitz-Birkenau is excluded from this dispute, even if it is fought to the death. Preventing the Israeli leader from standing in front of the remains of the Birkenau gas chambers with the last survivors of the Holocaust will be a fact known and remembered by every Jew in Israel and the world. Regardless of whether they are rejoicing or grieving at the current political troubles of the right-wing Prime Minister. And every Jew will know and remember that it was the Poles who prevented the Israeli Prime Minister from honouring the victims of the Holocaust on the anniversary of the liberation of the death camp. This reckless, foolish decision will have negative repercussions for Poland for years to come.
.I write this so that every Jew who might come across this text knows that there are Poles who consider the ban on the Israeli leader’s pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau a moral and political scandal.
