Brussels, January 8th, 2025 – The threat of the Polish government to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he attends the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps on January 27 is unacceptable and reinforces the worst forms of modern antisemitism in that it implies that Jews are no better than the Nazis as they, according to the ICC, are also responsible for a genocide. Arresting the democratically elected Israeli leader on the same soil where millions of Jews were slaughtered only 80 years ago would undoubtedly go to history as the gravest misconception of law and justice in modern times.
Speaking out on Tuesday afternoon ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell added that “this seems to be yet another example of a European obsession with dead Jews while failing to support the Jewish people of today as they are still recovering from the trauma of the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, the single deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. While there were no Israeli Armed Forces around to prevent the horrors of the Holocaust, today the Jewish state is fighting back against those who are driven by the same demonic ideology of murdering Jews as Hitler 80 years ago. To threaten to arrest the democratic leader of the resurrected Jewish state, a prime minister who refuses to let its citizens, including Holocaust survivors, relive the horrors of 80 years ago and instead is committed to protecting its people is nothing short of a travesty of international law and justice.”
The Polish decision is already causing protests around the world. One prominent Jewish leader, the former CEO of the American Jewish Committee and a long-time advocate for strengthening Poland’s ties with Jews and Israel, David Harris, has announced that he and his colleagues at The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) have cancelled their planned trip to Poland this month.
The Polish stance will cause further damage to Israeli Polish relations which have been tense already for many years. Many Jewish organizations have accused the Poles of complicity in the Holocaust, pointing out that there were atrocities against Jews committed by Poles before, during and after the Holocaust while others have noted that the number of Polish citizens who saved Jews from the Holocaust is the highest in the world.
This only shows that Israeli Polish relationships are rich in complexity and neither side will benefit from a new controversy. Whereas the Polish decision may have a clear rationale, to strengthen the rule based international system by abiding by the decision of the ICC, it is not without complications. Neither Germany nor France have committed to abide by the same ICC ruling, and the incoming US administration has doubled down on its criticism of the ICC by promising to sanction the judges of ICC for what they and many others consider to be a highly politicized ruling instigated by rogue states like Iran with the help of South Africa.
In his closing remarks Sandell said, “There is still time to repair the damages, apologize and reinvite the Israeli Prime Minister to Poland. If the Polish government fails to do so the European Union will have to step in. A failure to correct this historic injustice would be a travesty of international law and a victory for the butchers of Auschwitz. “
