Israel has a surprising friend in Poland

[Kiwi]

Jewish News Weekly ^ | October 20, 2006 | Tad Taube

Posted on 02/20/2007 10:14:47 PM PST by bd476

    Friday October 20, 2006

    Israel has a surprising friend in Poland

    by tad taube




    A Polish Israeli Nobel Peace Prize candidate? Sounds crazy, no? Yet this surprising idea was advanced by Polish President Lech Kaczynski during his visit to Israel last month and received the enthusiastic support of Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

    The proposed Nobel candidate, 96-year-old Irena Sendlerowa, is a Polish Catholic who oversaw the children's section of Zegota, a Polish underground body that saved 15,000 Jews during World War II. Through her singular efforts, 2,500 Jewish children escaped death at the hands of the Nazis or their collaborators.

    The Nobel proposal is the latest example of the surprisingly close ties between Poland and Israel. Poland, in fact, is said to be one of the European countries most favorably inclined toward Israel.

    President Kaczynski was the first European head of state to pay an official visit to Jerusalem in the wake of the war with Hezbollah.

    Poland is a tough critic of Iran, and it has troops on the ground fighting with U.S. troops in Iraq and "doing a fine job," as former Speaker of the Knesset Shevach Weiss told the Polish press.

    If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Israel looks to have a friend in Poland.

    Poland is also willing to increase its United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL), Kaczynski said during his Jerusalem stay. And he went even further, suggesting that, if asked, Poland might agree to help mediate the stalled Middle East peace process. Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders appeared to be receptive to this notion, as Kaczynski learned when he paid a visit to Ramallah on the last day of his Middle East sojourn.

    This burst of cooperation does not come out of the blue. When it toppled communism in 1989, Poland had offered to let Soviet Jews travel through its territory, terrorist threats notwithstanding, even before it became the second ex-Soviet bloc country to reestablish relations with the Jewish state.

    Weiss, also former Israeli ambassador to Poland, remembers that when Poland joined the European Union, the Polish foreign minister phoned to assure him that the Polish voice would be "decent," Weiss says, "and it really is."

    Since then, political cooperation has been close, while business ties have boomed. Israeli businessmen, who have made investments in Poland globally amounting to some $2 billion (from real estate to shipbuilding), say that the climate they encounter in the country is very encouraging.

    Poland is also buying weapons from Israel and maintains close military and security ties with Jerusalem. "We don't talk in public about those things. We just do them," says former Polish Ambassador to Israel Maciej Kozlowski.

    These policies, supported by all of Poland's governments, left or right, also have the support of the country's media, which are markedly more objective about Israel than their Western European counterparts. All main Polish dailies, for example, played up the recent Amnesty International report accusing Hezbollah of war crimes in the recent fighting in Lebanon, while Western European papers were less interested. And seminars about Israel at the country's universities attract students genuinely interested in learning about the country, not the PLO sympathizers you'd expect in Paris or Rome.

    But there are troublesome current realities, including the assault of Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, documentation of anti-Semitism both by visitors and Polish human rights nongovernmental organizations, and inclusion of the notorious League of Polish Families, heir to Poland's prewar anti-Semitic Endecja party, as part of President Kaczynski's own Law and Justice party. So how does the "decency" Weiss speaks of align with the dark pages of Poland's recent past?

    The best answer is, "uneasily." Poland has squarely faced up to the debate about the wartime massacre of Jews by Poles in the town of Jedwabne, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has called that debate the frankest of all held in countries that had been under Nazi occupation. Rabbi Schudrich's attacker was caught and sentenced, and Kaczynski's party's coalition has been generally viewed as a parliamentary marriage of convenience. When the Israeli ambassador to Poland justifiably refused to interact with the current minister of education (who is the leader of the anti-Semitic League), issues concerning the March of the Living were promptly transferred from the Ministry of Education to the Office of the President.

    While President Kaczynski's soft-pedaling of anti-Semitism in Poland is potentially troubling, the Jewish community in Poland, reborn after communist oppression, continues to flourish. It has not experienced an increase of anti-Semitism under the current government, and on other issues, Jewish concerns are being fairly addressed: Communal property restitution is proceeding regardless of claimants' religious affiliation, and while Poland's postwar change of borders has made this a devilishly difficult issue, the new law should be passed by Parliament later this year.

    It is true that that the present government could be ousted. It is under heavy political attack for reasons quite apart from its stance on Israel or other Jewish concerns. Still, it seems reasonable to anticipate that any new Polish government would continue the course set by its predecessors since 1989 — that is, a pro-Israel administration that is sensitive to Jewish concerns. The expectation is that Poland will remain, as Kaczynski has said, "a friend of Israel."

    How many countries outside the United States are willing to stand tall and assert this claim? Supporters of Israel the world over should surely be grateful for the friendly overtures between Poland and Israel.

[newman]

Those pigs owe the Jews after all their pogroms.

[EagleEye]

Poland has squarely faced up to the debate about the wartime massacre of Jews by Poles in the town of Jedwabne

True, but Jan Gross has been debunked by superior and better qualified mainstream historians, who proved that German leadership was indeed present, "half the town" was not involved, and around 400, not 1700, people died.  So while individual Polish people were utilized, the story that Polish people, without the help of Germans killed 1700 Jews has been discredited pretty thoroughly by mainstream, non-revisionist, and respected official historians.

[newman]

Poland has squarely faced up to the debate about the wartime massacre of Jews by Poles in the town of Jedwabne

True, but Jan Gross has been debunked by superior and better qualified mainstream historians, who proved that German leadership was indeed present, "half the town" was not involved, and around 400, not 1700, people died.  So while individual Polish people were utilized, the story that Polish people, without the help of Germans killed 1700 Jews has been discredited pretty thoroughly by mainstream, non-revisionist, and respected official historians.

When german-nazis lead Jews off to the camps the polish peasants stood on the streets laughing and saying "good bye, Jews"!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hail Columbia]

That is quite ironic considering that the Poles themselves were subject to extermination, colonization, and the survivors subject to enslavement by the Nazis.

[EagleEye]

That is quite ironic considering that the Poles themselves were subject to extermination, colonization, and the survivors subject to enslavement by the Nazis.

True, and that doesn't mean there weren't a few collaborators, but there is no comparison, for instance, between Ukrainian collaboration and Polish collaboration.

Even with Ukrainians, another slavic group, the majority of ethic Ukrainians fought the Germans, who were vehemently anti-slav (as I documented clearly in another thread).  A minority of extremists collaborated.

[newman]

That is quite ironic considering that the Poles themselves were subject to extermination, colonization, and the survivors subject to enslavement by the Nazis.

True, and that doesn't mean there weren't a few collaborators, but there is no comparison, for instance, between Ukrainian collaboration and Polish collaboration.

Even with Ukrainians, another slavic group, the majority of ethic Ukrainians fought the Germans, who were vehemently anti-slav (as I documented clearly in another thread).  A minority of extremists collaborated.

The vast majority of poles and ukrainians were/are still vicious Jew-haters. There's no denying it.

[EagleEye]

Irrelevant.  Even if your unsupported hypothesis is correct, and clearly there were cultural clashes, they were German haters too!

[newman]

Irrelevant.  Even if your unsupported hypothesis is correct, and clearly there were cultural clashes, they were German haters too!

"unsupported"?? Try reading Jewish history written by people who were there at the time.

So what if they hated germans, too. The European crusaders hated muSSlims but they also butchered Jews by the thousand so they're still evil.

[EagleEye]

I believe the charge you are levying is that Polish antisemitism was a major factor in the holocaust, if I understand you correctly.  While 3 million Polish Jews were killed, so were 3 million Polish Christians.  And therefore it can be accepted, pretty easily, that German military force prevented Polish resistance.  Thus we can deduce that the attitudes of the Polish people would not have mattered, even if they were pro-Jew.

[newman]

I believe the charge you are levying is that Polish antisemitism was a major factor in the holocaust, if I understand you correctly.  While 3 million Polish Jews were killed, so were 3 million Polish Christians.  And therefore it can be accepted, pretty easily, that German military force prevented Polish resistance.  Thus we can deduce that the attitudes of the Polish people would not have mattered, even if they were pro-Jew.

What about before the war?

Forget about all the pogroms did you?

[EagleEye]

If you shifted the goal post any further, you would be off the field.  Your original argument dealt with the time period during WWII, not before or after it.

[newman]

If you shifted the goal post any further, you would be off the field.  Your original argument dealt with the time period during WWII, not before or after it.

Same people. Same attitude. What's the difference of 50 years either side of the war?

[EagleEye]

Obviously close to 70 years, not to mention new children and dying adults, is enough to make a difference but that wasn't the point I was making.  Cultural clash is understandable, mass-murder is not.  Obviously Polish people should be pro-Polish.  Just like Jewish people should be pro-Jewish.  At times there are conflicting interests between populations.  This could all be fixed with the respective self-determination of the two populations.  In other words, Catholic fundamentalism and the Jewish community may have trouble mixing, but that doesn't make either inherently evil, it just makes them culturally incompatible.  In other words, Polish people need not apologize for seeing the world from their own viewpoints, although they should progress their viewpoints.  So I don't excuse mass murder, but the gentile world can't revolve around Jews, and obviously there are going to be clashes between Jews and their non-Jewish populations wherever they go, even America.  My stance is that if Jews are upset with being the minority, they should go to Israel and they'll be the majority.

So in a lesser and more religious way, I accept that there was Polish antisemitism.  I don't, however, accept that Nazi-style racist antisemitism, in which every Jew was set to be exterminated purely on account of blood, is equivalent to Catholic fundamentalism.

[newman]

Obviously close to 70 years, not to mention new children and dying adults, is enough to make a difference but that wasn't the point I was making.  Cultural clash is understandable, mass-murder is not.  Obviously Polish people should be pro-Polish.  Just like Jewish people should be pro-Jewish.  At times there are conflicting interests between populations.  This could all be fixed with the respective self-determination of the two populations.  In other words, Catholic fundamentalism and the Jewish community may have trouble mixing, but that doesn't make either inherently evil, it just makes them culturally incompatible.  In other words, Polish people need not apologize for seeing the world from their own viewpoints, although they should progress their viewpoints.  So I don't excuse mass murder, but the gentile world can't revolve around Jews, and obviously there are going to be clashes between Jews and their non-Jewish populations wherever they go, even America.  My stance is that if Jews are upset with being the minority, they should go to Israel and they'll be the majority.

So in a lesser and more religious way, I accept that there was Polish antisemitism.  I don't, however, accept that Nazi-style racist antisemitism, in which every Jew was set to be exterminated purely on account of blood, is equivalent to Catholic fundamentalism.

Jews lived with christians in west european countries (except germany 32-45) and the USA, Australia , New Zealand, Canada and South Africa WITHOUT the same level of anti-semitism experienced on a daily basis in Poland and the east. So no excuse.

[EagleEye]

That is because the West was more secular than the East (until Communism).  But where did secularism get the Jews?  Nazism had secular roots!  The only difference between the East and the West is that the East was honest about how they felt about Jews, and the West lied until it finally murdered them (and the primary blame for the murders indeed is on the West).

[newman]

That is because the West was more secular than the East (until Communism).  But where did secularism get the Jews?  Nazism had secular roots!  The only difference between the East and the West is that the East was honest about how they felt about Jews, and the West lied until it finally murdered them (and the primary blame for the murders indeed is on the West).

No it's with germany. Not England, France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden or Norway. Pogroms happened in the east.....NOT the west9except germany). ALL of eastern europe are much worse Jew-haters than the west. Any book of Jewish history will tell you that. The west were not significantly less religious than the east until the post-war period.

[Ultra Requete]

That is because the West was more secular than the East (until Communism).  But where did secularism get the Jews?  Nazism had secular roots!  The only difference between the East and the West is that the East was honest about how they felt about Jews, and the West lied until it finally murdered them (and the primary blame for the murders indeed is on the West).

No it's with germany. Not England, France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden or Norway. Pogroms happened in the east.....NOT the west9except germany). ALL of eastern europe are much worse Jew-haters than the west. Any book of Jewish history will tell you that. The west were not significantly less religious than the east until the post-war period.

Are you taking about pre XVIII century Western Europe where jews were repetidly kicked out from Scotland, England, France, Spain and Portugal and there were constant pogroms and only country where Jews were welcomed was Polish-Lituanian Comonwealth with 80% of all European Jews living there in XVI century? or about the period since the 1795 to 1918 when Poland was under German, Austrian and Russian ocupation and the pogroms were organised by Tsarist Russian goverment becouse the Jews suported Polish uprising and were wieved just as Poles as agents of the west. Or  Between 1918-1939 where 3 milions of Polish Jews were living as full righted citisens and zionists Betar movement was armed by Polish Govermnt; Not to speaking about 80 thousend Jews who faught in Polish Army including M. Begin. The Myth of Polish Antisemitism as greatest in Europe was coined after Yalta, where the US and UK sold us to Stalin, that why the Kielce pogrom was orchestrated by NKWD to show the Poles as rabid Jew Eaters so the west was absolved of guilt for treason and everybody was happy.       

[EagleEye]

that why the Kielce pogrom was orchestrated by NKWD to show the Poles as rabid Jew Eaters so the west was absolved of guilt for treason and everybody was happy.

This is another topic I am interested in researching, the Kielce event.  Many Poles suggest that the Soviets purposely fed the Polish people propaganda, for the purpose of discrediting their nationalism.  IE, the Soviets wanted power, so they were willing to lose a few Jews to gain it.  The thing is that the Communist Government destroyed all of its research in 1989.  To me, this makes it look like they had something to hide, but I'll admit that I can't say with 100% certainty whether the Soviets purposely did this or not.

[Ultra Requete]

that why the Kielce pogrom was orchestrated by NKWD to show the Poles as rabid Jew Eaters so the west was absolved of guilt for treason and everybody was happy.

This is another topic I am interested in researching, the Kielce event.  Many Poles suggest that the Soviets purposely fed the Polish people propaganda, for the purpose of discrediting their nationalism.  IE, the Soviets wanted power, so they were willing to lose a few Jews to gain it.  The thing is that the Communist Government destroyed all of its research in 1989.  To me, this makes it look like they had something to hide.

The Stalin and Soviets were good in divide and rule and all this misinformation buisness, and they were purposly instaling the few comunists with jewish ancestry in key party or secret police positions  in conquered countries to bolster the antisemitism while simuntanisly persecuting Jewish zionists in USSR, in Poland those "Jews" with sometimes thin conection tojudaism or jewish culture were  purged from the MBP (ministry of public security) from 1956 and ultimetly from expeled from the communist party in 1967 for mainly for charges of zionism. 

[RationalThought110]

Those pigs owe the Jews after all their pogroms.

Could you or The Infidel post about some of Poland's Jewish History?

[Kiwi]

Those pigs owe the Jews after all their pogroms.

Could you or The Infidel post about some of Poland's Jewish History?

I have a few things I will post soon.

[Ultra Requete]

Those pigs owe the Jews after all their pogroms.

Could you or The Infidel post about some of Poland's Jewish History?

Start with this for overview:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html

or that from the Warsaw's Museum of Polish Jews:

http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl//articles.php?miId=138&lang=en