We are outraged and disappointed by the decision and attitude of the Polish President and Prime Minister to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come to Poland undisturbed and participate in the commemoration of the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
Netanyahu is facing an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. He is accused of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, where more than 46,000 people have already been killed (by conservative estimates). Recognizing him as a war criminal, with the amount of evidence already available today, is only a matter of time and a formality.
Just a few months ago, when Mongolia hosted Vladimir Putin, also subject to an ICC arrest warrant, the Polish government criticized such an action. We are ashamed of the hypocrisy of our country’s authorities.
In addition, it is disgusting that a war criminal, committing genocide in front of the whole world, would visit a former death camp. After all, it was the Holocaust survivors who coined the slogan NEVER AGAIN. The actions of Netanyahu, his government and the army simply trample this appeal. Some of us have family members who survived the ghettos and camps, or died in them. Poland knows like few EU countries what war and genocide on a systemic scale are. It’s scandalous to allow a person who pursues a policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in his own country into a place that epitomizes the death machine unleashed by a criminal and racist regime.
In our eyes, Putin and Netanyahu deserve equal condemnation and punishment. We appeal to the Polish government and president to fulfill the duty incumbent on the Polish state. As a member country of the International Criminal Court, we are obliged to arrest the Israeli prime minister if he appears on Polish territory. You can still take a step back. Stand on the right side of history, on the side of the victims!