The centre-left Polish government of prime minister Donald Tusk has said that it respects all International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions and warrants, making it impossible for the Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the ICC, to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.
The 80th anniversary of the Soviet Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz, where over 1 million Jews were murdered, will take place on January 27 with Britain’s King Charles and many other world statesmen present.
Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, on December 27 condemned Poland’s decision to deny Netanyahu immunity for the Auschwitz ceremony.
“The fact that Israel’s prime minister will not be able to land in Poland for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is the most Orwellian-inverted reality,” she told Newsmax.
The Israeli official presented the issue in the context of antisemitism, saying that it “should trouble Jews around the world as it is a manifestation of a tsunami of antisemitism”.
Cotler-Wunsh added that the ICC warrants represent the “hijacking and weaponisation of international law and its infrastructures for the systematic demonising and denial of legitimacy as well as the application of double standards toward the state of Israel, the proverbial ‘Jew’ among the nations”.
She further argued that Poland was missing “the most important moment to say ‘never again’ in the 80-year commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz” and, in a reference to the Hamas attack of 2023, to stand with Israel “in response to the worst attack of Jews since the Holocaust”.
The Jerusalem Post also condemned the “obscene irony” of Poland potentially arresting Israel’s leader during a visit to Auschwitz, saying that it would “undermine the very purpose of the commemoration”.
According to Polish daily Rzeczpospolita the “ Israeli authorities did not even ask for Prime Minister Netanyahu to participate in the ceremony” because “they knew what Warsaw’s response would be”.
Polish deputy foreign minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, the son of former foreign minister and Auschwitz prisoner Władysław Bartoszewski, who is responsible for diplomatic coordination of the Auschwitz anniversary event, told the newspaper on December 27 that Poland is “obliged to respect the decisions of the ICC”.
Polish diplomats have made it clear that they are determined to ensure that Russian president Vladimir Putin, also the subject of an ICC arrest warrant, will one day face an international court for his actions and therefore will not do anything to undermine the ICC’s arrest warrants.
In another statement issued by the Polish foreign ministry on December 27 Bartoszewski tried to “set the record straight” on the controversy. He argued that he had never specifically said that Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered Poland, but added that Poland “adheres to all international agreements, treaties and obligations that she has signed and ratified”.
On 21 November this year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes during the armed conflict with Palestine.
All of ICC’s 124 members are in theory obliged to arrest the pair if they enter their territory, though France has already said that it would not do so.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, one of several set up by the occupying German Nazi forces in Poland which had a numerous Jewish diaspora before the second world war, was originally created to house Polish political prisoners and later used as the largest site for the extermination of Jews.
