The Israeli Government and the US ambassador to Poland have attacked Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski for remarks on the crisis in Gaza.
Their condemnation came after Tusk appeared to compare Israeli actions to those of the Germans during the Second World War.
The PM posted on social media on August 3 that, despite Poland supporting Israel in its fights against Islamic terrorism, “It will never be on the side of politicians whose actions lead to hunger and the death of mothers and children.
He added: “This must be obvious to the nations that went through the hell of World War II together.”
Israel’s foreign ministry called Tusk’s remarks “unacceptable”, objecting in particular to the reference to the Second World War.
“Unfortunately, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is linking his timely condemnation of Hamas with an unacceptable reference to politicians, accompanied by a reminder of the horrible days of World War II,” the ministry said in a statement issued on August 4.
It also said that Israel was committed to preventing another genocide.
“Never Again, Prime Minister Tusk, applies to our era’s new Nazis and their collaborators, Hamas. Israel acts within international law,” it said.
Sikorski also posted on the matter, calling on Israel to abide by international law
“Starving children in Gaza do not know what Hamas is. Israel, even when acting in self-defence, is not exempt from respecting international law,” he said.
Tom Rose, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post of ambassador to Poland, in turn, criticised Sikorski.
“History offers no precedent where a terrorist group wages war for the explicit annihilation of a sovereign state, embeds itself among civilians, and then relies on that very state to supply it with food, water, and fuel,” he stated.
“And yet, that is exactly what Israel has done, often under duress, often at great cost and risk to its own soldiers, and almost always without reciprocity.”
Rose defended Israel’s stance, rejecting it being labelled as tyrannical and claimed that it was “acting well within the bounds of international law”. In addition, he said it had provided “more humanitarian aid to its mortal enemy than any combatant in the history of warfare, doing so under tremendous pressure and at great risk to its own flesh and blood”.
Rose noted that Ukraine was not expected to “send convoys of aid while under fire to feed Russian civilians in occupied Donbas or Crimea”, yet Israel was facing such demands “daily”.
Poland recognised Palestine as a State in 1998 and has consistently been in favour of a two-State solution.
It has, though, supported Israel in the Middle East against Iran, despite tensions between Poland and Israel over past Jewish history in Poland.
Many Israeli historians and officials said they felt that Poland had not done enough to confront the history of anti-Semitism in Poland, alleged collusion between some Poles and the Germans in persecuting Jews and in compensating Jews for properties seized by the Polish State after the war.
Poland argued that the responsibility for what happened to Jewish property during the war lay with the Germans.
It said many Poles risked their lives in attempts to save Jews during the conflict and that the Polish underground actually executed those individuals who were found to be collaborating with Germans over the persecution of Jews.
