It’s Immoral for Israeli Guides at Auschwitz to Attribute Blame to Poland for the Holocaust

No self-respecting state would ever sell its soul for a few shekels by letting foreign guides break a very sensitive law that was promulgated in defense of historical truth and get away with it scot-free. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, and being an Israeli Jew doesn’t make anyone an exception.

Israeli Foreign Minister Lapid announced that his country cancelled its schools’ tours of Auschwitz this summer in protest of Poland demanding that its guides obey their 2018 law criminalizing the claim that their state had any role in the Holocaust. For everything that Poland can be fairly criticized for nowadays, especially its Prime Minister’s shameless boasting that his country set the global standard for Russophobia and its Undersecretary of State for Security thuggishly intimidating a Polish athlete in Russia, it deserves credit where it’s due after taking a firm stand against Israeli historical revisionism.

The fact is that while some members of the population did indeed go rogue by betraying their Jewish compatriots to the genocidal Nazi occupiers, the overwhelming vast majority of Poles literally risked their lives to protect them. Furthermore, the Polish Underground State also participated in these life-saving missions to protect their country’s Jewish citizens. It’s nothing but a national smear campaign driven by fake news and Polonophobia to state that Poles and especially their state were responsible for the Holocaust when they did everything in their power to stop it.

Israeli national identity is largely built around that Nazi genocide, but lying about what happened doesn’t endear others to sympathize with their state’s contentious creation. In fact, it’s actually disrespectful to those over six million Jews who were slaughtered in less than six years by pretending that Poles and their state were partially responsible for this. Not only that, but it’s also immoral to spew this counterfactual historical revisionism while on Polish territory and giving tours of the most infamous Nazi death camp.

All people are supposed to be equal before the eyes of the law and no exception should ever be made for someone on the basis of their ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Israeli guides must follow the same law as their Polish and other peers. Warsaw has every right to enforce its relevant law no matter what one might think of it since Poland is a sovereign state. It’s already arguably surrendered quite a lot of its sovereignty to the EU over the past two decades but it nevertheless still retains some of it with regards to domestic affairs.

Israel is flat-out wrong for demanding that Poland make an exception to its law criminalizing historical revisionism about the Holocaust. Tel Aviv was obviously trying to force Warsaw into becoming its junior partner by unilaterally conceding on a sovereign issue of objective national interest just to continue raking in the money that it gets from Israeli tourists each year. To its credit, Poland stood firm and that’s why Israel decided to cancel this summer’s tours of Auschwitz as a form of protest, hoping that the brouhaha will contribute to an international infowar campaign against that country.

Regardless of what happens and irrespective of whatever anyone thinks about Poland’s other decisions such as its leading role in the NATO proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, it deserves praise for not capitulating to Israel’s arrogant demand that it make an exception to its law for that country’s tour guides. No self-respecting state would ever sell its soul for a few shekels by letting foreign guides break a very sensitive law that was promulgated in defense of historical truth and get away with it scot-free. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, and being an Israeli Jew doesn’t make anyone an exception.


By Andrew Korybko
Source: OneWorld

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