Israel will have to fight Poland's bad suppression law
Ignoring protests from the Israeli government, as well as the United States and Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday enacted a bill that outlaws blaming Poland as a nation for crimes committed by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.While communism was awful, if Ukraine's trying to only blame it on Jews, that's bad. And this whole affair is a very dismaying example of European countries still refusing to let go of the bad side of their cultures, making battles against prejudice longer to complete.
Duda said earlier in the day that he planned to ask Poland’s constitutional court to evaluate the bill, leaving open the possibility it might be amended.
Nazi hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff from the Wiesenthal Center told World Israel News (WIN), “Israel must seek some sort of dialogue of experts’ in order to push for fundamental changes to the new law. Poland will not quash it but they can be encouraged to make modifications.”
Zuroff says that there were attempts to talk the Poles down from this well in advance, and said efforts have been underway dating back to 1998 when an international alliance of 31 countries was formed dedicated to Holocaust research and education.
“I am not terribly concerned about reports of fresh anti-Semitism in Poland. So far there have been no physical attacks on Jews. The reaction in Poland has consisted of a rash of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic social media posts and letters to the Israeli Embassy. There are many Polish citizens who want to whitewash the war crimes that Poles committed against Jews,” Zuroff said.
Zuroff was appalled that Ukraine was one of the countries listed as opposing the Polish law, but for its own twisted reasons. Poland is angry that some of the Ukrainians who killed Poles are now being hailed as Ukrainian national heroes. “I am quite concerned about Ukraine condemning the Polish law, for its own reasons.
Ukraine is the worst country in terms of holocaust distortion. They are trying to minimize the role of their nationals in crimes against Jews and Poles, including involvement in systematic mass murder. Ukraine also claims that communism is just as bad as Nazism and they want to brand communist atrocities as genocide. This is particularly problematic because according to them, there were Jewish communists who committed alleged crimes. This allows Eastern Europe a way to de-legitimize claims against Ukrainians because they were victims of ‘communist atrocities. It takes away from the uniqueness of the Holocaust and it is simply untrue historically,” Zuroff said.
Labels: anti-semitism, Europe, Israel, Moonbattery, poland, racism