Israeli Ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne sparked an international scandal after tweeting that those Poles who describe his country’s bombing of foreign aid volunteers as “intentional murder” are “anti-Semites”. The IDF apologized for what it said was a “misidentification” after its forces carried out a three-stage missile strike against the World Central Kitchen’s convoy in Gaza. They were traveling along an agreed-upon route with clear identification, however, which is why many believe this was intentional.
Polish society is so vocal about what happened because one of their compatriots was killed during the attack. Livne’s tweet condemning those of them who disagree with his government’s official story as “anti-Semites” was extremely offensive not only in and of itself, but also due to the continued Polish-Israeli dispute over responsibility for the Holocaust. In brief, Israel believes that Poles as a whole are as guilty as the Nazis are, while the Poles themselves remind Israel that they were also the Nazis’ victims.
Interested readers can learn more about this issue here since it’s beyond the scope of the present analysis, but it’s important to add that while bonafide anti-Semitism exists in all societies just like other forms of bigotry do, what’s oftentimes described as “anti-Semitism” in Polish society is anything but. The Commonwealth elite’s reliance on Jews as property managers, tax collectors, and money lenders made that group unpopular with the locals for socio-economic reasons, not ethno-religious ones.
Israel’s historically revisionist twisting of negative Polish views about Jews over the centuries as supposedly being driven by ethno-religious bigotry instead of genuine socio-economic reasons is meant to manipulate foreign perceptions about them in order to blame Poles for the Holocaust. They also ignore the disproportionate Jewish representation in the “Polish People’s Republic’s” brutal secret police during that Soviet-imposed entity’s early years to lie that “anti-Semitism” continued after World War II.
About that, many of the interwar Second Polish Republic’s Jews were impoverished contrary to false stereotypes about what had at that time been the largest Jewish country in the world, which predisposed them to “revolutionary” ideologies like communism. Their involvement in the aforementioned secret police that were imposed onto Poland as part of the Western Allies’ “Neo-Realist” Faustian deal with the USSR was for political reasons, not ethno-religious supremacist ones.
It’s therefore equally bigoted for Poles to blame all Jews for the crimes committed against them during the “Polish People’s Republic” as it is for Jews to blame all Poles for the crimes committed against them during the Holocaust. While many Poles realize this, many Israeli Jews still do not, hence why they still blame Poles as a whole for the Holocaust just because a few rogue ones sold some Jews out to the Nazis despite the Underground State’s death penalty against those Poles that betrayed their compatriots.
This extremely emotive context explains why Poles are so offended whenever they’re accused of “anti-Semitism”, the false claim of which Livne doubled down on in an interview shortly after his infamous tweet by smearing pro-Palestinian marches in Poland as “anti-Semitic demonstrations”. He also dodged a question about legal accountability for those IDF members who participated in the three-stage missile strike and whether the Polish victim’s families would receive any compensation from Israel.
His remarks infuriated Poles even more since they implied that perhaps their compatriot deserved to be killed because he might have supposedly been an “anti-Semite”, hence why Livne didn’t promise that those responsible would be held to account or that his family would receive compensation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s dismissive attitude earlier on Wednesday when he downplayed the attack as something that “happens in war” during a short video statement was also very offensive.
His Polish counterpart Donald Tusk tweeted the following in response: “Mr. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mr. Ambassador Livne, the vast majority of Poles showed full solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack. Today you are putting this solidarity to a really hard test. The tragic attack on volunteers and your reaction arouse understandable anger.” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski also reacted earlier in the day to Livne’s tweet in a strongly worded statement that went as follows:
“I would advise the Israeli ambassador to Poland to exercise more restraint and humility. This is the time for him to apologize rather than to inflame emotions.
If it is true what the Israeli press writes, that a humanitarian convoy was deliberately attacked, thinking that there might have been one terrorist there, but one who did not pose an immediate threat to a large group of people, then I do not know of an ethical system in which this is justified, and it arouses my moral indignation.
There was a willingness to sacrifice the lives of seven civilians in order to kill one terrorist, then Israel should apologize for this and pay compensation.”
Livne was also summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry to discuss the “new situation in Polish-Israeli relations and the moral, political and financial responsibility” according to Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Sejna. Despite all these official statements of displeasure that he himself was directly aware of, Livne still behaved as shamefully as he did during his interview later that day, thus prompting a sharp condemnation from Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz:
“The Israeli ambassador’s interview, full of arrogance, proves that there is no reflection in his attitude. As a country, we say clearly: we demand a thorough and objective explanation of the case and compensation for the family of the victim – a volunteer who helped another person and who should never be the target of an attack.”
Each of these reactions is legitimate, and it’s dishonest and disrespectful for Livne to condemn everyone who disagrees with his government’s official story as “anti-Semites”, which by innuendo also includes those top Polish officials who shared their opinion on the matter. This response is worthy of him being declared persona non grata like many Poles on social media are now demanding and it risks lending false credence to actual anti-Semites by making people think that Jews hate Poles for ethno-religious reasons.
The extremely emotive context in which his inflammatory words were made, which concerns Israel’s counterfactual claim that Poles as a whole are as guilty of the Holocaust as the Nazis are, makes it easy for some Poles to be manipulated by bigots into reaching that conclusion. The best way to prevent actual anti-Semitism from spreading throughout Polish society is for Livne to apologize for his false accusations of “anti-Semitism” and be replaced alongside Israel promising to compensate the Polish victim’s family.
