Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski paid tribute to his country’s once-vibrant Jewish community in addressing the opening session of the annual American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum in Washington Sunday night, as he sought to draw a distinction between legitimate criticism of the Jewish State and anti-Semitism amid a backdrop of growing anti-Jewish feeling in Europe.
Invoking the EU’s own frought relationship with Israel, which has seen it adopt increasingly critical resolutions regarding Israeli policy, particularly on the contentious issue of its continued settlement expansion, he insisted that whilst “Poland doesn't- and need not - support everything Israel does to maintain its security, or its handling of Palestinian issues.... we completely reject and resist Islamic extremism”.
Referencing Israel’s own post-Holocaust foundations, which saw it emerge from a backdrop of Jewish persecution across Europe to become the first and only Jewish State, he continued: “Poland's basic policy on Israel is principled and unambiguous. Poland affirms Israel's right to exist within secure borders. Poland affirms Israel's right to defend itself.
After what happened in WWII to Poland and to the Jewish community in Poland and across Europe, no-one should expect today's Israel to sit meekly and wait to be attacked. A wise Israel will think about helping the Palestinians achieve the same.”
Drawing parallels between Nazi occupation of Poland during WWII and the modern-day attempts by many of Israel’s neighbours to delegitimise the Jewish State, Sikorski admitted the close allies had “both learnt in the 20th century that when enemies say they want to exterminate you, they often mean it”, seemingly invoking the continued Iranian nuclear threat and Israeli concerns over the Islamist regime’s financing of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist activity against Israeli targets. “Vile anti-Semitic rantings from certain Islamic clerics are a special disgrace. Western governments should be doing a lot more than they are doing, at the UN and elsewhere, to condemn them,” he added.
Poland, he argued, owed its fledgling modern-day Jewish community a debt for its failure to protect them from Nazi oppression, as he heralded the recent opening of a museum to the history of Poland’s historic Jewish community, which timed with the country’s official commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. “Poland today is free. Strong. And getting stronger. With great freedom comes great responsibility.
Part of this responsibility lies in making sure that today's Jewish community in Poland is safe, welcome and respected.... Today, the Jewish community in Poland is growing. It is welcome and requested.
We all draw new strength from their heroism. We accept the responsibility that our hard-won freedom gives us. To remember, and to learn. To build, and to look to a future,” he concluded.
Also addressing delegates Sunday was fellow Israel ally, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country was the only EU member state to oppose the Palestinian Authority’s contested appeal for non-member observer status at last November’s UN General Assembly. Insisting that the Czech Republic’s ties with the Jewish State was not limited to the higher tiers of the political hierarchy, but ran deep through the veins of the country, Schwarzenberg invoked the widespread change across the Middle East prompted by 2011’s Arab Spring movement, as he praised “the restraint and sensitivity with which Israeli diplomacy is navigating the challenge of responding to these events, which in many cases touch on Israel’s vital security interests”.
Refusing to criticise the Israeli government for failing to break the longstanding stalemate in direct peace talks with the Palestinians, which he said was a more a result of the “inability of the two sides to reach a mutually satisfactory compromise on a set of key issues including the division of land and the rights of Palestinian refugees, compounded by the chronic inability of the Palestinians to overcome their internal political disunity” than the changing political landscape of the region, he committed his country’s continued support for “the government of Israel in its responsibility to provide basic security for its citizens – no matter how high or low the hopes for a political solution to provide a lasting peace”.
Nevertheless, he warned, hopes for movement of the key issues, through internationally-desired direct peace talks, were “rowing increasingly distant and weak”. Continued malingering over this process, he added would inevitably bring additional dangers for the Jewish State, as he cautioned Israeli officials in his capacity as “an engaged, consistent and concerned friend of Israel for more than 50 years”, not to become complacent about the viability of a two state solution. Calling on key Israeli players not to conflate “their exasperation or disillusionment with the peace process” with a negative resigned attitude to its implementation, he further warned that “without an independent Palestinian state, there is no way for Israel itself in the long-term outlook to remain a state that is both Jewish and democratic”.
Reflecting on the growing gulf between European discourse on the Middle East Peace Process and Israel’s own feelings of neglect by its European allies who have increasingly regarded Israel’s longstanding settlement expansion policy as politically provocative to the Palestinian side, he criticised mainstream European political groups for condemning Israeli policy as “apartheid” in its nature. However, he cautioned Israel against purporting itself as the victim of such ideological exchanges, as he insisted that the “historically misleading and unfair” use of the term apartheid with regard to the Jewish State was irrelevant in the face of Israel’s increasing loss of European public opinion.
Such a growing trend of disillusionment with the Jewish State in European circles could only be addressed through employing advocacy, he maintained as he called on the AJC and other friends of Israel “to help Israeli leaders appreciate the challenge and recognise its roots in current psychological attitudes in Israel towards the peace process and future Palestinian statehood”.
Elsewhere during the three day annual conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry was due to deliver the key note speech of the event’s second day Monday, in his first public address to a Jewish group since entering office four months ago. Other speakers scheduled to address delegates Monday were Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, charged with reinvigorating peace talks with the Palestinians, in which capacity she has increasingly collaborated with Kerry in his efforts to achieve the same goal, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, by video link.