Poland and Israel are embroiled in two new disputes on top of their three older ones over Israel’s claim of large-scale Polish complicity in the Holocaust, its resultant demand for reparations, and top Israeli official Israel Katz then accusing Poles of “suckling anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk”. The first scandal began when populist-nationalist Confederation MP Konrad Berkowicz unfurled an Israeli flag with a swastika in the Sejm on Holocaust Remembrance Day and called Israel the “new Third Reich”.
The Polish Foreign Ministry swiftly condemned him, as did US Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose, but he did so in a quote-tweet of Confederation leader Slawomir Mentzen’s post promoting Berkowicz’s stunt. Rose scandalously wrote, “SHAME SHAME SHAME on YOU!! Maybe even you have noticed that we Jews aren’t so easy to push around anymore, are we? We defend ourselves with all our strength without apology — we stand with our friends and we know how to fight and defeat our enemies!!!”
Mentzen asked, “Are you threatening me?”, but Rose didn’t respond. For context, Rose reportedly told pro-US conservative “Law & Justice” (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski earlier this year that the US wouldn’t support a coalition government that includes populist-nationalist Confederation of the Polish Crown leader Grzegorz Braun due to his anti-Semitic scandals. If this is applied to Confederation, then PiS could be deterred from forming a coalition with it after fall 2027’s next elections, thus perpetuating liberal rule.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry predictably condemned Berkowicz too, but even more scandalously wrote on X that “Such a person has no place in the parliament of democratic Poland. We expect the Polish authorities to take decisive and swift action.” Mentzen then condemned them for “decid[ing] who should have a place in the Polish parliament.” The second scandal then began when Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski quote-tweeted the Israeli Embassy over its inquiry into the IDF’s desecration of Jesus.
Part of his post saw him write that “IDF soldiers themselves admit to war crimes. They killed not only civilian Palestinians but even their own hostages”, thus prompting a lengthy and furious reply from his Israeli counterpart that US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described as “absolute fire”. Former Polish Ambassador to Israel and the US Marek Magierowski, who’s no friend of Sikorski’s, questioned which country Huckabee represents and condemned his intervention into the issue as inappropriate.
The implications of the US backing Israel in its two latest disputes with Poland are several. First, more Poles might consider the US to be an unreliable ally than they already do. Second, this could boost support for either the ruling liberals’ policy of prioritizing the EU over the US or the populist-nationalists’ one of balancing between them. And finally, if PiS still comes out on top in fall 2027’s next elections, it might defy the US by building a coalition with Confederation for reasons of political self-preservation.
What’s so ironic about Rose’s and Huckabee’s support for Israel over Poland is that Rose earlier cut ties with Sejm Speaker Wlodzimierz Czarzasty for criticizing Trump on the basis that it harms bilateral ties. He recently repeated his rhetoric and called him a “menace”. As it turns out, Rose and Huckabee are doing exactly what Rose accused Czarzasty of doing. In fact, it’s even more damaging since few Americans know or even care about what Czarzasty said, but Poles are furious about what Rose and Huckabee said.
