Who are the peacemakers now?
Last week, Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek paid his first visit to Israel since he took office, in a visit designed to move forward Polish-Israeli relations after a period of some tensions, both inside and outside Poland. The result of the carefully staged visit was a recovery of trust between the two countries, while at the same time Poland made moves to recover its role as a player in the Middle East. That trust has been betrayed badly in the past but contrary to popular perceptions, the fault lies not with the current government, but the former rulers of communist Poland.
The government in recent months has found itself embarrassed by the mounting campaign being undertaken in the United States by radical Jewish lawyers and Jewish groups, seeking to sue the Polish government for loss of property after World War II, when substantial amounts of Jewish property were confiscated by the communists with no compensation. Although no case has yet been successful, the U.S. groups have done much to test the Polish government's patience over an issue where not even Polish citizens have had the opportunity to recover property, because of the failure of successive Parliaments to pass a reprivatization and property restitution law.
A further element of tension in Polish-Israeli relations over the last few years has been the result of the decision by Poland this year to finally annul a major defense contract with Israel on the basis of procedural irregularities, and which the Israelis last week complained to Buzek had caused serious damage to the interests of the Israeli defense industry.
So, not an auspicious background to Buzek's visit. But the truth is that despite appearances, the current government has gone out of its way to appease Jewish and Israeli concerns about potential Polish anti-Semitism. That was certainly the charge made by many on the left toward the governing Solidarity Election Action (AWS) party prior to elections two years ago, and it is still commonplace to hear of suspicions that AWS is somehow anti-Semitic. Yet a government where both the foreign minister and chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee are Jewish hardly qualifies AWS as a hotbed of anti-Israeli sentiment. And it was with AWS support that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, was nominated. Bartoszewski is an Auschwitz survivor and a doughty fighter for both Polish-Jewish and Polish-German reconciliation. In the office of the prime minister, there is a specially appointed adviser to Buzek whose sole task it is to watch over Polish-Jewish relations.
That is a stance that is not limited to the government. Ever since taking office, President Aleksander Kwasniewski has gone out of his way to promote Polish-Jewish relations, including a high-profile state visit to Israel, and a less-publicized, private two-day trip this past summer. Opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) leaders such as Leszek Miller have also spoken out in favor of strengthening Polish-Jewish links. That of course is to be congratulated, but it is in sharp contrast to the past, when under communism Poland was riven by official campaigns of anti-Semitism, including the notorious anti-Semitic purge of politics and academia in 1968.
Feeding on latent anti-Semitism was a favorite trick by communist regimes throughout Central Europe and the Soviet Union to achieve popular legitimacy. As history has shown, that attempt failed, although many of those responsible for state-sanctioned anti-Semitism, or at least those who acquiesced in it, remain active politically within the SLD or on its fringes.
The message that the AWS government is seeking to be a friend to Israel, despite short-term difficulties, was one that Buzek took to Tel-Aviv. At the same time, Poland's agenda in the Middle East extends beyond Israel, and includes building up relations with the new Palestine, as evinced by Buzek's meeting with Yasser Arafat, and the promise from Arafat that he will be visiting Poland early next year. That will be something of a homecoming for Arafat, since under communism it was Poland that was the leading country which sheltered then-PLO terrorists, including the notorious Abu Nidal, who was allowed to be holed up in Warsaw at the time. Communist intelligence services were quite happy, together with the East German Stasi, to assist in terrorist training and arms sales for the PLO, who in turn used the training and weapons in their terror campaign against Israel. The communist protectors of the PLO remain free and unpunished to this day.
It is fitting that it should fall to Buzek and AWS to rebuild trust between Poles and Israelis, and Israelis and Palestinians. In that task, they are merely repairing the damage wrought in years past, much of it thanks to communist rule.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed on director@cec.com.pl
