In March, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed an agreement on “cooperation in the field of study visits of organized youth groups. This was after the Lapid government last August canceled the visits of Israeli schoolchildren to Poland that were scheduled for last September through November. Israel announced that the two sides had reached a dead-end regarding content and security. Lapid, who served as both PM and FM, said the visits had been canceled due to the Polish government’s demand to intervene in the content that would be presented to the participating youths.
Now an agreement has been reached and is only waiting to be ratified by the Knesset and the Polish Sejm. The deal will, in fact, expose Israeli schoolchildren to Poland’s version of what happened under six years of German occupation.
This agreement has 100%+ potential to desecrate the memory of the Holocaust, any sense of historical accuracy, any notion of decency and responsibility. Worse than this is that it desecrates the memory of the Six Million. We can only pray that common sense prevails and that this agreement is swiftly voted down and without any debate or hesitation.