Andrzej Duda wrote to Donald Tusk regarding Benjamin Netanyahu. Politicians' comments

President Andrzej Duda sent a letter to Prime Minister Donald Tuskin which he asked the Polish government to provide protection against arrest for the Prime Minister Israel Benjamin Netanyahuif he came to Poland to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp. Netanyahu is subject to an arrest warrant issued by International Criminal Court. “Poland is a safe country, every leader coming to Poland is entitled to protection granted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an e-mail to the tvn24.pl editorial office.

Politicians in the Sejm commented on the matter on Thursday. Speaker of the Senate Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska she stated that as far as she knows, “Mr. Netanyahu is not going to Poland at all, he has no intention of taking part in these celebrations.”

– I appeal to the president: this is a very important and painful anniversary and I would focus on commemorating it with dignity. And commemorate the victims, people who died in Auschwitz, and it was not a political game. This is too serious a matter to behave like this, she added.

Deputy Speaker of the Senate Michał Kamiński said that he was glad that “President Duda started caring for the health and safety of Prime Minister Netanyahu.” – The problem is that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not seem to expect this type of support, because there is no problem. And I wonder why, if there is no problem, President Duda is trying to cause one, Kamiński said.

– I have a proposition for President Duda. Let him invite the guy he tolerated as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. (Zbigniew) Rau, and talk to Mr. Rau about what Mr. Rau said in Tehran about Israel. And whether Mr. Duda reacted or not when his friends flew to Tehran to make deals with the ayatollahs. And maybe then President Duda could show how much he cares about good relations with Israel. He somehow remained silent, said the deputy speaker of the Senate.

In his opinion, today the president “interferes when he is not asked for anything and, what's more, when there is no problem.” – Because no one in their right mind in Poland would try to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he came here – he added.

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Szymon Szynkowski aka Sęk said he was in favor of “trying to find some way out”. – Ultimately, if such a solution is not found, I believe that we should respect international law. This is my personal view as a former minister of foreign affairs, he emphasized.

– I believe that we should respect international law. However, first of all, I think that it is not good that this discussion is being conducted at all. And of course, diplomatic mechanisms must be used, he said.

At the end of December, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski published an open letter to the editor-in-chief of the Washington Timesin which he wrote that he never said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be arrested if he came to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It was a response to criticism from American publicist Clifford May. He noted, however, that Poland “is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and as such is obliged to comply with the orders issued by the ICC.”

The Israeli Prime Minister is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in the Gaza Strip. In November, the Court issued the order at the request of the ICC's chief prosecutor in the context of Israel's military campaign against the terrorist organization Hamas.

A Palestinian group invaded Israel in October 2023, killing approximately 1,200. Israelis – mainly civilians – and took approximately 250 hostages to the Gaza Strip. As a result of the war that started then, approximately 45.5 thousand people have died so far. Palestinians – says the local Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters among the victims.

As Bloomberg writes, Duda's request may put the Polish government in an awkward situation. As a signatory to the treaty establishing the ICC, Poland is obliged to respect its rulings, which also means readiness to hold those accused of crimes accountable.