OPINION:
Clifford D. May’s recent letter to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski involves me, as it is based on statements I supposedly made, as well as pseudo-facts (“A letter to the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski,” web, Dec. 24). As this may harm good Polish-Israeli and Polish-American relations, I feel obliged to set the record straight.
Mr. May writes that I recently said that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears at Auschwitz-Birkenau at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of that German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, he will be arrested. I would expect The Washington Times to provide the source of that quote. Mr. May has failed to do so. The truth is, I never said it.
Poland is indeed a signatory of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and as such is obliged to respect the warrants issued by the court, something Mr. May suggests we refuse and reject. He states that Poland is safe thanks to Article 5 of the NATO treaty. There is no contradiction here. Poland adheres to all international agreements, treaties and obligations it has signed and ratified.
In 2001, when Article 5 of the treaty was invoked for the first time in history by the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks, Poland acted without hesitation. We sent thousands of Polish soldiers to Afghanistan to fight alongside our American allies and took responsibility for Ghazni province.
Finally, there is a personal aspect that must be mentioned. I have been dealing with Jewish and Israeli matters in academia and politics since the 1980s. I have followed in the footsteps of my father, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a former prisoner of Auschwitz, former foreign minister of Poland, honorary citizen of Israel and chairman of the International Auschwitz Council and until his death, a friend of Mr. Netanyahu.
WLADYSLAW TEOFIL BARTOSZEWSKI
Deputy foreign minister
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