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A Polish director with Jewish heritage made a movie about the migrant crisis. The government compared it to Nazi propaganda.
(JTA) — Poland’s justice minister is embroiled in a feud with one of the country’s best-known filmmakers after comparing her award-winning new movie about Europe’s migrant crisis to Nazi propaganda.
The director, Agnieszka Holland, is the daughter of a Catholic mother and Jewish father, both of whom were part of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Her paternal grandparents died in the ghetto.
Holland’s latest film, “The Green Border,” tells the story of Syrian and Afghan refugees whose fates collide with a guard at the Poland-Belarus border. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, where it garnered rave reviews and won the special jury prize.
But reception has been much more hostile in Poland. Last week, several of the country’s right-wing ministers, including justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, attacked the film by saying its depiction of border agents insulted the country. Ziobro’s attacks, in particular, stoked Holland’s ire when he likened it to Nazi propaganda on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers,” Ziobro wrote. “Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that.” He later compared Holland to a communist.
The film’s social media pages have since been swarmed with antisemitic trolls, according to its sales agent. An irate Holland has threatened legal action against Ziobro, who is mentioned by name in the film. She has demanded that he apologize and make a donation to a Polish organization supporting Holocaust survivors.
An association for European filmmakers has come to Holland’s defense. “Agnieszka Holland was compared to the propagandists of the Third Reich by the Minister, even though the filmmaker is the daughter of a liaison officer of the Warsaw Uprising and the granddaughter of victims of the Holocaust,” the European Film Academy said in a statement, adding that Ziobro’s comments represented “personal hostility and threats.”
The episode demonstrates how intensely the current migration crisis has divided Poland, which has become the European frontline for the wave of refugees since Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko started encouraging mass migration across his country’s border in 2021. Lukashenko, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is thought to be pursuing a strategy to flood Poland with migrants as a means of destabilizing the West.
As Poland’s government has shifted far to the right in recent years, Polish leaders have attacked local historians who suggest the country was complicit during the Holocaust, drawing condemnation from international bodies. The government has also become increasingly anti-migrant, although it has opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia. Just this week, it became engulfed in a scandal regarding work visas that officials were allegedly being sold to migrants in exchange for bribes.
Holland has a history of making provocative films about the Holocaust, even drawing the ire of leading European Jews. “Shoah” director Claude Lanzmann accused her of antisemitism for her Oscar-nominated 1990 film “Europa, Europa,” which tells the true story of a Jewish child who disguised himself as a Nazi in order to survive during the war. Some Jews were also angered by another film Holland wrote about the Jewish doctor Janusz Korczak, who tried and failed to save hundreds of Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto. Holland’s 2011 film “In Darkness,” also Oscar-nominated, is about Jews in hiding in Nazi-occupied Poland.
“The Green Border” is scheduled for release later this month in Poland.
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‘Totally Obliterated’: US Bombs Iran’s Nuclear Sites, Trump Declares Operation a Success
US President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation alongside US Vice President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the White House in Washington, DC, US, June 21, 2025, following US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Pool
The United States launched a large-scale military strike against Iran early Saturday, destroying key nuclear enrichment facilities, including the heavily fortified Fordow site.
US President Donald Trump said in a public address that the operation had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities and urged Tehran to “make peace,” warning that any future aggression would be met with even greater force.
The multi-pronged strike combined stealth B‑2 Spirit bombers deploying bunker-buster bombs with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines. Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — all central to the Iranian nuclear program — were targeted in a coordinated assault. US military officials said the campaign neutralized Iran’s main enrichment operations.
Trump praised Israel’s role in coordinating the response and hailed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a key partner, saying the two leaders worked “as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before.” Netanyahu, for his part, called the American action “unmatched” and said it signaled a shift toward restoring regional stability.
Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the operation as a breach of sovereignty and international law, vowing to respond with force. Hours after the strike, Iran retaliated by unleashing a salvo of roughly 30 ballistic and hypersonic missiles toward central Israel. Several missiles hit urban centers including Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Haifa, and surrounding areas, causing injuries to at least 25 civilians and extensive property damage. Israel closed its airspace and instructed residents in key regions to only venture out for essential activities. In response, Israeli jets struck military targets in Iran, including missile launch sites and rocket depots.
Domestically, Trump’s decision exposed sharp political divisions in Washington. Republican hawks applauded the move as decisive, while isolationists and some constitutional conservatives questioned the legality of bypassing Congress, demanding oversight before further military escalation. Meanwhile, the United Nations and key US allies, including Britain and France, urged caution and a swift return to diplomatic solutions.
Iranian state media reported that most nuclear material was evacuated from Fordow ahead of the strike, the Reuters news agency reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said it detected no spike in off-site radiation.
According to Arab sources cited in The Wall Street Journal, the United States sent messages via regional intermediaries to reassure Tehran that the strike was a one-off and not part of a campaign to topple the regime. A senior US official confirmed that the administration clarified it had no intention of pursuing regime change and that the door remained open to renewed negotiations.
US Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), co-sponsors of a bipartisan resolution to block unauthorized military action in Iran, criticized Trump’s strike as unconstitutional. Massie called the move illegal, while Khanna urged Congress to immediately vote on their Iran War Powers Resolution “to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), meanwhile, called for Trump’s ouster, claiming it violated the US Constitution and as such was an impeachable offense.
“The president’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,” she said.
Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights lawyer and CEO of the International Legal Forum, rejected the criticism. He said Trump was acting well within his powers under Article II of the Constitution, which grants the president authority as commander-in-chief to protect national security.
“This is not without precedent,” Ostrovsky told The Algemeiner, pointing to former President Barack Obama’s operation to kill Osama bin Laden and former President Joe Biden’s airstrikes on Iranian proxies in Syria.
“Trump did not need the authorization of Congress in order to initiate a military strike,” he said, adding that the action was also supported by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and Article 51 of the UN Charter, which affirms a nation’s right to self-defense.
Ostrovsky also defended the legality of Israel’s involvement, saying its campaign was not a sudden act of aggression but a response to a protracted armed conflict initiated by Iran.
“Faced with an existential and imminent threat from a nuclear Iran, the Jewish state had no choice but to act before it was too late,” he said. He described the strikes as “lawful, necessary, and proportionate under the Laws of Armed Conflict against a genocidal regime that had vowed to destroy the world’s only Jewish state and stood on the cusp of acquiring the means to do so, had Israel not acted.”
“In striking Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Israel and the United States made the world a safer place. They did it not only in their own defense, but in defense of the free world,” he concluded.
The post ‘Totally Obliterated’: US Bombs Iran’s Nuclear Sites, Trump Declares Operation a Success first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.
The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.
They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.
Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.
Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.
The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip
Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.
The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.
He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.
The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.