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Why Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go to Poland
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Imagine the scene: dignitaries from around the globe gather at the site of Auschwitz Concentration Camp to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its liberation. It’s a solemn event marking the end of one of history’s darkest chapters. Yet, conspicuously absent is the Prime Minister of Israel, the nation born from the ashes of the Holocaust.
Sounds crazy, right? Well, that’s precisely what will happen on January 27, 2025, if Poland gets its way. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz — the most notorious killing ground of the Holocaust — the Prime Minister of Israel, leader of the nation resurrected from the ashes of that genocide, will be absent.
Not because he refuses to attend but because Poland has threatened to arrest him under a grotesque and politically motivated International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant. So, while Netanyahu — the democratically elected of the world’s only Jewish state — is deliberately sidelined, leaders from countries that gladly collaborated with the Nazis, or turned away Jewish refugees, or stood idly by as millions were slaughtered, will gather to wring their hands, pose for photos, and make pious speeches. It’s not just surreal; it’s obscene.
Think about it. The leader of Israel — whose very existence is a defiant rebuke to the forces that tried to erase the Jewish people — barred from entering the gates of Auschwitz to honor the memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, diplomats from nations complicit in the Holocaust, and others whose modern policies enable rising antisemitism, will sit comfortably in the front rows. And the Jewish state? Silenced and snubbed. This isn’t just absurd — it’s an insult to history, to the victims of the Holocaust, and to every Jew alive today.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, this is not just an affront to you personally — it’s an affront to all Jews, past and present. It is a grotesque humiliation aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy and moral authority. It is a slap in the face of every Holocaust survivor who rebuilt their lives in the Jewish state and every descendant of those who perished, whose very existence today stands as a defiant testament to Jewish resilience. Don’t let them get away with it.
The ancient Greeks didn’t get away with it. At the time of the Chanukah story, Antiochus IV Epiphanes — a ruthless tyrant whose family inherited a province of the Greek empire from Alexander the Great — stormed into Jerusalem with military force and desecrated the Holy Temple. He erected idols, installed Greek gods, and ordered the Jews to bow and sacrifice to them. Some Jews complied, hoping that submission might preserve peace.
But Matityahu the High Priest and his sons, led by Judah Maccabee, refused to surrender. They wouldn’t allow humiliation to become the new normal. Outnumbered and outmatched, they stood tall, fought back, and prevailed. Their first act upon reclaiming the Temple was to light the menorah. That flame has burned ever since — a testimony that Jews will not be cowed. Not then. Not now.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, you must be Judah Maccabee — strong, proud, and unafraid. Go to Poland. Stand where millions of our people perished and declare, without hesitation, that the Jewish people are still here, still standing, and will never be silenced again. Dare them to arrest you — dare them to drag the Prime Minister of Israel, the representative of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, into custody, on the very soil that drank their blood.
Let the cameras roll and let the world see the true face of modern antisemitism — the kind that hides behind international law and hollow platitudes. And if they try? Let them face the global outrage that will follow, the fury of Jews and non-Jews alike who still have a moral conscience. Go to Auschwitz, Prime Minister Netanyahu, not just as a leader but as a symbol. Show them that we are no longer victims, no longer voiceless. Show them that we are the Maccabees, and we do not bow.
And to those in Washington, D.C., who still understand right from wrong: remember that Israel is not just your closest ally in the Middle East — it’s the only democracy in the region, standing firm and holding the line in an increasingly unstable world.
Every enemy of the West has tried to bring Israel down, but Israel has done what others were too afraid to do. Hamas is crippled. Hezbollah is reeling. Assad’s Syria has collapsed into irrelevance. And the Houthis, along with their Iranian backers, are next. Israel is fighting the battles the West refuses to fight, defending not just itself but the values and security of the free world.
The United States has long opposed the ICC’s outrageous overreach and its obsession with targeting Israel. That opposition must not waver now. This is not just an attack on Israel — it is an attack on the moral foundations of America’s closest ally and, by extension, on America itself.
To allow Benjamin Netanyahu — the elected leader of the Jewish state — to be barred from a Holocaust memorial is to embolden those who seek to delegitimize Israel and the West. Now is the time to act. Diplomatic channels must be mobilized immediately to ensure Netanyahu can attend this memorial unimpeded and unmolested. To do anything less is to send a message that antisemitic agendas dressed up as international law can go unchallenged — and that message must never be sent.
If Netanyahu does not attend, history will record a disgraceful spectacle — the leader of the Jewish state, the only Jewish country in the world, absent from Auschwitz while nations that turned their backs on the Jews, or worse, actively aided their murder, take center stage with sanctimonious speeches and hollow gestures. The optics are not just nauseating — they are a betrayal of memory and truth.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, ignore the threats. Defy the antisemitism masquerading as justice. Show the world that Jews will never again be humiliated — not by violence, not by persecution, and certainly not by the hypocrisy of international institutions hiding behind the veil of legality. Let your presence at Auschwitz declare that the Jewish people have endured, they have survived, they have rebuilt — and they will never be erased.
Light the menorah. Be Judah Maccabee — bold, unyielding, and fearless. The Jewish people — and history — demand nothing less.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post Why Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go to Poland first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.