Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Poland: “There Would Be No Hamas If Not for Israel”

Prime Minister Donald Tusk,

I am addressing you to urge restraint and to refrain from expressing opinions that seriously damage Poland’s image on the international stage.

On August 3rd, you wrote on platform X:
“Poland has stood, stands, and will stand with Israel in its confrontation with Islamic terrorism, but never with politicians whose actions lead to hunger and the death of mothers and children. This must be obvious to nations that have gone through the hell of World War II together.”

Well, if you were listening to the voice of the Polish Nation – which I do not suspect you of – you would know that Poland (meaning the country inhabited mostly by Poles) is definitely not on the side of Israel.

Let me explain something to you as plainly as possible. Israel has been brutally occupying Palestine for decades (just like Germany occupied Poland during World War II). The Jewish founders of Israel in 1948 stole the land of the Palestinians, on which they began to build their Zionist state entity. At the same time, the Nakba began, which in Arabic means “catastrophe” – the term Palestinians use to describe the tragedy of 1947–1949, when after the establishment of Israel around 750,000 people were forced to leave their homes, and hundreds of villages were destroyed or depopulated. Israel took over territory far larger than what was foreseen by the UN resolution.

The Nakba is still an open wound. Today, millions of Palestinian refugees live in the diaspora, deprived of the right of return.

Meanwhile, Palestinians who remained on the lands occupied by Israel have been deprived of the basic rights necessary for existence. It is enough to mention that for decades they have been denied the right to life and security (due to military actions, attacks, and limited access to healthcare), the right to use natural resources and land (restricted access to water and farmland, forced displacements, expansion of Jewish settlements), the right to free movement (numerous blockades, checkpoints, restrictions on entry and exit from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank), and the right to self-determination and political participation (limited by permanent occupation).

Since the beginning of the occupation, Israel has used perfidious methods to humiliate and destroy the Palestinians. These methods include arbitrary mass arrests – including of children and women. Palestinians suffer and die in prisons often without charges, based only on “secret” evidence that – as we know from our own history – the occupier can simply invent on the spot.

It is estimated that from 1967 (after the Six-Day War) until today, over one million Palestinians have been held in Israeli prisons – that is about 20% of the entire Palestinian population and 40% of the male population. To end up in an Israeli prison, it is enough, for example, to have a newspaper or a CD with Palestinian music calling for freedom. Sometimes an arrest can result from a look considered inappropriate. Sometimes just the tone of voice or a strong personality is enough to be detained and deprived of freedom.

Palestinian prisoners are systematically subjected to torture. The most commonly used methods include beatings, electric shocks, strangulation, prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme cold. Prisoners in Israeli jails also experience sexual violence, including gang rapes. Many victims are stripped naked and forced into humiliating positions.

Children are kept in dark cells, intimidated, and brutally interrogated, often without a lawyer or guardian present. These actions constitute serious violations of international law and are recognized as a form of systemic repression.

In light of these facts, do you consider as “Islamic terrorists” the Palestinians who have been persecuted for decades and are simply trying to survive in a difficult reality? Since you spoke in response to a comment by Tom Rose, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Poland, about the words of Radosław Sikorski, the Foreign Minister, it is easy to conclude that by “Islamic terrorists” you mean Hamas. Therefore, I will allow myself to explain where such organizations come from.

Hamas is a Palestinian resistance movement that arose in response to Israeli occupation. Israel has implemented apartheid – a system of institutionalized racial segregation in which one ethnic, national, or racial group dominates and discriminates against another, depriving it of basic civil, social, and political rights. In this case, we are dealing with Jewish settlers persecuting Palestinians.

There would be no Hamas and its actions – including armed ones – if Jewish settlers had not seized the land of the Palestinians and deprived them of all rights, including the right to life.

Action triggers reaction! This means that every action causes specific consequences or a response. I advise you to hammer this into your head, because as head of government you should know these mechanisms and respect them.

To sum up: what is happening today in Palestine is solely the fault of Israel – a Zionist state entity occupying someone else’s land. Anyone who sides with it collaborates with evil.

Agnieszka Piwar
Polish journalist, author of the book “The Holocaust of the Palestinians”

Fot.: presstv.ir, gov.pl