The European Union, since its inception as a common market, has a traditional attitude of built-in hostility towards Israel.
The German-French axis, on which the European Union was founded, adopted from the 1970s onwards - for economic, political, ideological and anti-Semitic reasons - the positions of the PLO and the Palestinians and has fought, ever since, under the guise of the European Union for the existence of a Jewish state.
Western European countries that were friendly to Israel - such as the Netherlands and some of the Scandinavian countries - eventually adopted this anti-Israel approach, among other demographic motives: the massive migration of Arabs and Muslims into their territory and the transformation of these immigrant communities into a local political force.
Hatred of Israel has become a seemingly connecting and calming factor.
The enlargement of the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe has changed this reality. Although it took time for the new members of the union to muster the courage to break the status quo created in many areas of the union - including hostility to Israel. But in the last decade, the "new Europeans" under conservative right-wing governments have become self-aware and confident, allowing them to work to change the rules of the game. Gone are the days of the automatic anti-Israel consensus. And Poland, under the conservative government of the Law and Justice Party, played a major and active role in creating this change, along with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia (four Vishigrad bloc countries), Austria, the Baltic states, and also Romania and Bulgaria to some extent.
Poland is the fifth most populous country in the European Union, one of the fastest growing economies in the Union, and a very important strategic ally of the United States.
Israel had a lot to gain from the very close relationship that developed between the two governments, and it also benefited through diverse collaborations.
Most senior political figures in Warsaw tell me that Poland was a step away from moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem following the United States.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Reuters
But, then Yair Lapid started his populist war against Poland.
Three years ago, from the opposition, he fired the opening shot with unbridled attacks around what is called in Israel the "Holocaust Law."
Now, from the Foreign Ministry, he is conducting a full frontal attack around what is known in Israel as the "Law of Non-Return of Property."
Within three years, through racist incitement, Lapid had become one of Israel's closest friends in the European Union as a potential enemy.
And all this why? Maybe because Torch wants to convince us that Don Quixote did ride a dolce, as he once wrote. Lapid's arguments and accusations against Poland have the same validity as that silly statement. Lapid accuses the Polish government of Holocaust denial. never happened and never existed. Lapid accuses the Polish government of passing antisemitic laws. never happened and never existed. With the approval of the "Law of Non-Return of Property," the Polish government has become anti-democratic and anti-liberal, "Lapid accuses. And perhaps here is buried the dolce. The approval of the "Property Law", which received political support from the floor in the Polish parliament and was intended to implement the ruling of the Polish legal system, was done in a very democratic manner and did not provoke heated political debates, while the situation of the Polish right-wing government deteriorated. In other words, there is a political consensus in Poland on the need to settle once and for all the chaos that has existed so far on the issue of real estate claims, which all too often served dubious elements and not Holocaust survivors or relatives of Nazi victims. Beyond that,There were Poles who rolled with laughter to hear moral sermons on democracy from the leader of a clearly undemocratic Israeli party who came to power through intrigue and deception.
But Lapid knows that the capitals of Western Europe do not like the rule of law and justice, as they do not like the right-wing governments in Hungary and Slovenia, and in order to please the "liberal" governments in Western Europe he has adopted the simplistic narrative that the Polish government is "anti-democratic" and "Anti-liberal." It is just that these statements are like Lapid's pathetic statements that "the times when Poles harmed Jews without reaction passed" - populist and unrelated to reality.
Benjamin Netanyahu, as prime minister and foreign minister, knew how to manipulate intra-European tensions in order to break the EU's anti-Israel line and strengthen Israel's position on the European front as well. Lapid, on the other hand, is destroying relations with one of Israel's important allies in order to please the "liberal" axis hostile to Israel in the union. Poland is already voting with those "liberal" countries against Israel in international forums and strengthening its ties with the Palestinians. Lapid's populist anti-Polish will strengthen the antisemitic extremes that exist in Polish society and encourage anti-Israel, in a country where this phenomenon was almost non-existent. Given Lapid's partners in the government, this may be the Foreign Minister's real goal: harming Israel's foreign relations and its position in the international arena.