JNS
The Polish Jewish Forum says Moscow's UAVs over Poland illustrate shared threats with Israel and Ukraine.
Following an aerial incursion by Russia into Poland on Tuesday night and Wednesday, the Polish Jewish community said the development showed the need for greater solidarity with Ukraine and Israel.
The Polish Jewish Forum, a communal institution established in 2004, in a statement explored commonalities between the attacks on Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, and the incursion by Iranian-made Russian drones. Polish forces reportedly shot down more than a dozen drones that violated the NATO member's airspace while going after targets in Ukraine.
“Just as Ukraine is an eastern outpost” of the war with Russia, “so is Israel’s fight against Iran and international Islamic terrorist organizations a southern flank” of that war, the Polish Jewish Forum stated in a text titled “Poland, are we now beginning to understand what terrorism is?”
Jonathan Ornstein, executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow, said the incursion in Poland underlined the reality that Ukrainians have been facing since 2022, when Russia invaded their country.
Ukrainians “face unimaginable danger from Russia every day. The Russian drones over Poland are nothing compared to what the heroic Ukrainians have been going through for 3.5 years,” Ornstein told JNS.
His Jewish community has been “at the forefront of helping Ukrainian refugees since the war began,” he added, and has managed to provide support to more than 400,000 people affected by the conflict.
“Hopefully, this violation of Polish and NATO airspace will refocus the world’s attention on the suffering of Ukraine,” Ornstein said.
Piotr Kadlčík, a former president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland (ZGWŻP), said the incident belies claims made by left- and right-wing extremists in Poland that Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees living in the country were trying to suck Poland into the war.
“Today, anyone who spins conspiracy theories about Ukrainian involvement in this matter, or about the need for ‘more decisive’ actions against those who fled to Poland before the war, is not an idiot, but a traitor,” Kadlčík wrote on Facebook.
Neither the current president of ZGWŻP, Klara Kolodziejska, nor the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, the largest Polish-Jewish group in terms of membership, responded by press time to a request by JNS for comment on the Russian drone incursion.
In its statement, the Polish Jewish Forum noted that the downed drones were Iranian-made.
“We can clearly see today actions motivated by the neo-Soviet regime, which has always supported Arab terrorism and acted against the democratic values of the West (including religious values),” the statement read. “At this point, any action against Israel is simply in support of Russia’s aggressive policies.”
The overnight Russian attack that included the violation of Polish airspace included 415 drones, 42 cruise missiles and one ballistic missile that struck multiple Ukrainian regions, including Kyiv, the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.
Air raid sirens blared in Kyiv while explosions and machine gunfire echoed through the capital as air defense units tried to shoot down the Shahed drones. Residents rushed to bomb shelters or hunkered down in hallways and bathrooms as warnings circulated that Russia was preparing for another massive combined missile and drone strike on Ukraine.
Poland, one of several NATO states bordering Russia, spends over 4% of its GDP on defense—more than any other member of the alliance.
In recent years, Poland has embarked on a weapons-buying spree, acquiring tanks, rocket systems and fighter jets from the United States and South Korea. Polish leaders have voiced ambitions to expand the country’s armed forces to 300,000 troops.
