The Polish-American historian Jan Gross set off a fierce debate in Poland with his account of how the Christian residents of Jedwabne murdered their Jewish neighbors during World War II. (The English edition, Neighbors, appeared in 2001.) Although Gross’s findings were vociferously denied, and he was the object of ugly personal attack, the book led to much greater openness in Polish society concerning the Holocaust (a taboo subject until the fall of the Iron Curtain), and the Polish government even bestowed on him the Order of Merit, one of the country’s highest civilian honors. Now, however, Poland’s new president, Andrzej Duda, has called for the prize to be rescinded. Anna Bikont, the author of a book on the same subject, writes:

We Poles had our presidential race last year. In a televised debate—the most important debate of the race—the two main candidates asked each other questions. The first round of these questions, posed by . . . Andrzej Duda, did not deal with the state of the Polish economy, nor relations with Ukraine and Russia. . . . Duda admonished his opponent, then-incumbent President Bronisław Komorowski, for allowing Poles to be “wrongfully accused by others for participating in the Holocaust.” He asked why the president failed to defend the good name of Poland.

The election was won by Duda, [who] then proclaimed a “new historical-policy strategy” that would enhance the perception of Poland in the world. That policy is already in place. And an important component of it is a campaign against Jan Gross. . . .

For many Poles, the most important thing about the Holocaust is proving to the world that Poles conducted themselves in exemplary fashion during that period. This has always been our obsessive question: what will the world think of us? And the revelation of the crime at Jedwabne led to Polish-Jewish relations during the time of the Holocaust becoming an even more sensitive spot, a nerve where the Polish ego suffered damage.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”