There were the predictable protests against Israel from around the world, but especially from the USSR, which withdrew diplomatic relations. Poland, then a member of the Soviet Bloc, was at the time experiencing a mass student protest against the Communist party in charge. The Polish government responded by not just cracking down on the students, but by also blaming the crisis on "Zionists" who they said supported "imperial" and "nationalist" Israel in the Six Day War. Except this supposed anti-Zionism was actually a coordinated purge of all officials of Jewish ancestry from the Government and Party and Military, regardless of their support of Israel.
One antisemite in particular, Mieczysław Moczar, led this Polish campaign as a diversion of energy away from the student uprisings, channeling people's frustrations away from party leadership and instead to "Zionists" aka Jews. He eventually even claimed the student protests were originally instigated by Zionist troublemakers (complete nonsense).
Moczar of course rebuffed accusations of that he was an antisemite and said also by the way Poland had no role to play in the Holocaust. Which considering that Poland was once again singling out Jews and forcing them from their Polish homes, with both the right- and left-wing politics expressing distrust of Jews, that is certainly an interesting thing to say. Let us remember that prior to the Holocaust, Poland was home to 3.5 million Jews. After, only 350,000. By the time Moczar was removed from power, a paltry 5,000 Jews remained in the country. The goal of ridding Poland of Jews finally complete, Polish Communists officially closed their campaign of "Anti-Zionism" in 1968.
A silver lining to the whole affair, if one can be allowed, is that the open campaign of antisemitism so discredited party leadership in the eyes of Poland's intelligentsia and emigrants that it eventually led to the collapse of the Communist Party in the country and Poland's official apology to the world's Jews and Israel in particular in 1988, and additional condemnations afterwards.
But let us remember that Anti-Zionism has always just been antisemitism.
In 1967 hostility between Israel and its Arab neighbors broke out into the full-fledged Six Day War.
There were the predictable protests against Israel from around the world, but especially from the USSR, which withdrew diplomatic relations. Poland, then a member of the Soviet Bloc, was at the time experiencing a mass student protest against the Communist party in charge. The Polish government responded by not just cracking down on the students, but by also blaming the crisis on "Zionists" who they said supported "imperial" and "nationalist" Israel in the Six Day War. Except this supposed anti-Zionism was actually a coordinated purge of all officials of Jewish ancestry from the Government and Party and Military, regardless of their support of Israel.
One antisemite in particular, Mieczysław Moczar, led this Polish campaign as a diversion of energy away from the student uprisings, channeling people's frustrations away from party leadership and instead to "Zionists" aka Jews. He eventually even claimed the student protests were originally instigated by Zionist troublemakers (complete nonsense).
Moczar of course rebuffed accusations of that he was an antisemite and said also by the way Poland had no role to play in the Holocaust. Which considering that Poland was once again singling out Jews and forcing them from their Polish homes, with both the right- and left-wing politics expressing distrust of Jews, that is certainly an interesting thing to say. Let us remember that prior to the Holocaust, Poland was home to 3.5 million Jews. After, only 350,000. By the time Moczar was removed from power, a paltry 5,000 Jews remained in the country. The goal of ridding Poland of Jews finally complete, Polish Communists officially closed their campaign of "Anti-Zionism" in 1968.
A silver lining to the whole affair, if one can be allowed, is that the open campaign of antisemitism so discredited party leadership in the eyes of Poland's intelligentsia and emigrants that it eventually led to the collapse of the Communist Party in the country and Poland's official apology to the world's Jews and Israel in particular in 1988, and additional condemnations afterwards.
But let us remember that Anti-Zionism has always just been antisemitism.