I lead the Israeli-American Civic Action Network. For years, my work has focused on antisemitism, Holocaust distortion, civic advocacy, and the U.S.-Israel alliance. Before ICAN, I served for a decade as Political Officer at the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles. That work brought me into direct engagement with Lithuania when ICAN helped internationalize the Jonas Noreika case and pressed policymakers in Washington over Lithuania’s continued honoring of a figure tied to the destruction of Jewish life. This is not a new concern for me. It is an old one that should never have been allowed to fade.

We should never have looked away.

We looked away because Lithuania is a NATO ally on a dangerous frontier. We looked away because Russia is real, deterrence matters, and alliance politics rewards convenience. But strategic convenience does not disinfect institutional deceit. It does not turn protected myth into truth. And it does not excuse a state that wants Western military solidarity while refusing Western standards when its historical narrative is challenged.

The case of Artur Fridman forces that issue back into view. As publicly reported, Lithuanian prosecutors brought criminal charges against a Jewish citizen over a Facebook post discussing Holocaust-era history. The prosecution, according to the published account, leans on the conclusions of a state historical institution while the indictment itself cites archival material that partially corroborates the historical question Fridman raised. That is not a technical contradiction. It is the structure of the case.

On 3/15/26 I sent a formal letter to the Lithuanian consul general in Los Angeles demanding answers. I asked what laws and legal theories are being used against Fridman, what penalty exposure he faces, whether he has had full access to counsel and evidence, whether state institutions such as the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre were used or consulted, whether criticism of Jonas Noreika or other state-honored figures is treated as protected historical........

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