On Polish antisemitism

Over the past couple of days, my blog attracted a few commentators who feel that Poland is misrepresented on this blog.

Specifically for this article: "Poland: President Duda says Jews are safer in Poland than in Western Europe, denies responsibility for Holocaust crimes"

Apparently my post got to a "Polish media issues" group on Facebook and they got organized to protect Poland's honor.

Let me first quote from the article by Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, which is prominently linked on the original post:

While Poland had terrible and extensive examples of antisemitism [read Jan Gross' Neighbors or his more recent work Fear for compelling examples of this], nonetheless let's not confuse that with the German plan to wipe out European Jewry. [I reviewed Gross' Fear and may have myself gone a bit overboard in condemning an entire nation. ]

Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno, and Belzec were not "Polish" death camps. They were German camps that were placed in Poland by the Germans because that was where most of the victims were.

This is not a brief on behalf of the Poles of the 1940s. It's a reminder to keep one's historical eyes where they belong, i.e. on Germany.

I strongly recommend Rethinking Poles and Jews: Trouble Past, Brighter Future edited by Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska for a series of essays that pierce the stereotypes which have obscured historical reality.

I completely agree.  Auschwitz was not a "Polish" death camp.  It was a Nazi death camp.  Poland was under Nazi occupation and suffered greatly for it.

So what's the problem?


1. Context - President Duda's statements in the original post come as part of an organized attempt to cast off blame for any crimes committed by Poles during and after the Holocaust.


See here:

President Andrzej Duda said the nation's new "historical policy offensive" aims to create a new generation of patriots and "to build up the country's position in the international space."

Critics see historical revisionism that will produce little beyond national self-righteousness and will prevent an honest reckoning with the country's wartime history - an extremely complex story that includes suffering and heroism of the highest order but also cases of murder and betrayal by Poles of defenseless Jews.
"They want to narrow our view of the past," said Pawel Spiewak, director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. "They want to use the state apparatus to force their new view of political history, and this is very dangerous."

2.  Denial of antisemitism -  Explaining why Poland was not responsible for Auschwitz is not good enough for some people.  They claim that there was no antisemitism at all against Jews, or that any violence against Jews was done by a few 'criminal individuals', or even worse - that it was justified, because Jews were the enemy (ie, part of the Soviet regime).

Some commentators have thoroughly studied anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sources (including Jewish and Israeli ones), in order to show that Jews are not better than Poles. 

They wave away the stories of blood libels and pogroms.  Deny that Jews were murdered by fellow Poles during the Holocaust, even by fellow fighters against Nazis.  Deny that Jewish Holocaust survivors faced violence in Poland.  Deny current-day antisemitism.

commentator trying to explain why Polish people should not feel responsible for cases where Poles killed their neighbors

According to a recent poll, antisemitism is endemic in today's Poland.

60% of Poles believe that Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.

50% of Poles believe that Polish Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Poland.

50% of Poles believe Jews have too much power in the business world and in the financial markets. 40% believe Jews have too much control over global affairs. 30% believe Jews have too much control over the global media.

Those are extremely high numbers.

As Prof. Lipstadt points out, many Jews think the Poles played a part in the Holocaust.  Many of those claims are incorrect. 

So where do they come from?

I believe those claims are rooted in history. 

Over the last century and a half, many Polish Jews fled their country, carrying with them stories of Polish cruelty against Jews prior to the Holocaust.

The sheer destruction of Polish Jewry in the Holocaust is staggering.  90% of Polish Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.  Many of those Jews had family that had fled previously.  Receiving news of your loved one's death in a country that you had fled from, does not encourage one to see that country positively, regardless of the circumstances.

And it didn't stop there.  After the Holocaust, there's accounts of violence and pogroms against Holocaust survivors.  In the 1960s, Jews again faced antisemitism, when the Soviet-controlled government sponsored an antisemitic campaign.

The Polish people are not responsible for crimes they did not commit.  But the Polish people were and are extremely antisemitic.  Claiming otherwise is rewriting history and denying reality.

This blog is an activist blog in the fight against antisemitism.  It is not meant as a 'free speech' forum for incitement against Jews.   

My suggestion to anybody who wants to fight the perception that the Polish people are responsible for the Holocaust:
1. Do not wave away or deny Jewish accounts of antisemitism and violence against Jews
2. Do not attack Jews or Israel as a way to prove to Jews that you're not antisemitic

Op-Ed: Europe cares about fighting antisemitism, except when it really matters

It is easy to fight antisemitism when your opponent is antisemitic.  It is much harder when it's somebody on your side of the aisle.

European leaders talk high and mighty against antisemitism.  Do they really mean it?

The test to their words came up this past week, when Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas stood before the European Parliament and blamed Jewish rabbis for inciting the Israeli government to poison wells. 

The European response?

The MEPs stood up and applauded.

European Parliament president Martin Schulz tweeted that it was "an inspiring address".

This is all par for the course. 

Mahmoud Abbas and various other Palestinian leaders regularly incite against Jews.  This incitement results in Jews getting murdered - in Israel and in Europe.

Europe regularly responds to such incitement by ignoring it and by publicly supporting those same Palestinian leaders.


A reader asked various EU leaders for their response. 

European Parliament spokesperson:

The format of the address is constructed in a way, that the leaders give their speeches without any debate afterwards. As a matter of courtesy, some MEPs stand up to applaud at the end of the addresses, which was not an exception with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

This is how polite MEPs react to blood libel 

This is how polite MEPs react to something they don't like.

See the difference?


Katharina von Schnurbein, Coordinator on combating Antisemitism:

Allegations of Jews poising water are age-old accusations. The European institutions strongly condemn all forms of Antisemitism and the spreading of such misconceptions to society at large.

We understand that Mr Abbas as retracted his expressions. However, given the external policy dimension of your questions, could I kindly ask you to refer further questions to the European External Action Service.

Summary: We reject antisemitism in principle, but we don't think it's the job of the Coordinator on combating Antisemitism to say anything against blood libels in the European Parliament. 


European External Action Service:

In his statement before the European Parliament on 23 June, the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas mistakenly alleged that rabbis in Israel had asked their government to poison water supplies so as to kill Palestinians, citing it as an example of incitement to violence.  We understand President Abbas has retracted his claim two days later, calling it baseless and saying it had not been his intention to harm Judaism or to offend Jewish people.

The EU is determined to fight antisemitism in all its forms wherever it comes from. Antisemitism is not just a threat to Jews, but to the very values that Europe stands for.

Summary: This is as close as you're going to get to us condemning blood libels in the European Parliament.  We see no problem with applauding blood libels. 


As far as European leaders are concerned: It is okay to incite against Jews, especially if you take the most blatantly antisemitic parts of it back after a few days, and it's okay to applaud such antisemitic incitement, because it's "a matter of courtesy" and it was an "inspiring address".


If it bothers you that Abbas stood before the European Parliament and incited against Jews, then you must be Jewish.  Because nobody else really cares.

Op-Ed: Why Anti-Zionists cannot really care about anti-Semitism

I was asked on Tumblr whether I was 'pro-Israel', as the questioner, who identified as Jewish, did not want to 'associate' further with a blog that was 'pro-Israel'.   Note that I wasn't asked whether I was against a Palestinian-state or anything of that sort.  Simply being a supporter of the existence of Israel was enough for them to not be interested in news of anti-Semitism.

A common refrain among anti-Zionists is that people who call them anti-Semites are actually diverting attention from "real" anti-Semitism.

Now, if that is the case, then surely anti-Zionists would be active in fighting 'real' anti-Semitism.  But the sad fact is that they are not active at all.  They just talk about it when they're accused of anti-Semitism.

This isn't just a fluke.  This isn't an issue of focusing on one topic (Palestinian freedom) to the exclusion of all others (caring about anti-Semitism).  Anti-Zionists - that is, the people who want to wipe out Israel as a Jewish state - cannot really care about anti-Semitism.


I started this blog with the express purpose of focusing on 'traditional' anti-Semitism.  I was concerned about the growing anti-Semitism in Europe and I did not want to bring news that would be dismissed as "not real anti-Semitism".  I figured that surely there's enough 'traditional' anti-Semitism I could report on.

But within a day or two, I realized that this was an impossible task.  Everybody would agree that a swastika on a Jewish cemetery is anti-Semitism.  But how do you categorize a Jewish cemetery that's desecrated with "Free Palestine" graffiti?

When the German Nazi party blames Jews for introducing genetically modified food that's anti-Semitism.  But is it just fine when a pro-Palestinian Russian journalist blames Israel for the same thing?

Is a conspiracy theory against Jews bad and a conspiracy theory against Israel acceptable?   If anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, why is it not acceptable to say that Israel is responsible for the ISIS attacks on Paris?  It's not anti-Semitism and no Jew would suffer from it, right?

Why is it anti-Semitism for the organizers of a Dutch Kristallnacht memorial to focus on allegations of Israeli racism?  A similar memorial ceremony in Sweden had no Jewish representatives because the organizers assumed Jews might feel uncomfortable and even unsafe.  Do Jews even have the right to feel uncomfortable?  How can Jews protest about an anti-Zionist Holocaust memorial if anti-Zionism has nothing to do with Jews? 

Every Muslim anti-Semitic crime can easily be categorized as 'anti-Zionism'.  The European media even likes to explain such crimes away, saying that Muslims simply 'confuse' between Jews and Zionists.  It's not okay to murder the former, but it's apparently quite acceptable to murder the latter.

Various courts in Europe have ruled that when Muslims post Nazi propaganda or attack synagogues, they're simply expressing their anti-Zionist viewpoint.  In fact, while the European courts haven't gone as far to say so, all the Muslim attacks on Jews in Europe were explained by the attackers as anti-Zionist crimes.

But that is nothing compared to what the media and politicians do to Jews.  When the media incites against Israel, Jews in Europe feel under attack.  When politicians accuse Israel of committing genocide, or support a Palestinian state while ignoring the constant anti-Semitic incitement of its leaders, Jews in Europe are put in danger.

Jews in Europe pay the price for this incitement.   They have paid it with Jewish blood.  There are soldiers guarding their synagogues and schools.  Not just because "some Muslims can't differentiate between Jews and Zionists", but because nobody can support the elimination of the Jewish State or support anti-Semitic regimes, and really care about Jews.  

Of course, anti-Zionists are usually shocked when they're accused of anti-Semitism.  What's the connection between not caring about the fate of six million Israeli Jews and anti-Semitism, they wonder?

Survey after survey has shown that the Jews of Europe see anti-Zionism as a threat.  If I want to report about what Jews are going through in Europe, how can I possibly ignore that?

How can anybody claim that they care about anti-Semitism and ignore such a major aspect of the daily persecution that Jews suffer from?
 

Op-Ed: How to post an antisemitic conspiracy theory and get away with it (Scottish edition)

Earlier this week, Sandra White, an MP in the Scottish parliament, retweeted an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Israel is paying off Murdoch and Rothschild with oil in return for war on Syria.


Rothschild is obviously Jewish, and Murdoch is considered Jewish by the antisemitic-conspiracy theorists crowd.

This tweet was accompanied by two pictures illustrating the point.  

For some reason, which I really fail to understand, the media and the Jewish community pounced on the images, and completely ignored the content of the post.

Even those that do pay a bit of attention, fail to mention the fact that it's virulently antisemitic.  This is how the Guardian describes it: 

a tweet that linked to an article by the nationalist former diplomat Craig Murray on the Syrian oil interests of Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothschild.

Sounds perfectly legit, doesn't it?

Sandra White, of course, apologized.   Notice that in her apology, she makes no mention of the actual content of the retweeet.  She just mentioned the 'offensive image':

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly for the offence that has been caused by my accidental retweeting of this offensive image which I too find repellent and offensive.

I had not intended to retweet this picture, and was horrified to learn that I had done so. As soon as this was brought to my attention, I deleted the tweet.

Imagine an MP retweeting a racist image linking to a virulently racist article.  Does anybody think that "oops" would be an acceptable apology?   If she didn't notice the image, then what did she notice when she decided to retweet an article with the obviously antisemitic title: "Why Rothschild and Murdoch Push for War"?

What made her push the "retweet" button?


We'll never know, because nobody cares.  Nobody demanded she own up to the fact that she tweets antisemitic conspiracy theories.  In the UK, we're only concerned about offensive images.  We're not really concerned about completely loony theories claiming a link between worldwide Jewry, Israel and war.

I don't think Sandra White is antisemitic.  However, she can't recognize antisemitism when it hits her in the face, and therefore she's a much more serious risk to the Jewish community.  She'll continue to spread lies and hatred, while being completely unaware that they're antisemitic incitement.    All she has to do is say "oops" if she's ever discovered again and the media and her party and even the Jewish community will rush to accept her apology.

Because, really, it's not her fault she's stupid, is it?

Opinion: Why attacking British Jews for the Gaza War is nothing like Northern Ireland

Yesterday I reported that Sky News presenter Eamonn Holmes seemed to justify Palestinian antisemitism against British Jews.

There is no doubt that Palestinians (and pro-Palestine groups, and Muslims, and left-wingers), all feel justified in attacking British Jews, British-Jewish institutions and British-Jewish businesses, as a 'response' to the Gaza War.

There is also no doubt that British media, including Eamonn Holmes, encouraged such attacks, with their biased and exaggerated reporting about the Gaza War.

But what caught my eye was something else Holmes said.  "I've lived through this in Northern Ireland where being Catholic doesn't necessarily mean being Republican, and people who are held responsible for Republican attacks.  So we do understand the [???] of all of this, but the fact of life is, people do not separate those things."

Holmes is saying that attacking British Jews for something Israeli Jews supposedly did, is just like any other case where a whole group is attacked for something an individual or sub-group did.

But that is a completely wrong comparison.

I might be mistaken, but were Irish institutions in the UK ever targeted?

Let's even say that Irish in the UK had to be on guard after IRA attacks, certainly Catholics in France had no need to fear.  The Vatican did not have to raise its alert level and worry about Irish visitors who might blow up the place.  In general, Catholics all around the world could go about their daily business, even though they met many Irish and Protestant people.

And that is exactly the difference.

Let's take another example people like to bandy about: Attacking European Jews for "Israeli crimes" is just like attacking European Muslims for terror attacks."

Again, it sounds like a proper comparison - attacking a whole group for the crimes of an individual. But note what happens in reality.  European Muslims are not attacked after terror attacks in Afghanistan, or Morocco or anywhere else in the Muslim world.  Muslim Europeans are attacked after Muslim Europeans commit terrorism.

Yesterday I also happened to run across this little clip:

Dutch Muslims are not seen as terrorists because 'they look like' terrorists.  They are not expected to apologize for Muslim terrorists around the world.  They are expected to reject acts of terrorism committed by other people belonging to their group (Dutch or European Muslims) in the name of their commonly-held belief (Islam).

If a Dutch supporter of Islamic State says that all Dutch Muslims agree with him, then Dutch Muslims are expected to take a clear stance against it.


Jews are the only group in the world who are being attacked for something their fellow coreligionists do half-way around the world.   (and that's besides the point that Israeli Jews are not even doing anything wrong).