21 April 2019

Easter Celebrations in Poland - Netanyahu’s favourite country - Burning a Jew for Jesus


Despite an Election Spat Netanyahu Agreed to a Holocaust Law Making Accusations of Polish Complicity in the Holocaust a civil offence

What better way to celebrate Good Friday residents of the small Polish town of Pruchnik thought, than to punish the killers of Christ. Unfortunately Jews are rather scarce in Poland today, owing to the fact that 90% of them were burnt in the Holocaust and most of those who remained after the war fled after pogroms at places like Kielce. So unfortunately they had to settle for second best, burning an effigy of Judas, dressed up as a Hasidic Jew. 
To be fair to the Pruchniks, in times gone by it wouldn’t have been an effigy but a real live Jew as Easter time was the occasion for pogroms in places like Kishinev. [See The pogrom that transformed 20th century Jewry]
All of this is no surprise because Poland is ruled by the far-Right Law and Justice party (PiS) whose government is populated with anti-Semites. Our Conservative Party is in alliance with the L&J Party and the Jewish Chronicle's Editor Stephen Pollard defended its MEP, Michal Kaminski as 'one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.' because support for Israel in Pollard's view washes out antisemitism.


Poland’s Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz told the anti-Semitic Catholic station Radio Marya that whilst he acknowledged that there was a debate about the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Czarist forgery which alleges a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world (actually this debate was settled by The Times in a series of articles in August 1921) “Experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles.”
One should add that it’s not only in Poland that a belief in world Jewish conspiracies is alive and well. Israel’s best friend, Donald Trump explained on Oct. 13 2016 during his election campaign that Hillary Clinton, “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.” Which probably explains why the one country in the world where Trump is more popular than unpopular is the State of Israel.
A commemoration of the massacre of Jews at Jedwabne in July 1941 which Polish government ministers deny occurred
PiS’s leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski once said Muslim refugees carried “various parasites and protozoa” and the government’s education minister Anna Zalewska discounted two well-documented massacres of Jews, including Jedwabne, by calling it a matter of “opinion ”. Jedwabne, a village in Eastern Poland was where up to 1600 Jews were burnt alive after being herded into a barn by fellow Polish villagers. See Jedwabne – The Polish Village Where Up to 900 Jews Were Burnt Alive by Fellow Poles.
Because there aren’t that many Jews now in Poland a right-wing publication Tylko Polska, or Only Poland published an article on How to Spot a Jew’ which helpfully included “names, anthropological features, expressions, appearances, character traits, methods of operation.’ To be fair the publication has now been removed from the package of papers sent to law makers. Quite why it was ever part of that package is another matter.
You can understand Netanyahu’s dilemma though. As Slavoj Zizek observed in The Independent Poland is Israel's most loyal EU ally despite its ongoing problems with antisemitism.’ In February 2018 Poland’s Senate approved a Holocaust law that made reference to Polish death camps a criminal offence and the legislation criminalised any mention of Poles “being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich.”.
The bill called for up to three years in prison. “We have to send a clear signal to the world that we won’t allow for Poland to continue being insulted,” Patryk Jaki, a deputy justice minister, told reporters in parliament.
As you can imagine this caused Netanyahu immense difficulties as the anti-Semitic governments of Eastern Europe just happen to be Israel’s best friends, as is normally the case with anti-Semites.


Poland's anti-Semitic Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki with a racist friend

Netanyahu therefore cooked up a deal with the Polish government that removed prison sentences for mentioning Polish complicity in the Holocaust whilst at the same time inviting to Israel the anti-Semitic far-Right Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.
This is the same Orban who waged an anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros and who has praised Hungary’s pro-Nazi ruler, Admiral Horthy as an ‘exceptional statesman’.  Given that Horthy presided over the unprecedented rapid deportation of nearly ½ million Jews to Auschwitz between May 15th and July 7th 1944 he probably was exceptional. 
There has been a resurgence of far-right sentiment in Poland. A Polish government pollster found in a survey that more than one in three polled said they supported far-right activities. That same month, far-right nationalists marched in Warsaw, brandishing slogans and signs that said “Clean Blood,” “White Europe, and “Europe Will Be White.” Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said the march was fueled by “patriotic behavior of Poles” and displays of xenophobia were “incidents” that were “of course, reprehensible.” See Poland Just Passed a Holocaust Bill That Is Causing Outrage. Here's What You Need to Know
Professor Yehuda Bauer, a Zionist Holocaust historian, called Netanyahu's move to accept Poland’s amended Holocaust law "a betrayal". Bauer was reported as saying that Israel gave its “seal of approval” to the Polish government’s narrative and accused the Israeli government of sacrificing truth and justice “for its current economic, security and political interests.
 
Bauer argued that even after the annulment of the Polish penal code clause which makes it illegal to ascribe to the Polish people responsibility for the Holocaust, the Polish government will use the Polish civil code to prosecute Polish researchers who criticize the government's lie. Bauer summarized:
"The Poles have deceived us, they have played a trick on us and we went along, because for the State of Israel the political-economic-military relations with Poland are more important than such a small thing, the Holocaust".
However we can rest assured that even if Israel will turn a blind eye to the latest outrage in Poland it will be assiduous in combating ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party!
Tony Greenstein
Times of Israel
By Michael Bachner Today, 12:36 pm 8

A resident of the small town of Pruchnik in southeast Poland beats up an effigy of Judah Iscariot featuring a long nose and ultra-Orthodox sidecurls and brimmed hat, on April 19, 2019. (Screenshot: Twitter)


Beating the Jew in Poland - it's almost as popular as beating Palestinians in Israel

Residents of a small town in Poland on Friday marked Good Friday by making a large doll of Judas Iscariot featuring classic anti-Semitic tropes, beating it up, hanging it from a tree and then burning it.

The ritual is meant to symbolize a public trial for Judas, who according to Christian tradition betrayed Jesus and turned him in to the Romans, leading to his crucifixion. Good Friday marks the day when Jesus is believed to have been crucified.

The ceremony featured several anti-Semitic elements in the small town of Pruchnik in southeastern Poland, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported on Sunday.

The effigy was given a brimmed hat and sidelocks, making it resemble an ultra-Orthodox Jew, along with a long nose, a trope used by Nazi Germany and by anti-Semites worldwide to demonize and dehumanize Jews.

The words “Judas” and “traitor” were written on the doll’s chest.

The doll was featured in the town’s central square in the morning, with its “trial” beginning in the late afternoon.

The residents symbolically sentenced Judas to death, hanged the doll from a tall tree, and then dragged it through the streets with the public — including many children — beating it up with sticks.

The ceremony ended with the effigy being burned.

The ceremony has ancient roots, according to the report, and in some cases the doll was also marked as Jewish using a Star of David on its arm.

Senior Israeli opposition figure Yair Lapid, No. 2 on the centrist Blue and White party, responded to the report by saying that “hatred of Jews is continuing to poison the air.
“The Poles need to fight anti-Semitism, not pass laws denying their part in the Holocaust,” Lapid continued. “The Netanyahu government should stop stuttering and unequivocally condemn [it].”

Poland, which was home to Europe’s largest Jewish community before the occupation by Nazi Germany (1939-1945), has seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in recent years.
Israel and Poland have recently seen diplomatic tensions over a controversial law that forbids blaming the Polish nation for Nazi crimes. That crisis was triggered anew in February after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to the country that some Poles collaborated with the Germans during the Holocaust.

He said speaking about the complicity of individuals was permissible despite the law. But his comment, which was misrepresented in some media to include all Poles, triggered a diplomatic spat. It escalated when Israel’s acting foreign minister, Israel Katz, later said that Poles take in “anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk.”

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