Judge for yourselves by listening to the Chief Rabbi's interview HERE.
Jonathan Isaby writes...
When I met him at the Conservative Party conference, he rebutted these claims, yet the smears have continued. William Hague has already demanded an apology from David Miliband for the slurs and he did so again yesterday on the Today programme.
This morning, the Polish Chief Rabbi, Michael Shudrich, nailed these smears as false once and for all in an interview on the Today programme. You can listen to it for yourself here.
He made clear:
- Michal Kaminski is a strong ally of the state of Israel;
- He has condemned anti-Semitism;
- His Law and Justice Party is a "mainstream party" which no-one in Poland would consider as a "fringe right party".
The nonsense from the pro-European Left simply has to stop. As David Cameron rightly said at his press conference on Tuesday, those making the attacks are waging "a totally politically-driven campaign" because they don't like the fact that the Conservatives are now part of a group that doesn't go along with everything Europe does.
The fact that the left continues this campaign of traducement says far more about their own moral compass than it does about Kaminski.
25 comments:
And today they claim that Miliband could become the foreign minister in the post Lisbon Brussels?
The guy doesnt know his ass from his elbow, and would be a disaster even for somewhere as corrupt as Brussels. He has not engendered respect from anyone, just ask the Sri Lankans, and the Russians what they think of his "diplomatic skills".
To try to create a smear such as this one shows his unsuitability for cabinet office, let alone a major office of state.
Rabbi Schudrich seems to be a sort of American carpet-bagger in Poland. His opinions are not conclusive since, at this stage, he is playing political games.
But is the Chief Rabbi withdrawing his earlier remarks? Or claiming he never sent the email McIntyre/Miliband etc quote?
Meanwhile, and shamefully, Iain, you simply seem to think the fact he is homophobic is OK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8154670.stm
Why have you become a beacon of Tory groupthink?
Iain,
you are wrong, as a matter of fact, to claim they have been silent this morning: there were posts on New Statesman & Left Foot Forward before yours; while MacShane's CIF piece now contains an additional response to the interview. Perhaps you would want to update/correct your post, or add links to these.
I have commented on the LFF thread and elsewhere to point out a few factual mistakes in what Guido says about the interview,
Denis MacShane silent?! That doesn't sound like the Denis MacShane we know, Iain. See here for his take on the chief rabbi's remarks, which differ from your breezy view.
Matt Seaton @Commentisfree
David Miliband, 1 October: "a man denounced by the Chief Rabbi of Poland for an anti semitic, neo Nazi past"
Chief Rabbi Schudrich, 30 October: "as a teenager [Kaminski] did join an organisation in Polish known as NOP which is unfortunately openly anti-semitic and neo-nazi. He also quit that organisation as a teenager."
Am I missing something or are these two statements consistent?
Schudrich also went on to say, "Concerning Kaminski’s commments on Jedwabne, I completely disagree with his stance."
And Sunder Katwala has pointed out that Kaminski "habitually lies about his history"
As the Economist puts it today: "if this shoddy, shaming alliance is the price [Cameron] was obliged to pay his party for the changes needed to make it seem modern and compassionate, what sort of party is it that Mr Cameron leads?"
pronWhat Schudrich is saying, without withdrawing the remarks, is that he is upset that anybody thought he was making "any political statement" ! or casting aspersions about anti-semitism when he wrote
---
I do not comment on political decisions. However, it is clear that Mr Kaminski was a member of NOP, a group that is openly far right and neo-nazi. Anyone who would want to align himself with a person who was an active member of NOP and the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne (which was established to deny historical facts of the massacre at Jedwabne) needs to understand with what and by whom he is being represented.
Michael Schudrich
---
He stands by that statement, while believing it would misreport it to say it was a call on Cameron to distance himself from Kaminski. (What else could it possibly have meant??!)
On reflection, and much discussion with the office of the Presidency about it too, he also would like to emphasise Kaminski's post-2001 pro-Israel and not anti-semitic stance, while continuing to worry about his NOP history and his restatement of his Jewadbne position, which he called "problematic"
"I regret the chief rabbi of Poland has been dragged into a row about the nature of the rightwing populist-nationalist politics in Europe. But until Michal Kaminski expresses full and unreserved regret over what he has said and done in relation to the Jedwabne massacres, I and others will continue to criticise the Tory alliance with him.
I leave to William Hague the pleasure of defending Kaminski's language on gays, his party's line on Germany and other statements by PiS MEPs. In the end, I hope Michael Heseltine is right and the Tories come to their senses and rejoin the main current of centre-right politics in Europe."
Iain, you are on the wrong side of this argument. Think about it.
Paul Halsall.
Catholic bishop is against gays!
Wow, that's some news you've discovered there! Quick, see if you can rush it to the papers to print it.
Try and beat the 1000 AD deadline and you'll have a scoop.
The interview showed that when assessing a politician or party, in certain pro-Israeli eyes such as those of the Polish chief rabbi support for Israel may trump allegations of anti-Semitism. The turmoil within the Kaminski-supporting (at level of editor) Jewish Chronicle over the issue shows the matter is far from settled.
Every new revelation is a body blow against the smearers and everytime one accusation gets knocked down they cling ever harder to the more minor accusations.
Someone who only read commentary on the subject from professional Labour propagandists like Denis Macshane, James Macintyre and Sunter Katwala must feel like Japanese civilians in World War 2, wondering why their great victories against the allies they are told about seem to be happening closer and closer to Japan.
You seem to be appealing to their sense of propriety.
Flogging a dead one here Iain.
Even Nick Robinson commented that Labour's tactics were "pretty dirty". Nuff said!
Oh Pleeeease don't let Michael Kaminski not be a Nazi! That is SO not fair, now we don't have ANY smear stories to attack the Tories with by vague association :(..
Next you'll be telling us Thatcher doesn't eat babies!
Paul Halsall said...
Rabbi Schudrich seems to be a sort of American carpet-bagger in Poland...
A characteristically insulting, ignorant comment!
Is this what passes for debate among NuLabor trolls and fellow-travellers?
The Labour supporters are in action here. They will do anything to bring on another Labour victory and if it means lies, smears and half-truths so be it. Miliband the banana- bearing silly griining 7 year old as the @ Foreign Minister'? I will put as a wager 6 bananas for that not to happen.
The Daily Mail reported that Tuscan Tony was quietly putting together a group to assist him in Brussles after he becomes the president ( he underwent the Catholic religious conversion to be ready for the call. Tuscan Tony used this Catholic religious reason before-that was when he wanted to send his sons away from the deppressing schools in Inslington to the London Oratory). Lord Sleaze Mandy has been earmarked as chef de cabinet.
Poor Tuscan Tony, not even his buddy Sylvio wants him. But then Gordo's icy hands have done it again!
The (e)utopians don't want Tory artillery being aimed at their citadel (Lisbon) so they created a massive distraction with Kaminski.
Nice, though, to see the (e)utopians indulging in an orgy of xenophobia. They normally accuse everyone else of thought crime, but it seems that in truth they are the real masters of distortion, black propaganda and racial hatred.
If this was 1940, Dave and Willie would be detained under 'emergency laws' and interned by Winston Churchill.
Now there was a proper Conservative, with Britain at his heart.
The Czech Civic Democrats deserve British allies like the trade unionists who have spent decades defending the high-waged, high-skilled, high-status jobs of the working class. Not for us the restriction of travel to the rich, or the arresting of economic development in the poorer parts of the world.
The Polish Law and Justice Party deserves British allies like the Catholic and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against abortion and easier divorce. Like the Methodist and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against deregulated drinking and gambling. Like those, including John Smith, who successfully organised (especially through USDAW) against Thatcher's and Major's attempts to destroy the special character of Sunday and of Christmas Day. And like the trade unionists who battled to secure paternal authority in families and communities by securing its economic base, frequently marching behind banners that depicted Biblical scenes and characters.
And the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party deserves British allies with deep roots in the former mining communities, in the women's suffrage movement, in the 1945 General Election victory, and elsewhere. We are unsullied by the weird cult of Winston Churchill. Instead, we can and do condemn his carve-up of Eastern Europe with Stalin. Just as we condemn genocidal terrorism against Balts no less than genocidal terrorism against Arabs.
They all deserve British allies like the Labour MPs who mostly voted against Heath's Treaty of Rome. Who all voted against Thatcher's Single European Act. And who voted against Major's Maastricht Treaty in far greater numbers than the Tories. And they need those allies in order to call them away from neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy. Nothing could be more destructive of national self-government, or traditional family values, or the historical consciousness of a people. Cameron is completely signed up to both.
Are there not other groups that could propose measures and motions for generous welfare provisions, for public services in the public sector, for universal healthcare provided by the State, for workers' rights, and for the public ownership of important companies? Much of this new group would vote for such measures and motions. But then there would be the Tories.
Are there not other groups that could propose measures or motions to safeguard or restore family life in general and paternal authority in particular by safeguarding or restoring high-wage, high-skilled, high-status employment such as coal-mining? Much of this new group would vote for such measures and motions. But then there would be the Tories.
Are there not other groups that could propose measures and motions for the payment of mothers to stay at home with their children, for adoption and against abortion, for palliative care and against euthanasia, in favour of President Obama's support for traditional marriage (or, at the very least, against compelling anyone to conduct deviations from it), against sex and violence in the media, against State toleration of drugs and prostitution, against unrestricted Sunday trading, and against supermarkets opening on what are supposed to be public holidays for everyone including shop workers? Much of this new group would vote for such measures and motions. But then there would be the Tories.
And are there not other groups that could propose motions, perhaps on appropriate anniversaries, condemning by name all those (including Margaret Thatcher) who signed the Single European Act, and condemning Winston Churchill for his carve-up of Eastern Europe with Stalin? Much of this new group would vote for such motions. But then there would be the Tories.
The leftists are clinging to the wreckage of their smear campaign I see, their offensive so carefully planned and based around a hoped for end to the crumbling economy and fleshed out with this poisonous attack against another EU partner and flogged by the leftist media was always a last gasp last ditch poison campaign that newlabour would have done easily in years past but now without the experts in the smear unit all that effort crumples into dust before their eyes.
Why would they waste so much political capital on such a non story when the leftist group in the EU have a myriad of dodgy weirdos with dodgy pasts, one look at the pasts of several cabinet members confirms that joining distasteful extremists while under the influence of being young and stupid is not the preserve of the right, none of us are immune from our distant past.
Are the leftists so desperate to attack the Tories? because thats what it looks like, desperation plain and simple.
With all the massive problems facing the UK, the crippling debt,rising unemployment,the failure of the stimulus(apart from making newlabours banker friends rich of course),the crumbling state of our national infrastructure,the destruction of UK manufacturing and all the left can do is pick at the Tory euro alliance.
Still I suppose if you had a track record like newlabour with newlabours utterly dire re election prospects then it seems entirely plausible that they would wish to avoid the stark cold and certain reality of their demise.
This line of attack will be used by the Labour/BBC alliance at every opportunity regardless of the facts. If they can smear the Conservative party with accusations about their friends in the EU then they will do so. If you think this attack is nasty, then you will be really shocked by what else they have in store. Alastair Campbell was on BBC 5Live today supposedly to talk about why Tony Blair was ideally suited to be the President of the EU. He spent much of the time attacking David Cameron and William Hague. This diet of Labour/BBC anti-Conservative views will only increase in the coming months.
“Winston Churchill. Now there was a proper Conservative, with Britain at his heart”
Really, Gary Elsby? In ‘Great Contemporaries’, published in 1937, two years after he had called Hitler’s achievements “among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world”, Churchill wrote that: “Those who have met Herr Hitler face to face in public business or on social terms have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed, functionary with an agreeable manner, a disarming smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism.” That passage was not removed from the book’s reprint in 1941. In May 1940, Churchill had been all ready to give Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Somaliland, Kenya and Uganda to Mussolini.
All sorts of things about Churchill are simply ignored. Gallipoli. The miners. The Suffragettes. The refusal to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz. His dishonest and self-serving memoirs. Both the fact and the sheer scale of his 1945 defeat while the War in the Far East was still going on, when Labour won half of his newly divided seat, and an Independent did very well against him in the other half after Labour and the Liberals had disgracefully refused to field candidates against him. His deselection by his local Conservative Association just before he died. And not least, his carve-up of Eastern Europe with Stalin, so very reminiscent of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
But we have not forgotten the truth about him in the old pit communities. Nor have they in the places that he signed away to Stalin, including the country for whose freedom the War was fought, making it a failure in its own terms. And including Latvia.
The BNP is as welcome to Churchill as it is to Mosley, the other of the two British threats to constitutionality and, via Britain’s role in the world, to international stability in the Thirties. Both were unreliable, opportunistic, highly affected and contrived, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, Eurofederalist demagogues who admired Mussolini, heaped praise on Hitler, had no need to work for a living, had an overwhelming sense of his own entitlement, profoundly hated democracy, and had a callous disregard for the lives of the lower orders and the lesser breeds.
I believe the current Pope was a member of a far right organization when he was a teenager. What was it called now? Umm.. The Hitler Youth.
Will the Left now be calling for the Tories not to associate with the Catholic Church?
@David Lindsay
I am all for questioning any historical hero, but you have gone barmy on attacking Churchill. Churchill's role in the 1930s cannot be reduced to single quotes. In that period he wrote prolifically (in fact he is the only politician I can think of who won the Nobel Prize for Literature) - in both books and newspapers.
There is no question that he was the most prominent British critic of the rise of Hitler; nor is there any question that his foresight in demanding an awareness of the importance of air power influenced others.
No question he made mistakes. It's hard to imagine anyone else doing as well as a war leader faced with the most awful tyranny.
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