AntiSemitism Accusation a Silencing Tactic Raina

Ksiadz Henryk Jankowski Nie Ma Za Co Prszepraszac, by Peter Raina. 1997

An Object Lesson on How Charges of Anti-Semitism are Reflexively Made in Order to Chill Free Speech. Multiple Double Standards

FATHER HENRYK JANKOWSKI HAS NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR is the title of this book. Although Father Jankowski is gone, his experience is worth recounting for its impact on Polish-Jewish discourse and for its value as a lesson in the harmful effects of political correctness.

DOUBLE STANDARDS, DOUBLE STANDARDS, AND MORE DOUBLE STANDARDS

What are we allowed to say, and what are we not allowed to say?

Double standards are a constant. Poles are free to criticize other Poles, Russians, Germans, “those greedy Americans”, etc., but not Jews–lest Poles get labeled (what else?) anti-Semites.

There is a newfangled Talmudic-style dual morality in force. If anti-Semitism is uncivilized and a sin, then why isn’t anti-Polonism?

Poles are well trained as to what they can and cannot say. Poles tell themselves, and are told by others, that Fr. Jankowski’s remarks are an embarrassment to Poland and to the Church, but no one, Pole or Jew, suggests that, for example, Yitzhak Shamir’s “Poles drink anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk” remark is an embarrassment to Jews, Judaism, and Israel. President Lech Walesa was told that his scheduled meeting with President Clinton was off until he denounced Fr. Jankowski, but who ever heard of a comparable development in reverse? (p. 92).

Consider also the KATOLEWICA. Polish Catholic spokesmen denounce Father Jankowski, yet are deafeningly silent about such things as Rabbi Weiss’ profanation of the crosses during the Auschwitz Carmelite convent controversy, and former Jewish Communist Jerzy Urban’s constant scurrilous attacks on Pope John Paul II and the Church. (p. 87). In fact, Urbach/Urban’s vulgar anti-Catholic cartoons bear an eerie resemblance to Goebbels’s and Streicher’s anti-Semitic ones in DER EWIGE JUDE and DER STUERMER. (p. 74; see photos after p. 256).

WHAT LEFTISTS SAY THAT FR. JANKOWSKI SAID, AND WHAT FR. JANKOWSKI ACTUALLY SAID

To begin with, the priest’s actual view of Jews is a balanced one, recognizing both good and bad deeds by Jews. (p. 86).

As for the June 11, 1995 sermon, here’s what correspondent Jaroslaw Popek of the leftist and Judeocentric GAZETA WYBORCZA wrote that Father Jankowski said (p. 80): “We cannot tolerate any longer the rule of those who haven’t declared whether they come from Moscow or Israel.”

Here’s what Fr. Jankowski actually said: “The representatives you elected…ostensibly Poles, but who had declared their origins from Israel or from Moscow”.

Popek also quoted Jankowski as saying: “I did not include the Star of David because it is already embodied in the symbols of the Swastika and the Hammer and Sickle.”

Now here’s what Fr. Jankowski actually said: “…the sign of David is subsumed under these two symbols and for this reason I have no need to include it.”

The latter can be interpreted in various ways, as there were many different symbols present at that re-creation of the Good Friday grave of Christ which doubled as a symbol of the death of patriotic Poland–see p. 75. Ironically, the presence of many symbols of Polish loss itself refutes the premise that Fr. Jankowski is singling out Jews as scapegoats.

The “Jews rule” and “Swastika=Star” are words put into Fr. Jankowski’s mouth by Popek, perhaps deliberately to discredit him. Clearly, Fr. Jankowski is only driving home the point that he objects to foreigners deciding Poland’s fate, regardless of their origins. He is in no way implying that Nazis, Communists, and Jews are equivalent to each other! [In another context, Cardinal Glemp had been misrepresented as saying that Jews control the western press. Actually, he said that Jews have considerable sympathetic access to the press.]

Now consider the impact of cultural Marxism. Author Raina explains why he considers Jews in influential positions not only incompatible with traditional Polishness, but also hostile to the same: “They [influential Jews and former Communists] act according to three slogans: cosmopolitanism, “Europeanism”, and anti-clericalism. Whoever does not adhere to one of these three is labeled an unenlightened fool.” (pp. 70-71). Such concerns must also be placed in the broader context of objectionable xenocracy, as Jerzy Pelc put it. (p. 129).