Friday, October 30, 2009

Polish Chief Rabbi accuses Left of "distortion" of his views

Yesterday, Denis Macshane in the Guardian repeated the claim by James Mcintyre in the News Statesman that the Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich had condemned Michael Kaminski of Poland's Law and Justice party who is leading the new Conservative group in the European Parliament.

As the BBC reports today the statements of James McIntyre (and repeated by Denis Macshane) about the Polish Cheif's Rabbi's view are distortions and the title of MacIntyre's piece, in July of "Jewish Leaders Turn on Cameron's Tories: Poland's chief rabbi and others call on Cameron to sever ties with Polish MEP" is misleading and untrue.

In an email that the Polish Cheif Rabbi sent to Policy Exchange, which was then then passed to the BBC the Cheif Rabbi said,
"There is no doubt that Kaminski is a strong friend of the State of Israel. He himself has spoken out against anti-Semitism on several occasions during the past decade.

It is a grotesque distortion that people are quoting me to prove that Kaminski is an anti-Semite. Portraying Kaminski as a neo Nazi plays into the painful and false stereotype that all Poles are anti-Semitic.

I would also like to clarify that the headline of James Macintyre article of July 29, 2009 entitled: "Jewish Leaders Turn on Cameron's Tories: Poland's chief rabbi and others call on Cameron to sever ties with Polish MEP" does not represent what I said to the author. I made no political statement and this headline is misleading and untrue."
Will David Miliband, Denis Macshane, James MacIntyre and many others start to withdraw their statements I wonder?

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