POLAND – Polish journalist calls Jewish NGO a ‘gang of international blackmailers’

TIMES OF ISRAEL – Rafał Ziemkiewicz, a Polish journalist and publicist, described the World Jewish Congress as “a gang of international blackmailers.”

Ziemkiewicz, who in January said on air that Jews in the Holocaust “were part of their own destruction” and that Nazi death camps should be called “Jewish camps,” said in a post Thursday on Facebook that murdered French Holocaust survivor Mirelle Knoll was poor because she received no financial aid “from these hundreds of millions of dollars, extorted under the guise of ‘compensation for Holocaust victims’ by the Jewish gang of international blackmailers, called the World Jewish Congress.”

Ziemkiewicz also said that the WJC “now promises itself millions from the Polish reprivatization and is probably behind a massive campaign of slander against Poland.”

He appears to be referring to the controversy over the law passed in December in Poland that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes.

The Polish journalist has repeatedly raised controversies with his statements about Jews. In January, after the the crisis in relations between Israel and Poland over the Holocaust law, he wrote on Twitter: “For many years I have convinced my people that we must support Israel. Today, because of a few scabby or greedy people, I feel like an idiot.”

He was criticized by David Wildstein, deputy director of Polish Television’s Channel 1. “Using the term scab is extremely nasty,” Wildstein tweeted. “This word is disgusting.”

Ziemkiewicz replied: “You are right David, a nasty word associated with all the negative traits attributed to the stereotypical Jews, which is precisely why (I used it).”

Ziemkiewicz’s colleague from the weekly political magazine “Do Rzeczy,” deputy chief Andrzej Horubała, criticized him in an op-ed for the use of the term scabby. However, after the magazine’s editor-in-chief blocked publication the op-ed Horubała announced on Facebook on Thursday that he has resigned from the weekly.

“I am very sorry that my colleague decided to join the campaign against me,” Ziemkiewicz responded.