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Prominent Polish Priest says Jews bend truth to “whatever serves Israel’s interests”


Henryk Zielinski, a Polish Priest who is the editor-in-chief of Idziemy, a weekly Catholic publication, has claimed that Jews bend truth to “whatever serves Israel’s interests” or whatever is beneficial to them in an interview.

The Union of Jewish Communities in Poland filed a complaint about the comments on Monday. Zielinski said that Jews have a “completely different system of values, a different concept of truth. For us, the truth corresponds to facts. For the Jew, truth means something that conforms to his understanding of what’s beneficial. If a Jew is religious, then truth means something God wants.”

He then continued to say that for secular Jews “the truth is subjective or whatever serves Israel’s interests”.

According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” is antisemitic. Moreover, accusing Jews of twisting the truth to fit whatever is “beneficial” to them has strong undertones of antisemitic canards that paint Jews as dissembling, untrustworthy and rootless. This is particularly striking because Zielinski draws a dichotomy between Poles, who he says believe “truth corresponds to facts”, and Jews, for whom he seems to think truth can mean anything that suits a particular agenda.

Michał Karnowski, who was conducting the interview, did not challenge the comments.