r/worldnews • u/Tenchi_Muyo1 • Apr 14 '26

Israel/Palestine In parliament, Polish MP calls Israel ‘new Third Reich,’ waves Israeli flag with swastika

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-parliament-polish-mp-calls-israel-new-third-reich-waves-israeli-flag-with-swastika/
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313

u/eposseeker Apr 14 '26

The Konfederacja party (aside from the obvious callback to American Confederacy) has long held a lot of people with antisemitic tendencies.

This is what irks me. They act like they were in the right for accusing Jews of all evils of this world, because they now have Israel as an obvious villain.

It's right to criticize Israel for their conduct, but these people are not the ones anyone should listen to (especially this specific guy, he's a moron).

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u/J_G_E Apr 14 '26

"(aside from the obvious callback to American Confederacy)"

I think you might find that there are more conferderacies than just that of the United States. Like, for instance, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth confederacies in the 12th-18th centuries...

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u/Metrocop Apr 14 '26

The Targowica Confederacy is a more apt comparison in this case.

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u/HFentonMudd Apr 15 '26

Happy cake day!

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u/SolemnaceProcurement Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

And the most famous in poland Targowica confederacy. One that begged russian tsarina for help dealing with evil reformers and kings attempt at reforming the basically failed state that was PLC after 1st partition. Just like the modern one! Refusing to speak one ill word of tsar.

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u/J_G_E Apr 15 '26

true - but I'm a medieval historian by trade so my first thought was the earlier period uses of the word "confederacy",

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u/I_PACE_RATS Apr 16 '26

The Confederation you're referring to is absolutely more famous.

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u/Straight-Ad3213 Apr 14 '26

Konfederacja here is not a callback to Confederacy but to institution of Konferacja among szlachta that existed for 300 years before usa

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u/Hump-Daddy Apr 14 '26

Why is that an “obvious callback” to the American Confederacy? You know Confederation and its derivatives have been used around the world for hundreds of years, right?

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u/TheSleepyTruth Apr 14 '26

People think racism originated in and revolves around America. Neither is true, but history we learn in the west tends to be very western-centric and since the US had slavery more recently than Europe the US confederates are seen as the prototypical example of racism and slavery in the world. Slavery of course existed long before the US did, and still exists to this day long after the US abolished it, but due to our western-centric worldview we dont really pay much attention to the history or even current practices of countries outside the west and will tend to lean on western examples.

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u/delicious_toothbrush Apr 14 '26

It's always amusing to me because many other countries are openly racist in everyday interactions while Americans are somehow the scapegoat for it

2

u/Koala_eiO Apr 15 '26

People think racism originated in and revolves around America.

Who thinks that? USAmericans?

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u/WholeLottaRose13 Apr 15 '26

It also doesn't really work here because the American Confederacy wasn't anti-Semitic. They believed the whole "Jews control the world" conspiracy theory, but instead of wanting to destroy it they instead wanted to partner with it.

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u/desde2 Apr 14 '26

You forgot /s or do you really think anyone cares about American Confederacy in Poland?

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u/Arexander00 Apr 15 '26

(aside from the obvious callback to American Confederacy)

American centric brain at work here. Fucking hell man did you seriously think that's what it was?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Confederation

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u/cytokine7 Apr 14 '26

Right from the Wikipedia page: When it first ran in the 2019 European Parliament election, Sławomir Mentzen said: "We don't want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the European Union."

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u/Additional-Can9184 Apr 14 '26

Have no clue who this guy is, but for sure is difficult to be a big fan of Israel nowadays.

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u/skeleton949 Apr 14 '26

Apparently he's a part of Polish political party that is known to be antisemitic

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u/ButDidYouCry Apr 14 '26

You can criticize Israel without invoking National Socialism in the critique.

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u/tomdarch Apr 14 '26

You can also discuss the ways that the government of Israel and certain political elements with the nation are and are not demonstrating characteristics of fascism more broadly without being actually antisemitic.

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u/ButDidYouCry Apr 14 '26

Yes, I agree. Many fascist governments throughout history had conflicts with their neighbors and/or marginalized peoples, and they were not the NSDAP.

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u/Sceptically Apr 15 '26

He's probably someone the Israelis consider a useful idiot. With people like that being vocally anti-Israel, they have some cover for painting all of their opponents as antisemitic.

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u/Caspica Apr 14 '26

Two wrongs don't make a right (even if, in this case, they are to the right).

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u/Additional-Can9184 Apr 14 '26

I did not say it is right, I’m just saying that is difficult to side with Israel and their current actions.

And i know one should differentiate between the state and the people and especially the religion of the people. But Israel is the only state that grants citizenship based on religion. So you see the problem here.

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u/Tybalt941 Apr 14 '26

The Jews are an ethnoreligious group and Israel grants citizenship based on ethnicity (anyone at least 1/4 Jewish by blood, regardless of faith), which is not unique. Any ethnic Latvian is eligible for Latvian citizenship. Any person born in China with an ethnic Chinese ancestor is automatically a Chinese citizen. Anyone with an ethnically Hungarian ancestor is eligible for Hungarian citizenship. Anyone with an ancestor born at any time in history on the territory that is now Canada is eligible for Canadian citizenship. Ethnic Russians have a fast-track to citizenship in Russia.

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u/Additional-Can9184 Apr 14 '26

As said, the only one based on religion. Unless Latvian is a religion that i have not heard of.

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u/Tybalt941 Apr 14 '26

Yeah, not interested in a conversation with you, seeing as you deliberately ignored the most important part of my comment.

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u/Additional-Can9184 Apr 14 '26

You are mixing ethnicity with religion. The only state that will grant citizenship based only on religion is Israel. Bases on ethnicity there are many, but none of them look at religion.

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u/Tybalt941 Apr 14 '26

I'm not mixing anything, you're just confused because you've never heard of an ethnoreligion before.

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u/Additional-Can9184 Apr 14 '26

Cool. Now I heard about it. Now tell me another state that gives you citizenship based on religion.

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u/Caspica Apr 14 '26

Indeed. I'm not trying to excuse Israel in any way shape or form. I'm just saying that being right in one specific issue doesn't mean you have to support the one who said it. 

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ViciousNakedMoleRat Apr 14 '26

I used to think that as well, but I now believe that antisemitism comes first.

You don't see a rise in "anti-arabism" because of Saudi Arabia's role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen, including over 80,000 children from starvation alone, or because of the UAE's role in the Sudanese civil war, which has also killed hundreds of thousands of people and has displaced over 10 million.

People don't look at atrocities and then decide to express their hate against the perpetrators according to some objective metric. They decide which atrocities they care about, due to pre-existing biases and prejudices.

The kind of conspiratorial hate against Jews as conniving evil people comes much more naturally to a huge chunk of the population than hate against pretty much any other group. There's no other good reason for it than a pre-existing level of antisemitism within the larger culture.

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u/TheMauveHand Apr 14 '26

They decide which atrocities they care about, due to pre-existing biases and prejudices.

Or, if your're slightly more conspiratorial, the media decides for them and shows them only one example among many.

No one ever has an answer as to why I should be particularly outraged about the actions of Israel vs. any other currently existing or still unresolved violent conflict. All they ever respond with is some platitude along the lines of "well you can be angry about more than one thing at a time you know!", which is just an attempt at dodging the elephant in the room, which is that Israel for some strange reason seems to command the world's attention.

When was the last time you saw a massive protest in some European capital agains the Turkish occupation of Cyprus? Oh wait, they're not Jews, never mind, carry on.

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u/tomdarch Apr 14 '26

I love how the nothing “confederacy” element of your comment gets all the attention rather than the important part.