Predictably, the Obama White House simply shrugged off Polish demands for an apology from the president after his insulting reference to 'Polish Death camps' in a speech.
As I reported earlier, Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk was livid over the insult, which is just the latest instance of shameful treatment by the Obama Administration of one of our best allies in Europe. “We can’t accept such words in Poland, even if they are spoken by a leader of an allied country,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told journalists in Warsaw today. “Saying Polish concentration camps is as if there was no German responsibility, no Hitler.”
"I am convinced that our American friends can today allow themselves a stronger reaction than a simple expression of regret from the White House spokesman -- a reaction more inclined to eliminate once and for all these kinds of errors," Tusk said.
Members of Poland's Jewish community, including the country's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said in a statement that: "We expect President Barack Obama to personally correct his words."
Remember back during the 2008 campaign, when candidate Obama and his lackeys in the media were railing about 'Cowboy Bush' who had ruined our foreign relations with our allies and how President Obama in his awesomeness was going to make it all better?
From Poland, to Israel, to the UK, to Canada,to Japan, to Latin America, President Obama has, through cluelessness, elementary protocol gaffes, seemingly deliberate insults and amateurish foreign policy ticked off most of our allies while appeasing our enemies and being abused by them like a $5 street hooker.
This is just the latest example.
Let me say this to my Polish readers...for what it's worth, I apologize for our clueless, ill mannered president.Please keep in mind that most Americans value how good an ally Poland has been, and we hope to re-establish our relationship once he's swept into the dumpster of history.
10 comments:
Thank you for this.
Rob,
Obama was his usual jerk when he said this, just as he was when he said that he does not speak Austrian.
But no Jew should apologize to Poles, quite the opposite. I know that American Jews are not as close to the WW2 experience as us European Jews, but still.
See:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/50114/poles-were-complicit-in-holocaust-outrage-over-obama-gaffe-is-fraudulent-ignorant/
and my forthcoming comment at The PostWest.
Rob,
Obama is an ignorant jerk, but no Jew should apologize to Poles, quite the contrary.
See:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/50114/poles-were-complicit-in-holocaust-outrage-over-obama-gaffe-is-fraudulent-ignorant/
and my forthcoming comment on it at The PostWest.
Hello Fabian,
I disagree with La Schlussel, as is frequently the case.
First off, I'm fully aware that Poland in the 1930's was large an anti-Semitic country. Anyone who listened to one of Cardinal Glemp evil Easter sermons knows about that, or who realizes that the every last murders of Jews to stem from the Holocaust were committed by Poles.
It's also true that a number of Poles behaved with extraordinary courage and risked their lives to help Polish Jews at a time when it was all too easy to turn their backs on them. You can find the names of some them engraved on Yad Vashem in Israel. Jan Karski, who risked his life to escape from Poland and come to the west in a vain attempt to get FDR to attempt to take steps to at least impede the carnage was one of these brave Poles.
To refer to places like Auschwitz as 'Polish death camps' was both ignorant and insulting of our president, and a callous slap at the 3 million Poles who died at Nazi hands, along with 3 million Polish Jews.
As I point out in my article, it was also one in a long string of deliberate insults from Obama towards one of our best allies in Europe.The Poles were perfectly right to be outraged.
Finally, I find it wrong to maintain 'outrage' towards people who mostly weren't even alive during the time of the Holocaust. I expect that from someone like Debbie Schlussel given her personality, but I don't see it as an attitude a thinking human being can support.
Frankly, the Jews have enough live enemies, thank you.
I request that in fairness, you post this reply on your site.
And for what it's worth, my own, personal apology for our ill mannered and clueless president's refusal to man up and apologize went out to my local Polish Consulate yesterday.
Regards,
Rob
Rob,
We must agree to disagree.
I was careful to agree that Obama is an ignorant jerk. He fucks up almost every time he opens his mouth. That was not the point.
But that does not mean that a Jew should apologize to Poles. I am sure that you have knowledge of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, but unlike Jews who themselves or their families directly experiencd them like Schlussel and my
family did, American Jews are far from fully knowing and comprehending.
Poland was and remains a deeply anti-Semitic country. So does my
native Romania, as well as most European countries. Anti-Semitism went dormant after WW2 but is now reemerging. It's not new, but rather hid for a while and Israel and Islamization are pushing it in the open again.
So I am not defending what Obama said--I never do--but there is no justification for any of these countries' demand for apologies. Expressing dissatisfaction
or calling him ignorant would have been enough.
As to Schlussel, I don't agree with everything she says either, but what I appreciate about her is that she is fearless and always talks truth to the depressing self-dhimmifying, multi-culti US crap.
In this particular case you simply don't know how deep and persistent Polish anti-Semitism is and the fact that current generations were not around during WW2 did not
change that much. Yes, there are exceptions, but that's all they are, not the rule. The fact that we don't need them as enemies does not mean that they aren't or that apologies will change them.
If you watch carefully various films that were made years after WW2 and even recently, almost always you can detect the undercurrents which often
pop to the surface. But the proper cultural background makes that much easier.
The outrage is not about the current generations. It is about demands for apologies.
Regards,
FP
PS- I will put a note on my site to refer to this exchange.
Hello Fabian,
Thank you for including my response.
I'm afraid we're talking past each other a bit, so perhaps some clarity would be welcome on my part.
Neither of us nor Ms. Schlussel were in Poland in 1939, so your argument about directly experiencing anti-Semitism is irrelevant..because that's what we're talking about. The fact that I live in a nation that has, by and large, allowed Jews to live as Jews without discriminatory government laws or government behavior as opposed to a place like Romania is moot.
Responses to the Nazi demand for the Jews to be turned over to them ran on a scale, as I'm sure you know. Catholic countries, particularly in Eastern Europe like Countries like the Ukraine, Romania, Lithuania ( where my great uncle's partisan unit was betrayed to the Nazis by gentile counterparts) ,Latvia, Croatia et al tended towards the bottom of the scale, while other nations like Finland, Denmark,Bulgaria, Serbia and until the Nazis occupied them, Italy had much better records. Some countries like France and Hungary tended towards the middle. The point is that the Poles never put up extermination camps for Jews and you have no evidence whatsoever that they ever would have. Nor were there public celebrations in Poland of murdering Jews as there were in the Ukraine at Babi-Yar. The Nazis did constructed and ran these camps. So did the Croats, and the Arabs dearly wanted to put up a camp for Palestine's Jews in present day Nablus.But the Poles didn't do it and the Nazis did, and President Obama implied differently. That's the central point at issue here.
There are anti-Semites here in America, some of them quite influential. Does that make America an anti-semitic country? Of course not.
My apology to the Poles was based on the fact that they are a firm ally of the West NOW, TODAY and I made it as an American.Also, I'm concerned with actions NOW, today. If you and Debbie Schlussel want to hold on to grudges from 70+ years ago, be my guest.
I would also disagree with you about Schlussel being fearless and talking truth. She's done some excellent reporting about the Muslim tentacles in her native Detroit. But she's also gone after a number of people out of sheer spite and envy,like Pam Geller, Brigitte Gabriel and Sean Hannity, whom are friends of Israel to the point of serial dishonesty. I think her persona does a great job of obscuring whatever quality work she does except to devoted fans, and most bloggers who are familiar with her that I know view her rants with tongue in cheek and rolled eyes.
I think attitudes like Schlussel's are highly counterproductive and actually help the enemy a great deal.
But whatever floats your boat. we can agree to disagree here.
Regards,
Rob
Well, it does look indeed that we're talking past each other,
because you keep ignoring what I am saying. Let me try it
one more time.
I did not defend what Obama said, and therefore there
is no need to argue that the camps were not Polish.
All articles discussing the incident
make it clear that he keeps putting his foot in his
mouth and is insensitive (check Rubin's take
on this point). It is well known that Obama
is neither cognitively nor emotionally competent
enough to be aware of the effect of what he says.
I don't think Obama is bothered too much about
the Holocaust and he did not intend to
imply something here. It was akin to
him "not speaking Austrian". He probably meant
to say "Nazi camps in Poland" but fucked up as
usual.
I think the Poles know this. They could have
simply corrected Obama and appreciated an
acknowledgement (the WH did provide one)
But the reason they reacted so strongly reveals
sensitivity and you must ask yourself where
it's coming from. If they did not have the
record they do and which is known, would they
have reacted the same? Possibly, but I doubt it.
Suppose the Islamists were allies (something that
Obama tries to delusionally achieve by constantly
apologizing to them), would you then defend the
apologies?
But even that is besides the point. That ****Jews***
(not Obama) should not apologize to the Poles (for
Obama) has nothing to do with whether they are allies
or not.
Some European and all Arab countries are anti-Semitic,
America has not been but there are signs that it has the
potential to become so, something I keep arguing.
There is a big difference between holding a grudge
and not apologizing.
I was clear that I don't always agree with Schlussel.
But when and if (and only if) she is correct I don't care
what her motivations are. I dk much about
Gabriel and Hannity, but if she has grounds for it,
whether they are pro-Israel or not is irrelevant. But
I am surprised that you have problems with her and
not with Geller, who together with Spencer have allied
often with some highly questionable groups (to put
it politely) just because they are also anti-Muslim.
So I guess, yes, we must agree to disagree. Perhaps
I sympathize with her in not having too much faith
in any "productivity" achieved by pretending that
reality is rosier than it is. Jews have always
done that without much to show for it.
Incidentally, I am willing to bet as other do that what Obama said was written by some WH staff as ignorant as he is--that's who he surrounded himself with, as Rubin points out--and he did not realize the problem. He just read from the teleprompter as he usually does.
First of all, thank You for your kind commentary regarding the "polish death camps" issue.
I'm a Pole, living in Poland, and have stumbled upon your blog largely by accident.
While i cannot deny that there was anti-semitism in wartime Poland, it is not true that we were complicit, as a nation, in Holocaust.
In fact, there were many efforts, both by individuals and organisations such as the Home Army to shelter and help the Jews.
The polish Government in Exile issued a decree that reads: "Any Pole who collaborates in their acts of murder, whether by extortion, informing on Jews, or by exploiting their terrible plight or participating in acts of robbery, is committing a most serious offense against the laws of the Polish Republic."
Some of the cases are documented here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_Holocaust
And as to the contemporary polish anti-semitism, I kindly invite everyone to come to Poland and see for himself.
As an example:
http://www.jewishfestival.pl/index,en.html
Best regards,
Marek
dobrze powiedział Marek, and thanks for stopping by.
This is exactly my point..you don't blame a rape victim for what happened when she was helpless.
BTW, according to my sources, the Polish Consulates here in America were swamped by e-mails and phone calls from Americans like me who were and are appalled at how this president has treated Poland.
That had a lot to do,I'm sure, with President Obama's subsequent decision to act decently for once and write a letter of apology.
Thanks again for coming by.
Regards,
Rob
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