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Anne W McNeill  10/19/2006 03:24:56 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Search Results

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C O N F I D E N T I A L        WARSAW 01489

SIPDIS
CXWARSAW:
    ACTION: POL
    INFO:   PASC ORA ODC AMB ECON AGRI RSO MGT KRA FCS DCM
            DAO CONS

DISSEMINATION: POLO
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: CDA:KHILLAS
DRAFTED: POL:DHLVANCLEVE
CLEARED: NONE

VZCZCWRI617
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ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 201403Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY WARSAW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1410
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV PRIORITY 1467
RUEHKW/AMCONSUL KRAKOW PRIORITY 1212

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 WARSAW 001489 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/18/2021 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KNAR PL
SUBJECT: ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE POLISH GOVERNMENT 
 
REF: WARSAW 992 
 
Classified By: Acting Political Counselor David Van Cleve for 
reasons 1.5 (b) and (d) 
 
 ¶1.  (C) Summary:  Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party 
(PiS) is stung by criticism that it is anti-Semitic, gutting 
Holocaust education, and too slow to act on long delayed 
private property restitution, but does not have a strategy to 
deal with these problems.  PiS points to its heretofore good 
track record on a range of issues important to the 
international and local Jewish communities, and the GOP's 
generally excellent relations with Israel.  However, it has 
done little to nothing to rein in the extremist views 
expressed by some members of the League of Polish Families 
(LPR), its junior coalition partner, whose leader, Roman 
Giertych, is a lightning rod for criticism.  Giertych is 
dogged by the public perception that even if he is not 
anti-Semitic himself, his party includes leaders who promote 
anti-Semitic and homophobic views in the name of protecting 
the Polish nation.  As long as LPR remains in government and 
Giertych fails to distance himself from extremists within his 
party, the coalition government will continue to face charges 
that it turns a blind eye to hateful views.  End Summary. 
 
Sensitivity to Negative Press 
----------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) Highly sensitive to criticism, notably from the 
foreign press, PiS officials chafe against the perception 
that their party is anti-Semitic.  Officials at every level 
of government have taken umbrage to negative international 
press about Poland and anti-Semitism, notably in the New York 
Times and relating to the publication of Jan Gross's new book 
on the Kielce pogrom in 1946.  A number of these articles 
have drawn misleading comparisons between Poland today and 
the bleak situation facing Holocaust survivors in Poland 
sixty years ago, immediately following World War II. 
 
PiS Viewed Positively by Jewish Leaders 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) The issue of anti-Semitism surfaced anew in Poland at 
the same time as the public attack on Rabbi Michael 
Schudrich, an American citizen who is the Rabbi of Warsaw and 
Lodz.  As reported reftel, Schudrich was punched and 
pepper-sprayed in late May, 2006, by a skinhead who shouted 
"Poland for Poles," a well-known anti-Semitic epithet from 
the inter-war period.  In response to the attack, then PM 
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz called Rabbi Schudrich within hours. 
President Lech Kaczynski met with Schudrich personally within 
three days, and police in late June arrested his alleged 
attacker, who faces criminal charges.  PiS officials -- and 
the politically astute Rabbi -- are quick to point to these 
efforts, and statements decrying the assault, as strong 
evidence that Poland is not, as some charge, a hot bed of 
anti-Semitism.  Schudrich himself pointed this out in a 
letter to the editor of the New York Times. 
 
¶4.  (U) Indeed, local Jewish leaders commend the Kaczynski 
for their history of support.  When he was mayor of Warsaw, 
President Lech Kaczynski was widely credited with breathing 
new life into the proposed Museum of the History of Jews in 
Poland by ramming through the city bureaucracy a plan to 
donate the necessary land for the museum's construction. 
That museum is scheduled to break ground this year and open 
in 2009.  Kaczynski equally secured a favorable lease for the 
museum staff's offices in the center of the capitol.  As the 
chairman of the Sejm's Treasury Committee, former PM 
Marcinkiewicz was also instrumental in drafting legislation 
to provide for private property restitution.  Although that 
effort has yet to pass, Marcinkiewicz won high marks from 
local and foreign Jewish leaders for his expertise and 
efforts.  Jewish leaders were effusive when PiS unexpectedly 
won both parliamentary and presidential elections last fall 
because of PiS's proven, positive track record on 
Polish-Jewish relations. In addition to these efforts, the 
government continues to maintain close ties with Israel, 
making Poland one of Tel Aviv's steadiest allies in Europe. 
 
So What Went Wrong? 
------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Despite the good track record, Jewish and Israeli 
audiences have been aghast at the elevation of two Polish 
fringe political parties, Self Defense (SO) and the League of 
Polish Families (LPR) to the government coalition. Allied 
with SO and LPR, PiS at last has achieved a parliamentary 
majority that permits it to accelerate its efforts on a wide 
range of domestic political projects, notably focused on 
corruption and rooting out vestiges of Communist-era 
influence.  PiS's singular focus on vanquishing the remaining 
elements of a shadowy network of businesses, government and 
military officials, led to a marriage of convenience that is 
unpalatable to a majority of Poles (who by a wide margin 
dislike SO and LPR) and the international Jewish community. 
 
Restitution Plan Held Hostage to Political Divisions 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6.  (C)  Restitution is an example of politics holding 
sensible ideas hostage.  While most centrist parties agree 
with PiS that Poland should do something to address private 
property restitution, neither SO nor LPR support the effort. 
The government has proposed legislation, identical to the 
bill proposed by the former SLD government, awaiting action 
in the Sejm, and sent two senior GOP officials to Washington 
and New York to discuss the plan with USG and Jewish leaders 
in April, before the coalition deal with SO and LPR was 
struck.  However, with PiS's focus elsewhere, it seems 
unlikely that the government will move forward on restitution 
legislation, which would require twisting the arms of its 
reluctant junior partners, and then possibly crafting a 
compromise with the opposition -- not a likely proposition in 
the negative political environment here. 
 
¶7.  (C) SO gets its share of criticism owing to the honorary 
degree awarded to its leader, Andrej Lepper, from the 
virulently anti-Semitic Academy of Personnel Management 
(MAUP) in Ukraine.  When asked why he failed to distance 
himself from that institution, Lepper brazenly challenged one 
journalist to "go ahead, and write that I'm an anti-Semite." 
The majority of criticism, however, has been leveled 
understandably against Roman Giertych and LPR. 
 
LPR and the Political Legacy of Anti-Semitism 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C) Giertych, in some measure, suffers from a family 
history that is without question anti-Semitic.  His 
grandfather, Jedrzej, was a leader of Poland's National 
Democratic Party (Endecja), which promoted nationalist, 
anti-Semitic policies in the inter-war period.  The youth arm 
of that party, Mlodzierz Wszechpolska (All-Poland Youth) 
supported an economic boycott against Jews and policies 
restricting Jews access to higher education.  Giertych's 
father, Maciej, LPR's Presidential candidate last year and a 
member of the European Parliament, is equally viewed as an 
anti-Semite stemming in part from statements like those he 
made urging authorities to avoid "press outlets controlled by 
the Jews" in restoring order during Martial Law.  Maciej 
Giertych caused a flap in the European Parliament earlier 
this month when he praised fascist dictactor Francisco Franco 
as a man who maintained order and supported a strongly 
Catholic vision of society. 
 
¶9.  (C) While not wanting to visit the sins of the father(s) 
on the (grand)son, Giertych has been quick to use his 
family's affiliation when it will benefit him politically. 
For instance, Giertych's rise to political fame came through 
a revitalized All-Poland Youth, which he helped form in 1989, 
notably bearing the same name as its anti-Semitic, inter-war 
predecessor.  And while he has studiously avoided making 
anti-Semitic remarks, he was criticized widely after Rabbi 
Schudrich's assault for failing to address the issue 
squarely.  Giertych's comments, that "LPR is not 
anti-Semitic" and "hooliganism can happen anywhere," struck 
many as faint, notably compared to the unequivocal statements 
by PiS officials.  Moreover, he has done nothing to stop 
other LPR members from making outrageous statements, such as 
his deputy, Wojciech Wierzejski, who urged violence against 
gay rights advocates in Warsaw's recent Equality Parade. 
"Perverts," Wierzejski opined, "should be beaten with bats." 
Giertych steadfastly has  supported the appointment of Piotr 
Farfal, a 28-year old lawyer with ties to All-Poland Youth, 
to a senior position at Polish National Television, despite 
revelations in the press that Farfal published a neo-Nazi 
paper for several years as a teenager, which included 
shocking characterizations of Jews.  Farfal remains in his 
job. 
 
Ministry of Education 
--------------------- 
 
¶10.  (C) The GOP's frustration with the anti-Semitic label is 
exacerbated by Giertych's plans to promote "patriotic 
education" in his capacity as Minister of Education.  As part 
of that effort, funding to several NGOs for 
Holocaust-education programming has been cut off as 
"inconsistent with the Minister's plan for patriotic 
education."  Giertych himself told the Ambassador in their 
meeting on May 23 that "Holocaust education programming would 
be an integral part of patriotic education," but working 
level contacts at the Ministry of Education confirmed on July 
17 that funding for teacher training (which includes many 
Holocaust education programs) had "decreased seriously." 
 
¶11. (C) Polish media widely reported on the Israeli Embassy's 
boycott of Giertych and his LPR deputies, and Israeli 
Ambassador David Peleg has repeatedly told the Ambassador 
that his government will have nothing to do with LPR.  In 
contrast to U.S. diplomatic efforts, Peleg has lobbied 
publicly for moving Holocaust education programming out of 
the Ministry of Education altogether, which would salvage 
programs that bring thousands of Israeli teenagers annually 
to Poland to visits sites related to Jewish life as well as 
Nazi concentration camps.  The President's Chancellery 
asserts it was working on a plan to remove Holocaust 
education from the Ministry of Education when Peleg's public 
remarks forced it to put the plan on hold.  Giertych and 
Peleg were both present at the commemoration last week of the 
massacre in Jedwabne, a Polish town where local residents in 
1941 herded their Jewish neighbors into a barn and burned 
them alive.  As part of his public boycott, Peleg refused to 
meet with Giertych at the event. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12.  (C) Giertych's high profile, however, has not lifted 
LPR's fortunes.  Two polls this week show LPR capturing only 
one and two percent, respectively, of public support.  The 
Kaczynskis' plan for some time has been to move PiS to the 
right and devour the competition, and all indications are 
that this plan is succeeding.  But the Kaczynskis' inward 
focus on domestic politics comes at a real cost in terms of 
Poland's standing and influence abroad, notably within the 
EU.  Furthermore, Lech Kaczynski's recent decision to skip 
the Weimar summit with President Chirac and Chancellor Merkel 
has exacerbated the Polish government's increasingly negative 
and parochial image.  Notwithstanding his solid track record, 
Lech Kaczynski is concerned that Giertych is poised to hijack 
his legacy goal of full Jewish-Polish reconciliation.  The 
European Parliament's condemnation of "the rise in racist, 
xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic intolerance in 
Poland" equally suggests that PiS will continue to suffer 
politically from its choice of coalition partners.  Clearly 
the GOP must move forward on a range of issues like private 
property restitution, resolving property disputes, 
recommiting to Holocaust education, and high profile 
initiatives such as marshalling resources for improvements to 
the Treblinka death camp.  If progress is not made soon on 
Holocaust education, the Embassy may consider ways to step up 
the pressure for action (septel).  PiS is not an anti-Semitic 
party.  But this aside, distrust of Roman Giertych and LPR is 
likely to continue to damage Poland's standing as long as he 
remains in the government. 
HILLAS