The war in Gaza obscured the war in Ukraine. There are protests worldwide on university campuses. akin appearances besides appeared in Warsaw, Krakow and Wrocław. The case is niche, but due to its global character it becomes a complex issue.
Every war has its opponents. However, it is crucial how communicative is formulated and under what circumstances. Poland has rather a rich tradition of protests against wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine or the Caucasus, but they did not make an atmosphere of hatred against Americans or Russians on specified a scale as the war in Gaza against Jews. The tragedy of hostage families and those murdered last October 7 is left silent and covers with words specified as “slaughter”, “Holocaust” or simply “genocide”, and many who want to see the war through a broader context do not announcement that they themselves accept only the Palestinian perspective.
Perhaps it is actual that most protesters around the planet against the war in Gaza do not follow anti-Jewish sentiment. The problem is that they usage slogans specified as “strike strike Tel-Aviv”, “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” or directed straight to American Jews “Go back to Poland”. During the protests, there are frequently expressions of solidarity "with Palestinian resistance", but the speakers do not want to say straight who they mean.
Anti-Zionism or Anti-Semitism?
Before 7 October, a photograph taken by a group of organization activists from Poznań with banners in Polish “You don’t request to be Muslim to support the people of Gaza, you just request to be human” and “Free Palestine”, and in English: “From the river to the sea” and “Blaming Hamas for Firing rockets is like blaming female for punching her rapist”. The selection of slogans is not accidental – in Polish, the solidarity slogans, in English, 1 postulating the construction of Palestine from Jordan to the Mediterranean, that is, throughout the territory of Israel, the another portraying the terrorist organization liable already for a immense number of murders as an innocent victim.
W Krakow, on the another hand, was cancelled this year's edition of the judaic Culture Festival in Kazimierz Krakow. This happened shortly after the attack on the synagogue in Warsaw, the perpetrator of which was a teenager sympathetic to the utmost right, and a bomb alarm at the Polin Museum.
Those who talk about Israel and participate in protests do not always consider themselves anti-Semites, but frequently openly express resentment towards Israelis as a group. Their communicative is shaped by Al-Jazeera, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language portal mediate East Eye, multilingual channels on Telegram, groups of influencers and podcasters. They call themselves “anti-Zionists”, not anti-Semites, and tolerate Jews from diaspora if they have a worldview coincident with their own.
The mediate east subject is rather niche and complex, but those influenced by propaganda referred to by themselves as anti-Zionist live in the belief that they have cognition that is lacking in “lemmings”, “Zionists” are fascists, and Hamas “is innocent of the radicalization of Palestinians”, unlike Israel. So they make an atmosphere of prejudice leading to utmost attitudes.
Kraków behind Palestine or against Israel?
On the national scale, Kraków has become a city where the scale of activities of local Palestinians is the largest and enjoys support and legitimacy from local activists and left-wing politicians. There is an Educational and Cultural Association of Palestinians in Poland, whose vice president, Omar Faris, appears in demonstrations in Krakow, Warsaw and is simply a frequent guest of mainstream media.
He has lived in Poland for a long time, has been fluent in Polish and has a rich past of romanticizing and justifying terrorism. About Palestinian suicide bombers He said: “I condemn all these acts, but on their part it is the top act of heroism that individual sacrifices themselves for the cause. They will be like candles in the tunnel for our nation. besides bad about those 20-year-olds, but we don't have F-16s, Apaches, we don't have tanks – we only have each other.”
This is simply a December 2001 statement, 3 months earlier a suicide bombing of fresh York and Washington took place, and Palestinian terrorists blew up on Israeli public transportation buses. Omar Faris does not admit links to specified environments, closer to the authoritative authorities of Autonomy and Fatahu. He himself tells that he met 2 Polish presidents – Alexander Kwasniewski and Lech Kaczyński, Mark Edelman, John Paul II, and Jaser Arafat met 11 times.
Fatah has since 1988 recognized Israel's right to be and renounce terrorism, but Omar Faris nostalgia mentions years of the usage of terrorism and has happened to commemorate associated criminal organizations. On March 11, 2013, he posted an entry on social media, commemorating Dalal Mughrabi, 1 of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on March 11, 1978, in which 38 hostages, including 13 children, were killed.
Faris is known in the circles of the extremist left, but besides maintains contact with the extremist right. In the Neo-Ededic "Polish Thought", he writes: "Can a country with a past specified as Poland afford a affirmative relation with the fascist apartheid state? I feel like a Pole, I started a household in Poland, I live with Poles. But I besides feel the connection between our peoples through cruel analogies in our history.”
He besides organized an anti-Israeli protest during the March of the surviving in Auschwitz. He developed a alternatively interesting model of propaganda: he erstwhile makes the text available to Eve Kurek and calls the Holocaust “the fairy tale”, another time contradicts his statements and proclaims that he has friends among the Jews. It besides shifts the Palestinian case to Polish anti-Semitism: “Jews from all over the planet have taken over our homes and are inactive seeking those left in Poland. And we, the inhabitants of that land for 3 1000 years, have no rights.” spoke in 2009. This is simply a mention to the popular fear of Jews in Poland who survived the war and will forget about their pre-war property, which Poles took after the war.
It reactivated after the Hamas attack and the Israeli invasion of Gaza. On 5 November 2023, at a demonstration at the Presidential Palace, he stated: “Hamas is part of the Palestinian resistance. There is no proof that 1,400 Israelis were murdered." no of the participants reacted, as did the organizers. He repeated his thesis in Tok FM in Jack Żakowski's broadcast.
On 29 April, TVP Info stated: “I believe Netanyahu does not want to release the hostages. I don't know if you've heard of Hannibal's doctrine, that doctrine that doesn't let a surviving soldier to be in the hands of his enemies. And I will tell you the experience that Israel has made. On October 7, Palestinian doctors examined these hostages, it turned out that everyone has a GPS chip under their skin.” The speech was disrupted. Faris attempted to say that 2 hours later the place where the chips were supposedly left was bombed by Israelis. Chips are echoes of conspiracy explanation of the times of the pandemic, in addition to being supplemented by the imagination of Jews as people striving in their nature to shed blood, whatever the intent and at what cost.
Dr Anna Zawadzka from the Polish Academy of Sciences in a fresh interview saidthat Hamas' attack was a quote from the pogroms of Jews in Europe, and that "as opposed to the Polish and Western left, Hamas' ideologists are competent in anti-Semitism history". This can be seen in the 1988 "Hamas Charter", which states, among others, that Jews are liable for the instigation of the French Revolution, the revolution in Russia and planet War I, and control the UN and are supported by imperial forces in the west. He besides recognizes the actual Protocols of Zion’s Wise Men, which, according to many modern anti-Semites, reflect the spirit of the State of Israel.
These are only any of the themes from the manifesto, alongside jihadism and appeals to national-liberating fights, but very crucial in terms of internationalization of the case Hamas is fighting for. Since the six-day war, anti-Israeli rhetoric has entered the extremist left. But the rhetoric of the far right has besides changed. The conventional anti-Semitism, which was the calculus of the 1930s, was besides joined by the negation of the Holocaust and rhetoric undermining the legitimacy and legality of Israel as a state.
They're not just remains of March ’68 and anti-Zionist russian propaganda, but besides elements of Western political culture, which reached Poland after 1989, so from the activists' point of view they seem simply a natural component of left-wing worldview. Especially erstwhile decades have passed since planet War II, and Jews are no longer a national number in Europe, but a nation that has its own state, recognized by the West.
Krakow Palestinians and their leader gather on their events left-wing activists, including organization politicians Together. The network can be found among others. photo of the candidate in elections to the European Parliament, Dorota Kolarska, in a scarf in the colours of Palestine with the inscription “Jerosolimo we are coming” in Arabic, accompanied by Omar Faris. erstwhile asked about this Kolarska replied by e-mail:
– In the organization Together we clearly argue apartheid policy, which according to global and Israeli human rights organizations lead Israel in its own and occupied areas. Since October 2023, we have repeatedly spoken in a spirit condemning Hamas' terrorist attacks, at the same time claiming an embargo on arms for Israel or calling for suspended weapons. The way to the freedom and prosperity of 1 nation or state cannot be led by oppression and death of civilian citizens of another. My participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations involves calling for an immediate ceasefire and directing assistance to the most deprived of it," she declares. At the same time he adds: – I do not know Mr. Faris personally, and his statements and views were not known to me. After reading them, I find that I am definitely cutting myself off from them and do not share them in any way. At the same time, this does not change my views on Israel's actions.
The rhetoric about genocide is very common among left-wing activists. They frequently remind of the situation in the West Bank, which they compare to apartheid. What do they like to stay silent? It cannot be denied that war crimes happen in Gaza, any of which can be categorized as crimes against humanity, but the main nonsubjective of the war is to destruct Hamas and free hostages. This does not affect either the moral assessment or the level of possible criminality of the perpetrators, but completely obscures the image of the conflict. The silence is the question of Hamas' attack on the kibbutz and their background.
Prosecutor Kerim Khan, who besides demands the prosecution of Netanyahu, accuses Hamas leaders of work for war crimes and against humanity, including exterminations, rapes and sexual violence, torture and another inhumane acts, as part of the extended and systematic attack of Hamas and another armed groups on the civilian population of Israel, conducted in accordance with the policy of that organisation. The victims were only killed due to the fact that they were Jews and were the sole mark of the Hamas military wing, although there were no shortages of people of another nationalities and citizens of another states who were just on site that day.
On recordings late released by Haaretz, Hamas terrorists endanger hostages with sexual violence, but due to the fact that they are Hamas terrorists, and the hostages are Israelis, any feminism is suspended, and collective execution becomes ‘act of opposition against the apartheid regime’. Not all active supporters of the Palestinian origin take specified a extremist approach to the romanticism of Hamas, but the issue of hostages, among which many social activists, left-wing activists and Polish citizens do not bother them in 1 percent as much as any Israeli military action.
In April, Michel Kichky’s exhibition “The Figurer on the Front Line” was held in Krakow. The Kraków Initiative for Palestine, co-created by the Palestinians in Kraków, organised a protest during which protesters set up a goal over the entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art with the slogan "If you support genomice walk through". utilizing English at protests is deliberate. Their mark is not society in Poland, but the global judaic community. In the case of Kichky, there was no talk of any support for genocide. He repeatedly spoke out against the war in Ukraine, and the object of his caricature was repeatedly Natanyahu, but besides Hamas.
The artist does not hide his leftist views. He's a supporter of Vivien Silver. She's a feminist and a peace activist. Silver founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation in 1999. During the 2014 Gaza War, she co-organized transports of patients from Gaza to hospitals in Jerusalem. On October 4, 2023, she spoke at a peace rally in Jerusalem attended by 1,500 women of both nationalities, and on October 7, she was murdered in the kibbutz of Be’eri by Hamas.
It is not amazing that in specified an atmosphere Kichka writes: “he strives to support his people, to give strength to the families of hostages, to express compassion for those who have lost mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers, to show empathy with the wounded and the traumatized and people who have become refugees in their own country.” He writes: “At the same time, I am critical of the politics and priorities of the Israeli government. I am troubled by the destiny of innocent victims on both sides of the conflict."
However, this is not adequate and in the opinion of the protesters it is "supporting genocide". The protesters, however, had with them... Anti-war drawings of the artist they protested. The event besides featured a freshly baked councilwoman and organization member, Alesksandra Oweg: “We cannot keep quiet and let this unilateral communicative to happen in the face of the genocide of the State of Israel in Gaza”— She wrote on social media. The councillor did not answer my questions whether she knew Omar Faris' views or whether she intended to legitimize the events he and his environment as a politician and authoritative in the future.
Intifada at UJ
In consequence to campus occupations in the USA groups of UW, UJ and UWr students started akin camps on campuses of their universities. There is no violence, but they postulate a boycott of the Israeli academic world. They do not mention either the subjects of investigation or the position of Israeli scientists on war or the wider conflict.
Warsaw students entered the Library of the University of Warsaw with specified a manifesto: “The Library of the University of Warsaw submitted an application for implementation of the Alma library management strategy in the competition organized by the National Library. Alma is part of the Ex Libris Group, an Israeli software company. The company's office are in Malha Technology Park, in the southwest of Jerusalem. Malha Technology Park was built on an ethnically damaged al-Maliha village during the cleansing. halt working with the genocide!’ Al-Maliha was an arabian village whose residents were forced to flee during the 1948 Jewish-Arab War and never returned to it. Malha Technology Park was founded in 1996.
On the another hand, a banner with the slogan "IntifadUJ" appeared at protests held at the Jagiellonian University. This is simply a scrap of the word "intifada" with the abbreviation Jagiellonian University, which together sounds like an incentive to start an intifada, and symbolism is very crucial here.
The word ‘intifada’ means ‘stand up’ in Arabic and frequently refers to the armed Palestinian uprisings in 1987-1993 and 2000-2004. German neo-Nazis who developed the banner "Deutsche Intifada" in 2008 during a first-class demonstration in Hamburg have transferred this word to European land. Polish neofascists were more precise during the 2019 independency March, where they utilized a banner with the slogan “Polish Intifada – We want our country back now! This Poland not a “Polin”! No more apologies, no more Zionism".
Right-wing extremists in the modern planet for years they believe that they are a bastion of opposition against globalisation processes, which aim to make social relations and destruct conventional culture and ethnicity as such, and the most crucial component of the globalist task is Zionism. Hamas organisations are so an ally for them in the same fight, which is why the usage of the Intifada is of peculiar importance.
Protesters in Krakow, who announced on 5 June that they were holding a gathering with Omar Faris on the situation in Palestine, are described positively by the media so far. possibly it's time to ask who the Polish or Krakow intifada is about to detonate against? Do they even realize their own passwords and their own symbols, and if so, do they truly mean it?
The atmosphere created by Kraków activists did not affect the mediate east conflict in any way, but it damaged Polish-Jewish relations and Krakow's image so much that the judaic culture event organized for years was cancelled. The local spiritual community besides said: “We do not deny anyone the right to criticize Israel, especially the right to open, or even to express reservations about the policy of his government, if anyone recognizes the need. But what is different is the harshest criticism, and what is different is the negation of fundamental rights and values. The facts and their accompanying rhetoric, as well as the attitudes of many highly placed people, bring to head the worst associations with anti-Semitic events that occurred in the university walls before 1939, as well as with the infamous propaganda of Marc 68', which besides covered the real anti-Semitic intentions behind the screening of supposedly "anti-Zionist" slogans, reads an open letter to the rector.
An interesting case of ideological migration was the time of the pandemic. The Kamracki Movement, led by Wojciech Olszański, was then established. He did not say that he was helped by the pandemic and the net in building the environment, but it seems that it was crucial for him to mix the utmost right with the anti-vaccinated environment. Those from the far right who may have had no anti-vaccination views before the pandemic acquired them by the engagement of their supported communities in anti-vaccination movements. Sympathics of anti-vaccinal movements with no established political views adopted utmost right-wing views as their own.
In the case of Krakow, a akin phenomenon may possibly occur. Young left-wingers are directed at protests of Palestinian radicals by left-wing politicians, and there they perceive to an extremist communicative that is sanctioned first by politicians and then by activists of another left-wing groups. There are 2 mechanisms: the effect of authority, of groups, but besides an echo of strengthening convictions that are frequently preached in the group to which the individual belongs or wants to belong.
In specified a situation, a individual starting to form his perfect attitudes will receive a set of views in which marginalization or even contempt for victims of muslim terrorism are an crucial component of the set of progressive worldviews, which not only distorts left-wingness, but simply makes it cease to be. The end product of specified a process is the ideological agulation of conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism with elements of anti-globalism and anti-Western resentimists.
If left-wing politicians tolerate specified attitudes in the back of their party, they will gotta deal with a problem in the future that they cannot foretell and which will be much harder to solve.
