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Lecture on Holocaust in Poland canceled after far-right lawmaker storms podium
(JTA) – Polish-Canadian historian Jan Grabowski was about to deliver a lecture in Warsaw Tuesday related to his battle against efforts by Polish leaders to suppress uncomfortable truths about the history of antisemitism in the country before and during the Holocaust.
But before Grabowski could get started, a far-right Polish lawmaker with a record of antisemitic statements stormed the speaker’s podium, smashing the microphone, knocking over loudspeakers, and yanking cables, according to Notes from Poland, an independent local outlet. Grzegorz Braun, of the Confederation party, later said he disrupted the event to defend Poland’s good name against Grabowski’s “historical propaganda.”
Warsaw-born Grabowski, a professor at the University of Ottawa whose father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, has been a vocal critic of Poland’s efforts to constrain discussion of the Holocaust there. It became illegal in 2018 in Poland to accuse the country of complicity with Nazi crimes.
Grabowski recently published an academic study exposing the alleged distortion of Wikipedia articles on the Holocaust in Poland, leading to an unusual intervention by Wikipedia’s top authorities. He has drawn forceful criticism from right-wing nationalists and has even been prosecuted over his research.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me, I felt like [I was] in Poland in the 1930s,” Grabowski was quoted as saying following the incident at his lecture.
When the police arrived at the scene, Braun invoked his parliamentary privilege and refused to leave Warsaw’s German Historical Institute even as the event was called off and the crowd vacated the premises.
Braun reportedly said he “refuses to leave the building [because] I am protecting the Polish nation against a provocative attack on our historical sensitivity. The Germans will not teach us history in Poland.”
When the Institute’s director, Milos Reznik, asked Braun to stop damaging the Institute’s property, Braun said he won’t take orders from a German and told Reznik, “Get out of Poland.” Reznik is Czech, not German.
Outside the institute, participants encountered a protest of the lecture led by Robert Bąkiewicz, a prominent nationalist figure. Ahead of the event, public media outlets dominated by the ruling right-wing Law and Justice criticized Grabowski and the government-run Institute of National Remembrance condemned what it characterized as efforts to blame Poland for German crimes against Jews.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial criticized the use of the Auschwitz death camp in a campaign video by Poland’s ruling party, Reuters reported. The video, which was posted on social media, discourages viewers from attending a political opposition rally slated for Sunday.
The video seizes on language used by a government critic Tomasz Lis, who had tweeted that “a chamber” would be found for ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and President Andrzej Duda, who is an ally of the party.
The video presents an image of the front gate of Auschwitz with its infamous slogan, “Arbeit macht frei” and asks, “Do you really want to march under this slogan?”
Lis said he meant to say “cell,” not “chamber,” and intended no allusion to Nazi gas chambers.
“The instrumentalization of the tragedy of people who suffered and died in the German Nazi Auschwitz camp – on either side of the political dispute – is an insult to the memory of the victims,” the Auschwitz museum said on Twitter. “It is a sad, painful and unacceptable manifestation of the moral and intellectual corruption of the public debate.”
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The post Lecture on Holocaust in Poland canceled after far-right lawmaker storms podium appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.