Polish PM calls Jews ‘greedy’ in uncovered recording

Morawiecki allegedly made anti-Semitic comments about “greedy” and “rich” Americans, Jews, Germans, Englishmen and Swiss running hedge funds.

By: World Israel News Staff

In secret recordings from 2013, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki allegedly made anti-Semitic comments about “greedy” and “rich” Americans, Jews, Germans, Englishmen and Swiss running hedge funds, JTA reported.

The remarks, made before Morwiecki’s rise to power and publicized Tuesday by Onet, the largest Polish web portal, were part of a three-hour-long recording.

In another recording, then-Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz appeared to ask the country’s central bank chief to give the economy a boost to help the government get re-elected, according to JTA. Such a move is illegal, as under Polish law, the central bank must not interfere in politics.

In February, Israeli politicians accused Morawiecki of anti-Semitism for equating the Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust alleged “Jewish perpetrators,” setting off a new chapter in an angry dispute over Poland’s new bill criminalizing the mention of Polish complicity in the Nazi-led genocide.

Yair Lapid, head of the centrist opposition Yesh Atid party, called Morawiecki’s comments “anti-Semitism of the oldest kind.” Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay said Morawiecki spoke like a Holocaust denier.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his Polish counterpart’s comment was “outrageous.”

“There is a problem here of lack of understanding of history and lack of sensitivity to the tragedy of our people,” Netanyahu said.