I do obviously agree with your worries and feel the same way. Anno 2008 you’d think we would have learned something. It is indeed a shame.

Gut sjabbes for later today!

Did you notice all the people you link to all have the same quotes? I expect they are all based on the same article.

I’ve had a good look through Gazeta Wyborcza, as being likely to be the most Jewish-and-left-sympathetic-and-respectable, and while it takes to task the Jesuits for giving Novak a platform, and both Nowak and Wolniewicz for the content of their speeches, all it mentions about the bishop is that he said “he who loves some great international entity rather than his own country loves really neither that great one nor that one, single, dear thing” (from the context the great international entity might be the EU? don’t see why they thought this was worth mentioning) the only other thing they quote from him is the last phrase of his sermon “Long Live the Glorious Polish Republic”, and that he was asked to recount how he saved Jews during the war.

I was a bit surprised by the “the Jews are attacking us” headline that Gazeta published, but again in context it phrase was used in talking about public debates – the Gross book, Bartoszewski not defending Poland against charges of anti-semitic violence, and what not, not anything more sinister and conspiracy they’re-coming-to-get-us-ish. What the audience took away I don’ t know, I am constantly surprised at people’s stupidity and willingness to render what is said into something quite different.

The Islamic reaction to the Pope’s Regensburg speech (and the reaction of much of the press!), ditto the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sharia law comment – consider them. Not that I agree with what the Abp of C did in fact say, but it was a loooong way from what he has been represented and hoo-ha’d and so on as having said. There’s enough hysteria and pleased outrage around, let’s not feed it. The unhyped truth is usually far more interesting, all else apart.

Not that the general tone sounds that healthy, on the contrary, but there’s no point in dressing up the facts, it just creates smoke and aggro – you’re only following the example of the people you’re condemming. Never heard of Nowak or this other guy (don’t really keep up with the news) but they sound a bit mad. And of course their rhetoric translates into violence on the streets by the braindead.