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Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman just can't stop himself when it comes to discussing Michal Kaminski. Even in this post of his responding to my Telegraph piece he manages - surely deliberately - to miss the point:
Stephen Pollard has a rather strange piece in the Daily Telegraph. In a surprising and misconceived attempt to defend (!) Polish MEP Michal Kaminski from accusations of anti-Semitism, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle ends up making this rather bizarre point in the very final paragraph:
"Far from being an anti-Semite, Mr Kaminski is about as pro-Israeli an MEP as exists."
Eh? Why on earth does he suddenly refer to Israel here? Is he really
so naive that he thinks supporters of Israel can't be anti-Semitic at
the same time?
The line Hasan quotes is in the final paragraph of a 900 word piece, in which I seek to demonstrate that there is no worthwhile evidence of Kaminski being an antisemite. Indeed, I cite his demand that a former President of Poland apologise for the communists' antisemitic campaign in 1968.
Yet Hasan does not deal with any of my points refuting the accusation of antisemitism. Not one, even in passing. That's because, of course, he can't. His case is destroyed.
Instead, he chooses to tell us that while some of his friends are Jewish, he is "a longstanding critic of Israel".
So because he is a critic of Israel but likes Jews, he thinks it's strange that I write of someone who also isn't antisemitic that they support Israel. And that makes me strange?