The Holocaust only gets media coverage because ofaffluent Jews' financial backing, military might and lobbying fronts,presenting a skewed version of events to the world, a high-rankingPolish bishop told a Catholic news portal on Monday.
TadeuszPieronek, a Polish bishop and professor and a friend of the last pope,John Paul II, claimed that "the Holocaust as such is a Jewishinvention" promoted in the press by Jews to gain support for Israel.
Pieronek told the Web site Pontifex.roma that while theHolocaust was not exclusively Jewish, Jews had monopolized it in lieuof encouraging "serious historical debate, free from prejudice andvictimization."
Pieronek alleged that Jews today use the Holocaust as "a weaponof propaganda, used to obtain benefits which are often unjustified,"citing as an example the unconditional support for Israel by the US.
"This promotes a certain arrogance that I findunbearable," he said, explaining that Israel was using its position ofpower and exploiting historical tragedies to treat the Palestinians"like animals."
The bishop said that American support for the Jews had not always been so readily given.
"What did the Jewish-American and allied forces do in [World War II] to avoid these tragedies? Little or nothing," he said.
Pieronek stressed that Israel's treatment of the Palestiniansdid not compare to "the shame of the concentration camps and theaberrations of Nazism," but was still a cause for concern ahead ofInternational Holocaust Remembrance Day, being marked on Wednesday.
"The Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention ... a day ofremembrance must also be set for the many victims of Communism,persecuted Catholics and Christians and so on," he told the Web site.
Pieronek vehemently denied that his words stemmed from anti-Semitism.
"The anti-Semitic history of Poland is an invention," he said. "A joke ... offensive to our people."
Although most of the victims of the Holocaust were indeed Jews,many Poles, Italians and Catholics also died at the Nazi concentrationcamps, he said.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu traveled Monday night toPoland, where he will attend the ceremony Wednesday commemorating the65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.