Candidate for the new defense minister Antoni Macierewicz giving a thumbs-up before the opening of the first session of the new parliament in Warsaw, Nov. 12, 2015. (Alik Keplicz/AP Images)

(JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League is calling on Poland’s newly elected prime minister to withdraw his appointment for defense minister, who has claimed the notoriously anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” might be true.

In a letter sent this week to Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlow, ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote that although Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz’s comments date back to 2002, “it indicates profound and virulent anti-Semitism,” The Associated Press reported Friday.

“We trust that you would not allow anyone of such convictions to be a member of your government,” the letter added.

“Protocols,” which purports to be a document by a Jewish cabal planning world domination through the economy and media, has been proven to be a hoax.

In 2002, Macierewicz told Radio Maryja that he had read the “Protocols” and, while acknowledging that the document may not be authentic, said, “Experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles,” The Guardian newspaper of Britain reported Tuesday.

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