(JTA) — Poland’s new defense minister has asserted that the anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is true.

The appointment of Antoni Macierewicz of the right-wing Justice and Law Party, which earned an absolute majority on the country’s recent national elections, was announced on Monday.

The Protocols purports to be about a Jewish cabal planning world domination through the economy and the media, and has been proven to be a hoax.

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

Macierewicz, a former member of Poland’s anti-communist opposition movement and deputy defense minister, is known for his efforts to purge the country’s military intelligence services of communist and Russian influence.

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