The defendants brought 28 separate incidences into the record of the court case, (sumarized in paragraph 9.5 (i) through (xxviii) of the decision). They include stating and agreeing with the theory that the Holocause, if it did happen, was brought on by the Jews themselves and that if you wish to answer the question of why it happened “… there is something of the answer in Dr. Goebbels’ diaries.”(ii), (iii) (vii) He adds to the tired old idiocy about the Jews controlling the world by tossing n the idea that Churchill was bought and paid for by Jewish money and that the Jews dragged Britain into the war (iv).
Some assorted bon mots:
David Duke… David Irving. Trust me, there’s plenty of room for there to be more than one anti-semite named David out and about in the world today.
The thing is that non-authoritarian states also can have ‘speech laws’ (like the Germans about the Nazis or the Brits about ‘incitement to racial hatred’) without being noticeably more unfree than the US.
I didn’t say you were the ‘bad guy’, I was questioning your judgement and as to the world criticizing the US with ‘insane vitriol’ I can’t say that my experience in Western Europe would bear that out, nobody has ever screamed ‘Yankee go home’ to me. Mind you, if one went around telling people like the Brits that they were on a ‘slippery slope’ (one they’ve obviously been on for hundreds of years without falling), they’d probably get somewhat miffed about American presumption.
Irving manifestly wasn’t denying the Holocaust, although I don’t dispute he may well have written a bad and biased history. But as James Loewen would agree, there’s no shortage of that sort of thing.
Perhaps I should follow events on more highbrow programmes than Channel Four News, where he was represented as a holocaust denier - this was supposedly the main libel to which he was objecting. And not unreasonably, as the tone of the programme made it clear that this was as near to Satan as it was possible to get.
From reading (parts of) the actual verdict it seems that the issue of Holocaust denial was set aside, seemingly finding in favour of Lipstadt on the grounds that Irving had no good reputation as a historian to defame. This may be what Norman Davies was getting at.
David Icke is innocent! But you’re right, he has inexplicably been accused of anti-semitism.
David Icke is insane, anyone who goes onto Wogan (a defunct primetime chatshow on the BBC) and proclaims that they are the son of God is clearly innocent of any charges of sanity (I remember reading the an inflight magazine on Kibris-Turkish Airways last year and in amongst the articles on Galatasray and Turkish Cypriot cuisine, they had an extremely odd article by David Icke on how the illuminati lizards are running the world!!!)
On another Bulletin Board I post on, their is one poster who is a feverent supporter of David Icke who resolutely denys that he is antismetic in anyway. The poster is infact Jewish himself (he says that though David Icke describes the Rothschilds as illuminati lizards, this in itself is not antisemtic).
Though looking at his website I found this article on David Irving:
I’m sorry, cart, but I don’t understand your comments. The issue of Holocaust denial was a key question at the trial - it was not “set aside” by the judge. The judge ruled on that issue amongst others.
Here’s the third from last paragraph of the Queen’s Bench decision, summarising the judge’s findings:
The judge clearly found that Irving “is an active Holocaust denier”, and therefore the defendants did not defame him when they said that he was. That’s a finding of fact, after an extremely lengthy trial which examined Irving’s writings in great detail.
So, on what basis are you asserting that: “Irving manifestly wasn’t denying the Holocaust…”?
Rhum Runner, I’ve been hunting on the net to find out the precise charges, but without much luck. However, I have found references to other individuals being convicted in Germany of a charge of defaming the dead, and as well as denying the Holocaust as perpetrated by the National Socialist regime. Since I don’t read German, I can’t go directly to the German criminal code.
My mistake, based on my misunderstanding of this from the appeal :
On the basis that, as I understand it, he wasn’t. He was merely challenging details of it and attempting to play down Hitler’s culpability. He wasn’t claiming that it didn’t happen. But it seems to hinge on a certain definition of the Holocaust. Again, from the appeal :
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he’s not insane - although there is an outside possibility that he knows he’s talking rubbish and is just in it for the money. I’m just saying he’s not a racist, unless you count racism against extraterrestrial lizards.
I remember the Wogan performance. A few years later I remember reading a quote from Icke complaining that he had been suffering a nervous breakdown at the time, and was aggrieved at the way he’d been used for a cheap laugh. That all seemed to make sense. Then came the lizards…
How is this anti-semitic? Icke has a long list of celebrity lizards and most are not Jewish.
There’s a mildly paranoid tone to this article, but nothing contentious here. He makes no comment on Irvine or the contents of his book, only making the point that Irvine should not have picked a fight he couldn’t win. Icke also makes the mistake of accusing Lipstadt of surpressing free speech which he shouldn’t do given that he clearly understands that Irvine brought the legal action.
Criticising the ADL does not constitute anti-semitism, and his motivation comes from their attacks on him (attacks which in my view destroy the ADL’s credibility).
He has, I agree, slipped up by including a link to some dubious Talmud quotes, which are largely debunked by a link that he also provides. But I would be very surprised if there are no ‘objectionable’ quotes to be found there, just as there are in both the Old and New Testaments. However, Icke would be wise to take his own advice (to Irvine) and back off from this particular confrontation.
Interestingly, I wonder if Christians will start to attack him, because here he as good as says that the whole religion is made up.
If it makes you feel better, I now regret mentioning both Irvine and Icke.
Ah, the appeal. I would respectfully suggest that you’ve misinterpreted what the appellate judges were saying in paragraph 91. My reading of their reasons is that the appellant’s lawyer went over the entire evidence from the trial, examining each item in an attempt to persuade them that the trial judge erred. I read paragraph 91 as stating that the issue of Holocaust denial took up little time at the appeal, not because it was a marginal issue, but because the appellant’s lawyer was not successful in persuading them that the trial judge erred on that point. Rather, he was hoping that if he could shake the trial judge’s conclusions on some of the other points, then the “more or less” clause of s. 5 of the 1952 Defamation Act would not apply.
I reach this conclusion from the appellate judges’ conclusion:
If you go back to sub-paragraphs 2.15 (ii) and (iii), you will see that they are the key issues of Holocaust denial.
So in summary, I would submit that the appellate court judges indicated that the issue of Holocaust denial took up so little time at the hearing because the appellant’s own lawyer recognized that it was not his strongest point. (And I’ll ask you to trust me on one point: in my experience, if appellate judges don’t think you’re making any progress on a particular point, it doesn’t take up much time on the appeal! They have ways of making you move along…)
S’alright - it’s all very distasteful, but it made me look at the Irving matter in more detail and learn a bit more - always a good thing!
I don’t know of any specific conviction in Germany, but in Denying the Holocaust (Free Press, 1993; Penguin, 1994, p158), Lipstadt has this to say about the West German authorities feelings about him:
He also apparently advocated overthrowing the FDR, or the “West German Occupation Regime” as he called it, in a revolution (p159).
Since nobody has mentioned it, I’ll point out that Richard J. Evans converted his defence dossier into a fine book about the trial, Telling Lies About Hitler (Verso, 2002); I believe its US title is different.
[Incidentally, in his final chapter Evans discusses reactions to the trial at some length. While there was a vast amount of coverage, he does particularly single out comments by historians. But he doesn’t mention Norman Davies. Nor does a web search throw up any comments on the matter by him. If anybody has a source for the quote, I’d be interested. This isn’t a debating tactic: as a parallel example, Donald Cameron Watt was called into the witness box involuntarily by Irving, didn’t quite condemn him outright and then said some silly things in the aftermath of the verdict.]
That much I agree with. However, Germany is not an authoritarian state. It is a free country which, like every other free country, has a few rules which seem hard for others to understand or even respect. However, given Germany’s overall high level of freedom of speech and the press, I do not see Canada as in the right if it were to open up shop as a refuge for those who violate German speech laws.
Aren’t there genuine refugees from truly repressive governments whom Canada could be taking in instead?
Quite so, but that’s why you have a refugee board to assess claims on an individual basis, rather than an across-the-board judgment about the other country. For example, in pyschonaut’s original thread, I mentioned a decision of the Supreme Court which held that an Irish citizen could potentially seek refugee status in Canada, on the unusual facts of the case.