By Jeremy Lee, P.O. Box 1234, Toowoomba, 4350
The highly-talented and controversial British historian David Irving has
just been released from prison in Austria after serving three years. His
crime? A remark he made 17 years earlier.
The Canadian resident Ernst Zundel, whose conviction for ‘hate
literature” was overturned by Canada’s highest Court, was kidnapped, held in
solitary confinement for two years without charge, and then illegally
deported to Germany, where he has just been sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Others have suffered similar penalties. Their only crime has been the
expression of sincerely-held beliefs about historical events.
Traditionally, the right to express personal views – whether popular or
not – has been upheld in Christian countries as “the right of free speech”.
As many historical anomalies about the Jewish holocaust in Germany came
under scrutiny after World War II, pressure was applied to governments to
outlaw any discussion and scrutiny under the accusation that to do so was
‘anti-Semitic’. Germany and Austria were the first to succumb to such
pressure, followed by France and other western European nations.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Through the United Nations, ‘anti-discrimination’ legislation, on the
grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or
religion, was presented to all members for signature and then ratification,
whereby member-states were required to legislate domestically. The first
attempt to establish a Human Rights Commission in Australia occurred during
the Whitlam years at the hands of the Attorney General Lionel Murphy. It is
instructive to read the heated criticism by the Opposition Liberal and
National parties. As soon as they gained office under Malcolm Fraser in
1975 they reversed their position and installed the Human Rights Commission
in which they had thwarted Labor’s Murphy. The ensuing powers of this body
were at odds with traditional freedoms in Australia, including the right to
free speech. Thus, a dual court system had to be installed in each
signatory nation –- traditional Courts versus Human Rights tribunals. The
latter resorted to antiquated “star-chamber” principles which had earlier
been weeded out of the judicial process as inimical to individual rights and
open, fair trials, where justice was not only done, but could be seen to be
done. Denied the right to identify and confront their accusers, victims
could be summoned on allegations to appear, at their own expense and before
any charges were laid, in front of tribunals held in closed sessions.
Legal representation was denied. Procedure at such hearings could later be
used as evidence in legal trials that followed.
RAMPING UP THE PRESSURE
Politicians who, in many cases, knew little of the law, had never read
the Constitution and had, in any case, sold their consciences to their
benefactors and the Party Whip, raised little objection to this subversion.
The Church, without exception, “passed by on the other side”.
On October 16, 2004, President Bush signed into law the Global
Anti-Semitism Review Act, establishing within the U.S. State Department a
special unit to monitor global Anti-Semitism and report annually to Congress.
On May 22, 2006, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice swore in Greg
Rickman to oversee the Office of Global Anti-Semitism. Within a short time
the United Nations, under its new Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, asked its
member-States to sign, and then ratify, a similar resolution.
Greg Rickman’s office has already defined ‘anti-Semitism’. Included are
the following:
· Any assertion that the Jewish community controls government, the media,
international business and the financial world is anti-Semitic.
· Strong anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitic.
· Virulent criticism of Israel’s leaders, past or present, is anti-Semitic.
· Criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders or literature
(especially the Talmud and Kabbalah) is anti-Semitic.
· Criticism of the US government and Congress for being under undue
influence by the Jewish-Zionist community is anti-Semitic.
· Criticism of the Jewish community for promoting Globalism (or the New
World Order) is anti-Semitic.
· Blaming Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman
crucifixion of Christ is anti-Semitic.
· Diminishing the “six million” figure of Holocaust casualties is
anti-Semitic.
· Asserting that there is a “Zionist conspiracy” is anti-Semitic.
· Claiming that Jews and their leaders created the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia is anti-Semitic.
· Making ‘derogatory statements about Jewish persons’ is anti-Semitic.
HIDING HISTORY
Go through each of the listed points, and it will be seen that between
them they ban any research and debate on some of the most momentous issues
of the past 100 years. The views of world leaders are to be struck from the
pages of history. Take, for example, the origins of the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution. Only three years after that catastrophe Sir Winston Churchill
wrote: “There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of
Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by
those international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly
a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable
exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover,
the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders.”
(Illustrated London Herald, February 8, 1920)
Traverse the years to 2006, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is now
under intense attack for his just-published book Palestine: Peace Not
Apartheid (Simon and Shuster). Whatever one’s conclusion – and there will
obviously be diverse and passionately held differences – the right to
disagree is vital in a free society. But a concerted campaign to paint
Carter’s book as “anti-Semitic” is designed to intimidate genuine inquirers.
GAGGED
What about the criticism of Jewish leaders? Is it now forbidden to
mention Menachem Begin’s part in the murderous Irgun movement, cited as
terrorist by the British at the end of World War II? Are we to ignore the
massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila, under the instigation
of Ariel Sharon, known widely as “the Butcher of Beirut” during the first
occupation of Lebanon? Even an Israeli Court found Sharon culpable
Not only gentile leaders are criticized. Many courageous non-Zionist
Jews suffer intense criticism if they speak out. Professor Norman
Finkelstein’s books have strongly criticized what he calls the “Holocaust
industry”, where historical accuracy has been relegated to second place
behind political goals and financial profits. Finkelstein’s parents died in
Germany’s concentration camps. The continued payment of reparations by
Germany to allegedly exaggerated numbers of Holocaust victims could not
withstand dispassionate scrutiny; so, such scrutineers must be intimidated
into silence.
ISRAEL’S CRITICS?
Or what about those courageous Jews who do not condone the one-sided
presentation of Israel’s policy in the Middle East? The young Jewish
journalist Antony Loewenstein has been forced to run the gauntlet of attack
from his own community for daring to publicly dissent from Israel’s policies
against the Palestinians in his meticulously documented book My Israel
Question. (Melbourne University Publishing Ltd, 3 printings in the year of
publication, 2006) As Peter Rodgers, former Australian Ambassador to Israel
said of this book: “Loewenstein shines a spotlight on Israel and its
uncritical supporters. That will make them uncomfortable. For that reason
alone My Israel Question deserves a strong readership”. Loewenstein is
simply the latest dissenter from Zionism.
Authors from Alfred Lilienthal to Israel Shamir, Noam Chomsky and Israel Shahak have been
denigrated as ‘self-hating Jews’ by those who tread the Zionist path.
A growing minority of Jews are expressing similar dissent. On February
5, 2007, the British paper The Guardian reported that 130 prominent Jews,
in an association called Independent Jewish Voices declared their
independence from the Jewish Establishment, arguing that it put support for
Israel above the human rights of Palestinians. Is it conceivable that such
a statement should be a criminal offence?
THE POWER OF ISRAEL
Or take the just-published The Power of Israel in the United States,
again meticulously-documented by Professor James Petras, author of over 60
books, and contributor to such papers as The New York Times, the Guardian,
the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and Le Monde Diplomatique.
If there was any doubt of Israel’s disproportionate influence in the White
House and State Department, as well as over both Repubican and Democrat
parties, it has been dispelled by Petras. Is he to be prosecuted under the
new international law of global censorship?
The argument is brought closer to home by the current controversy
(February 2007) over the visit to Australia of Professor Raphael Israeli, of
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In a blunt warning reported in the
Jewish Press, “ Professor Israeli said Muslim immigrants had a reputation
for manipulating the values of their adopted countries and said Australia
should limit the intake of Muslim migrants to protect social cohesion and
national security.” (Australian Jewish News, Feb 22, 2007)
In a tumult of controversy, some of the Jewish organizations which
sponsored Professor Israeli’s visit withdrew their patronage, while others
defended his right to speak controversially. It is safe to say, however,
that Professor Israeli won’t be summoned by the Human Rights Commission, as
was the fate of two Christian pastors who criticized Islam and parts of the
Koran in a seminar. With the current crisis over the spread of Islam in
Western Europe and Britain, such open discussion is essential and Professor
Israeli’s right to speak should be defended.
THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE
And finally, what is to be done about the many Christian faithful who
believe the New Testament accounts of the trial and sentence of Jesus Christ
are true, and that the account as portrayed in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ
is accurate? Is the profession of such a belief to be regarded as
‘anti-Semitic’ and therefore illegal? Or will the Gospels and the Book of
Acts simply be proscribed? They were in the Soviet Union at one stage.
Can we anticipate a day when the “Global Commission for World Religion”
finally demands the confiscation of Bibles, and the outlawing of missionary
work?
That, I believe, is what this new globalist legislation is all about. It
is an “outward and visible sign” of a war to the death between two
irreconcilable faiths. On the outcome will depend the future of the world.
As Lincoln said: “Silence, when we should protest, makes cowards of us
all.”