Monday, 20 April 2009

Not sure I quite understand this: '... Also on tonight's programme, the prime minister said today'

'..there's been a walkout at a UN conference after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Israel as a "racist government". '

As a matter of interest, while I can see from the link who was not there... but not so sure who was there to begin with, and who walked out.

It will be interesting to find out, in that events interpreting way we know and love, what the various protagonists were hoping to achieve by their 'in-out, shake it all about' efforts.

Not to mention how it got reported before and now will be reported again, with all due objectivity. Not sure I got the full story until I really worked through the enhanced narrative priorities from quote to link to last line of copy.

More on, er, all 'that' would be appreciated.

One wonders if the concessions made from certain hopeful quarters are quite inspiring the changes desired.

IT'S VERY GIRLIE TO FLOUNCE

"..and there's been a walkout at a UN conference after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Israel as a "racist government"."

Plus ca change.

This conference will affirm a declaration on the pretext of outlawing "derogatory stereotyping and stigmatisation of persons based on their religion", would oblige states to "prevent the emergence" of groups with "discriminatory ideas".

This is the aftermath of the Danish cartoon affair and the aim is to silence critics of Islam or any religion. The UN can hardly deny this: only last month the UN Human Rights Council, the sponsors of this charade, passed a resolution denouncing the "defamation" of faith.

This is, of course, an assault on the right to free speech which is one of the articles that the UN was formed to defend. The western countries are absolutely right to boycott the conference and it is to our shame that the UK still sent a delegation to attend.

The UN is now no more than an expensive, useless, Utopianist talking shop for the most bizarre, backward and repressive regimes on the face of the Earth. It is as redundant as the discredited league of nations and should be disbanded forthwith. This would be very good riddance to appallingly bad rubbish.

Justin, probably too late now, but what about having a garden which represents the size of the national debt.

Then you could show, by planting some veg how much the £ 15 bn 'savings' proposed by Darling would go to cutting it.

Or the impact of Cleggmeister's tax plans would go to worsen/improve matters.

I guess the problem would be you would either need a very big garden, or if you are using the 'Blue Peter' garden [does it still exist ?] you might need to get hold of the proverbial mustard seed...

SOME NEVER LEARN

"The commercial leaders both large and small, heavy industry or small fabrication shop, have just one goal: profit. They yearn for just one thing: credit. And they actively oppose just one thing: taxes. They have great fear and boundless respect for banks. But they have a mere shrug of the shoulders for the ... demand for the abolition of debt slavery. Everybody is in a rush to incur debt. People think it is perfectly in order for banks to effortlessly make huge profits from interest.
//
Our entire economy has been debased, depersonalized, and converted into stock corporations. The productive element of society has delivered themselves into the hands of their worst enemy, finance capital. Deeply in debt, those who produce value in workshop, factory and office receive scant reward. All surplus value flows into the pockets of the anonymous plutocracy, in the form of interest and dividends. The people who mortgaged their economic rationality do not know how to control the resulting chaos."

Not for the faint hearted or convinced individualists ;0).

mandy is talking the right talk about focussing on the opportunities. one of which should be the feed in tariff that has proven to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and generate billions in income.

this conference is just a talking shop and "chaosmagicks" interepation is just that as well.

As far as I am aware it will produce no binding articles and even if it did most countries would ignore it as they do so many others. As a political organisation it has many failings and no real executive power.

However it is undeniable the UN has done and will continue to do a marvellous amount of work saving lives and advancing education and health throughout the world, though UNESCO, UNHCR and its major role in the advancement of the objectives of the WHO.

Tens of thousands of soldiers help keep the peace in many unfashionable areas of the world and despite the many errors and abuses the world is a far better place with than without.

WHOSE PROPAGANDA?

ChaosMagick (#4) "This conference will affirm a declaration on the pretext of outlawing "derogatory stereotyping and stigmatisation of persons based on their religion", would oblige states to "prevent the emergence" of groups with "discriminatory ideas".

This is the aftermath of the Danish cartoon affair and the aim is to silence critics of Islam or any religion."

You don't think this may be an attempt to silence critics of Israel and her supporters/quasi-citizens in the USA and Europe? Just because people look European doesn't mean their allegiance is primarily to he USA or the EU, something Stalin found to his annoyance in the 50s when the USSR supported the Arab world. It was the USSR which sponsored the UN 'Zionism is racism' resolution against Israel in the 1970s and that was only revoked when the USSR came to end end in 1991.

One should think carefully about this given the recent economic crisis which began in Wall Street. One should also bear in mind that Israel is a nuclear armed state which somewhat hipocritically (as a non signitory to the Non Proliferation Treaty) was beligerent to Iraq and now Iran for their alleged plans to have WMDs.

How dumbed down can the West get? Possibly not enough yet?

Whilst the BBC quotes from Ahmadinejad's speech, it doesn't say if any of it is true or false.

Where it is clearly false, please let's see/hear that being shown so.

Ahmadinejad says Israel is a racist society, if that means they stole land and displaced a whole population for sixty years...why the walk out?

THE NARCISSISTIC/CHOSEN ONES... AGAIN

"Ahmadinejad says Israel is a racist society, if that means they stole land and displaced a whole population for sixty years...why the walk out?"

I suspect that must be a real tough one for most white, straight, gentile males (they're almost like Germans aren't they?)

I bet that's one of those tricky affirmative action PC questions isn't it? Like "does my bum look big in this?" but even more scary!!

Is it possibly because it's as anti-Semitic to find any fault whatsoever with Israelis or Jews (aka 'Chosen People' [#1]) as it is sexist/rude to find any fault with females (also bit prone to mirror/navel-gazing)?

[#1] According to some famous book that they wrote about themselves by the way. Anyone else that did that sort of thing would get locked up for being a bit batty, surely?

Anyone lurking with narcissistic rage, please flounce elsewhere... ;-)

The same countries that supported apartheid SA now give succour to Israel. The self appointed arbiters of propriety are working their magic again.

Rather than follow the hysterical lead of the mainstream media, it would be refreshing if Newsnight would tackle the issue head on and examine whether there is any voracity in the claims of Ahmadinejad. Not that the Iranian premier is a man who is afraid to revel in prejudice, he's neck deep in it; however, there is much evidence that the rule of law is not exercised equally by Israel. Access to land ownership, housing permits, freedom of movement & citizenship rights are all exercised on a racist basis by Israel.

Given that the BBC is mouthpiece in chief of the UK government, there is as much chance of pigs flying than an honest examination of the issues behind Ahmadinejad's speech, but we live in hope of some honest journalism from our state broadcaster.

manchester me (#12) ""Not that the Iranian premier is a man who is afraid to revel in prejudice, he's neck deep in it;"

Is he? Can you provide an example?
That's a genuine question. He's a head of state.

given brown blair and cameron are patrons of an organisation [jnf] whose polices would be illegal here its clear the uk political class is biased.

if a country has laws that discriminate, that selects on race and creates special classes of citizens what does one call it?

there is a battle over the soul if israel. where jews supporting human rights for all are attacked by those who want to preserve a race based analysis of humanity.

Jean, homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran, the same as racism in Israel.

The lies from both sides of this story are glaring. It's a pity we only hear about it from the BBC's pathetically one eyed 'western' stance, but I'm not holding a candle for Ahmadinejad either.

By the way, the link you posted which gives IQs for subsections of 'races' is the biggest pile of pseudo scientific excrement served up since the eugenicists went round measuring the shape of peoples skulls.

Surely Israel is not racist but religionist - don't you have to be of the Jewish religion (no matter which race) to reside there? Iran too is a 'religionist' state - none of it is 'my cup of tea'.

Why nothing tonight on the latest story of the NHS killing machine - as reported on tonight's PM?

Jeremy should get Brown in to ask why, for example, we are more likely to find more care and consideration at the hairdresser's (or from the plumber, the mechanic, the AA man and so on) than in a British hospital. And he should ask why 'Health and Safety' laws for the protection of clients in the above trades are more policed there than in an NHS hospital?

Why is the media not seeing the important issues.

Prince Charles gave publicity to the New Economics Foundation assessment that we have 100 months before we reach a turning point and the global ecosystem collapses on the climate change models only.

I worked on these models and know the limitations.

Since then we have had economic collapse. World leaders have decided to increase consumption to get out of economic only problems.

This extra burden imposed on the total planetary system will reduce the 100 months to around 44 months.

Why didn't Newsnight challenge Mandy that what he was proposing would cause the extinction of all higher life forms on the planet for 100 million years within 4 years.

That means you and us. You and your children family and friends. Everything.

Or wasn't that an important enough question for Newsnight?

Celtic Lion

Manchester me (#15) "Jean, homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran, the same as racism in Israel."

If it's illegal in Iran, that doesn't make the President prejudiced, surely it just means he's telling you what's proscribed by law. Did he say it in English or Farsi?

"By the way, the link you posted which gives IQs for subsections of 'races' is the biggest pile of pseudo scientific excrement served up since the eugenicists went round measuring the shape of peoples skulls."

Not true at all.

First, nobody who knows the work denies these data only peole who don't. Nobody. There are hundreds of papers showng these reliable differences and the BBC Moral Maze programme covered this during the Watson debacle. Besides that, it shows up in all the USA official data (SATs and NAEP) and in the OECD PISA data 2000, 2003, 2006 which is international. It also shows up in all our SATs every year, and it has done since ethnicty was recorded in 2001.

You are wrong. Take that on board OK?
If you keep repeating it you will be spreading lies. Please don't post things which are not true.

The British eugenicists were people like Galton, Fisher (Null Hypothesis, ANOVA, and discriminant), Pearson (r), Spearman (rho), the founders of modern statistics and genetics. Even Keynes was asociety member. It was de rigueur till after WWII. You should ask what changed.

You might get a shock when you learn the truth (and what is propaganda and the purposes it serves politically/economically to make some people money).

Which groups spend the most money on clothes/appearance and shopping generally? Which group does disporportionately well by that? Why is equality promoted?

I would have to say that i was surprised that one commentator only stated that that most forecasts had been wrong this past year, its pretty clear that they have been wrong for the past 12 years.
As for Lord Mandelson well he's there to take the embarrassing questions that Brown can't face. His recent talk on boosting green industrial credentials is simple waffle; his attempt to make thing look brighter is so false. So many people in this and other countries will be suffering for many years to come as a consequence of this and other G20 countries mismanagement.
We need a clean sheet when it comes to the Worlds finances; we need to stop speculative squandering of human resources for the benefit of a few.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

thecookieducker (#20) Why shouldn't I short-sell your share ISAs to help buy my yacht? Have you no soul?? Are you are an Islamo-Fascist? I was traumatized through losing (contact with) my grandmother in Penzance!

Sadly as so many here have pointed out, there was no examination of the facts behind what Ahmadinejad said, only a government bod saying it wasn't acceptable, just like with the economic crisis, when the unpalatable facts keep poking through but are denied at every turn by someone from the government, I am reminded of both E.Gibbons 6 volume work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Jared Diamonds book Collapse, both of which do describe the destruction of civilizations who fail to grasp the reality of their situations, this is what scares me even more than the corruption and bumbling ineptitude of the government.

No. 16 pithywriter:
"Surely Israel is not racist but religionist - don't you have to be of the Jewish religion (no matter which race) to reside there?"

NO. 20% OF ISRAEL'S CITIZENRY IS NOT JEWISH - CONSISTING OF MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS (AS WELL NO DOUBT AS ATHEISTS). IN FACT, ISRAEL IS JUST ABOUT THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST WHERE ITS CITIZENS CAN PRACTICE RELIGION FREELY - SO MUSLIMS IN ISRAEL ARE QUITE FREE TO MAKE THE HAJ TO MECCA FOR EXAMPLE. I MET AN ISRAELI MUSLIM LAST YEAR WHO HAS A VERY FINE MURAL ON HIS WALL (IN THE STREET NO LESS) COMMEMORATING HIS VISIT TO MECCA.

I thought that Jeremy's interview with the Britain's representative at the UN was rather disappointing. He did not persist with his line of question about whether the official was ordered by the foreign secretary to attend. Nor did he establish why Britain didn't actually boycott the event.


The US, Canada and Germany were clear why they refused to attend - they had nothing in common with the agenda that is being promoted.


So why did the Britain still send a delegation?


Is it because there are parts of the declaration on the pretext of outlawing "derogatory stereotyping and stigmatisation of persons based on their religion" that our Government is actually sympathetic with?


Shouldn't a decent journalist be trying to find this out?

ooops ..forgot the quote marks """"""""""

ISM IS THE ROOT

Any group (based on any distinction - real or imaginary) can consider itself superior to another group - AND WILL! A few hundred years ago, we went round the world being Britishly superior (though mongrels).
Meanwhile the 'Jews' (a cultural group doing its aberrant best to stay 'racially pure') went round Europe - also being superior.

I would have thought that, when the snobs on the posh estate (being superior) won't let their daughter consort with the oik from the council estate, it amounts to ISM - perhaps ESTATE-ISM? Take the Abrahamic faiths: they are DOGMA-IST - they will never come together. And the Christian faith is RESSURRECTIONIST: claiming to be the ONE TRUE FAITH by virtue of certain unproven tenets. Bit of a common theme that - what?

America, quite clearly has, in the mind of Americans, a superior morality to anyone they decide to oppose. Bombing follows. This has to be another ISM. In such cases America has decided the other lot are unacceptable; so that must be UNNACCEPTABLISM! And it certainly incites hatred; hatred of America, and by the grace of our Lord, Tony Blair, US - dammit; hatred from the bomb-ed ones.

If we are going to forbid anything, let it be ISM IN ANY FORM. Then we can all go mad trying-and-failing BECAUSE IT CANT BE DONE.

The one certain thing that accrues from this latest charade, is (as I might have said before) small minded wannabe twits are running governance; the mind-size being inversely proportional to the grandeur of office held. And we are a load of juvenile Ape's Confused by Language who watch it all happen, with the water lapping at the door and the next war on the way. No wonder God has given up on us.

Is Israel Racist?
Why did those delegates run away from the questions?
I have a few questions of my own:

Was Israel founded on violence?
Who bombed the KingDavid hotel?
Who boobytrapped bodies?
Who displaced millions of indigenous people? Was that not ethnic cleansing?
Do Israeli Arabs have the same rights to buy land within Israel as Zionist immigrants, or are they deprived of their birthright?
Can Arabs buy land within Britain?
Why the difference?
What is the official date of the creation of Israel under the Balfour Agreement, or did it never actually happpen?
Someone please answer my questions so that I can make my decision...

10. leftieoddbod wrote:

Is it racist for Jews to reclaim their historic homeland? It's not racist ... it's called GOING HOME ...

Or ... let's make it personal ... Let's have someone from half way around the world kick you out your house, put some squatters there for a few years and see whether you still lay claim to the house ...

MARKERS FOR OUR TIME

When Mandelson and Clarke, front (more front than Brighton) the opposing sides of the recovery debate, purporting to care about the distress of millions in Britain, you have to ask yourself: "Are these the best we could find for the job?" Mandelson previously presided of the triumph of the Dome that died, and Clarke has been happy to supply the means of death, albeit slower, to millions of smokers.

We are defined by such choices.

We need a hero.

27. At 00:05am on 21 Apr 2009, Markonee1

GOOD QUESTIONS, THOUGH NOT SURE THEY ALL GO TO WHETHER ISRAEL IS "RACIST". NONETHELESS, SOME ATTEMPTED ANSWERS.

Was Israel founded on violence?

IN PART, YES; IN PART, NO.

AS TO THE "NO" PART - THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL BASIS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL WAS THE UN G.A. VOTE FOR PARTITION (PRETTY MUCH UNANIMOUS, APART FROM THE ARAB STATES) IN 1947.

AS TO THE "YES" PART - NO DOUBT THERE WAS JEWISH VIOLENCE. HOWEVER, ONE CAN POINT TO PLENTY OF ARAB VIOLENCE (FROM 1929 ON) THROUGHOUT THE MANDATE PERIOD. ONE CAN ALSO POINT TO THE UNILATERAL INVASION OF ISRAEL BY 5 ARAB ARMIES ON THE DATE ISRAEL WAS FOUNDED IN DEFIANCE OF THE UN VOTE.

ON A GENERAL NOTE, YOU MIGHT ALSO NOTE THAT MANY COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN "FOUNDED ON VIOLENCE" - IRELAND, PAKISTAN, CYPRUS, MOST BALKAN COUNTRIES - TO NAME SOME OBVIOUS EXAMPLES. DOES THAT MAKE THOSE STATES "RACIST"?

Who bombed the KingDavid hotel?

THE IRGUN (A JEWISH TERRORIST / RESISTANCE MOVEMENT, DEPENDING LIKE SO MANY THINGS ON ONE'S PERSPECTIVE). I PERSONALLY DISAGREE WITH THE BOMBING (ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES). HOWEVER, YOU HAVE TO BEAR IN MIND THAT THE KING DAVID HOTEL WAS THE MILITARY HEADQUARTERS OF THE OCCUPYING BRITISH FORCES IN (THEN) MANDATORY PALESTINE, THAT THE BRITISH ARMY DEVOTED CONSIDERABLE RESOURCE TO PREVENTING JEWISH SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST FROM MAKING THEIR HOMES IN THEIR HISTORIC HOMELAND, AND THAT THE BRITISH ARMY BOTH HANGED AND FLOGGED MEMBERS OF THE IRGUN. THE IRGUN ALSO SAY THAT THEY WARNED THE BRITISH HIGH COMMAND TO EVACUATE THE HOTEL BEFORE IN ADVANCE OF THE BOMBING, BUT THAT THEY WERE IGNORED. ONE CAN OF COURSE CONTRAST THAT TO THE BEHAVIOUR OF ISLAMIC SUICIDE BOMBERS WORLDWIDE.

Who boobytrapped bodies?

NOT SURE WHAT THIS QUESTION IS GETTING AT, SO I CANNOT ANSWER IT.

Who displaced millions of indigenous people? Was that not ethnic cleansing?

IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THERE WERE APPROXIMATELY 700,000 ARABS WHO LEFT MANDATORY PALESTINE IN 1948-1949 (ISRAEL'S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE). FOR MY PART, IT IS CLEAR THAT THE ARABS HAD ACCEPTED PARTITION (PER THE UN VOTE)A AND IF 5 ARAB ARMIES HAD NOT INVADED ISRAEL ON THE DAY OF ITS EXISTENCE (WITH THE AVOWED AND PUBLICLY DECLARED AIM OF WIPING ISRAEL OFF THE MAP AND KILLING OR DEPORTING OF ALL ITS INHABITANTS) THEN NO ARABS WOULD HAVE LEFT. IT'S ALSO WORTH MENTIONING THAT THERE ARE OVER ONE MILLION ARABS (BOTH MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN) WHO ARE CITIZENS OF ISRAEL TODAY. HARDLY ETHNIC CLEANSING IN MY VIEW.

Do Israeli Arabs have the same rights to buy land within Israel as Zionist immigrants, or are they deprived of their birthright?
Can Arabs buy land within Britain?
Why the difference?

YES - ISRAELI ARABS (I.E. ARABS WHO ARE CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL - CAN OF COURSE BUY LAND IN ISRAEL - THEY ARE CITIZENS OF ISRAEL LIKE ALL OTHER CITIZENS). THERE ARE RECENT RULINGS OF THE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT THAT HAVE VEHEMENTLY DEFENDED THESE RIGHTS. I BELIEVE THAT THESE RULINGS ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING THEM.

What is the official date of the creation of Israel under the Balfour Agreement, or did it never actually happpen?

THERE IS NO OFFICIAL DATE. THE BALFOUR AGREEMENT WAS SIMPLY AN UNDERTAKING BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN 1917 TO PROVIDE FOR A JEWISH HOMELAND IN PALESTINE. THIS PROMISE WAS ONLY (EVENTUALLY) FULFILLED AFTER THE WORLD HAD WITNESSED THE GENOCIDE OF 6 MILLION JEWISH MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN (INCLUDING 1.5 MILLION CHILDREN). HAD THE WORLD PROVIDED A HOMELAND FOR THE JEWS BEFORE WW2, PERHAPS HITLER WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COMMIT MASS MURDER OF EUROPE'S JEWS.

Congratulations on the antique socialist broadcaster the BBC has become on missing the days biggest news and missing a big Porkie Pie by the puppet master. Shall I get you up to speed BBC?

This morning Peter Mandleson was interviewed after his Press Conference with Brown at Loughborough University by the BBC News team and stated his Business dept was not holding up in any way loans to auto companies.

The BBC has asked him why none of the bailout schemes were working and had delivered not a penny to date? Mandleson quite dishonestly claimed he was waiting on plans to be submitted etc etc. Contrary to his shoulder shrugging "wasn't me Gov" even though he patently hasn't delivered a penny to anybody!!

You might like to check Jaguar Cars who complained approx 2 weeks ago their £46m loan had been approved weeks ago by the EU and they were frustrated waiting for Mandlesons sign off to get their money. Mandlesons spokesman said they were assessing the viability of the plans!

Mandleson claims he's not holding anything up or money being delivered. Mandleson IS holding money getting through and his Dept is deliberately standiung in apporoved money to Jaguar and Land Rover. Go figure.

Next Mandleson has kept it very secret (by leaking it to the papers) that he is furious Gordon Brown kept his smeer campaign section from him. Mandleson is sticking by his loyalty to Brown by keeping it secret (though it was 'mysteriously' leaked to the papers over the weekend) that he's deeply angered Browns favoured successor Ed Balls was orchestrating the smeer campaigns involving Mr McBride.

Ed Balls, chief of the smeer division of Browns dirty tricks squad, is Schools minister. So our children our schools are in safe hands then! Nice to know parents across the land have such a man oif integrity looking after their kids best interests isn't it?

You must hand it to Mandleson. In one expert thrust of a dagger, he has speared McBride with Ed Balls and attached the entire scandal to Prime Minister Brown. A masterstroke from Mandy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1171828/You-deceived-Mandelsons-rages-Brown-Balls-secret-spin-cabal.html

So while the BBC covers the budget and shows lovely YouTube vids of 'dire'straights' Darling shifting a handful of peanuts around the deck of the Titanic (his budget is living off fumes) the real story on Wednesday will be the Tories seething across the isle at Brown and Balls for making up smeer stories Tory wives have mental problems.

The Country accepts a certain amount of professional banter between politicians but sicko stories about a politicians wife or personal affairs is gutter politics that nobody will accept. Especially when we have Brown lieing through his teeth for over a week he had anything to do with McBride and Ed Balls in charge of both the sicko smeer campaign and the countries childrens schools.

The budget is the last thing Parliament will be caught up in on Wednesday. It should beat the FA Cup as a national spectacle and I suspect Brown and Balls and the entire Labour Party will be begging for the ground to open up and swallow them!!!

dave427 #19

There is one thing for certain and that is that this alleged boost to " green " industries is likely to be little more than a virtual welfare state for the stock market parasites. I suspect that only members of the current motor section members of the Corporate Multinational Cartel will be allowed to participate. I bet that I couldn't get funding to develop a practical family electric car for less than £10,000 and have the potential to last 30 years with periodic refurbishment, you could hand it on to your kids when they start driving.

The key would be to place the batteries ( relatively cheap lead acid ) in an exchangeable trailer, with a network of small trailer exchange charging stations around the whole country. No need for fancy new technology, just learn from the engineering of the past, cut power consumption at low speed by using two motors driving through a differential. My idea also has the potential to improve regenerative braking.

Of course I will never be allowed to do it because I have not been brainwashed with all the corporate propaganda flaunted while taking a formal degree.

markieboyrulesok

You forgot to mention that when you say "historic homeland" what you really mean is "the land occupied by Jews after they committed genocide against the existing inhabitants a few thousand years ago". By that measure we would give Poland to the Germans as they invaded and occupied them in 1939, your argument simply comes down to "might is right". However if you talk to Zionists you'll soon discover that they believe God gave them the land, so killing the inhabitants is okay for them, in fact if they thought for one second that God gave them your house or my house they certainly wouldn't have a problem killing you or me so why are you in favour of this? Or are you one of the Chosen People?

Thanks for your enlightenment in post #30
markieboyrulesok

I have a few morequestions, some consequential.

Before the Balfour agreement, was it not the case that the British offered the Zionists a large chunk of fertile Kenya, as an easier option? It was of course refused, yet effectively taken up instead as a major tourist destination, which was why those terrorists in the recent past were able to target plane loads of Israelis, with missiles.

The Supreme Court does indeed seem to try and uphold International law with respect to Arabs rights, but has general policy still been to displace the local Arab where it suits, and that it is not possible for a local Arab to buy anywhere, that his money can afford?

Was it not a fact that during the early years of creation, it was strict policy of the Israeli govt, not to issue further land certificates, or to revolk existing ones to any Jew who employed local Arabs on their land. Was this not racist, but more importantly,were not many of the simple local peoples who gave up their land in return for small payments, not deceived into thinking that the European Jew was coming to bring prosperity, technology, and paid employment in exchange?
It never really happened as far as the Palestinians were concerned, did it?
It was probably not helped by the gullible student population of yesteryear, who worked for nothing except sand sea, sex and a few bagels in the Kibbutz's. Was this not work that the locals could have done [ not the sex bit] Was that not racist?

On an unrelated topic, but likely answerable by someone as knowedgeable as yourself, can you explain how an Eruv allows people to avoid the rules of the Sabbath?
Is there one in Israel.
Thanks.

Ahmadinijad had previously stated he "wanted to wipe Israel off the map," and today at the joke of a body called the UN, delegates, quite rightly, walked out.

Excellent interviews by Jeremy particularly with Ken Clarke & Co and also with Peter Mandelson. I found his interview with the British Envoy to the UN to be informative. :o)

24. At 11:57pm on 20 Apr 2009, ChaosMagick
Shouldn't a decent journalist be trying to find this out?

Sadly , I fear 'finding out' is no longer a main part of enhancing the narrative.

What is required now is much more interpreting events, preferably with a Newsnight twofer of extremes that generate as much heat as ratings possible, and to heck with any light. However, I applaud in this case that getting in the usual researcher's speed-dial rabble rousers was for once avoided.

I would be keen to see explored, by challenging those that made the decisions, why the UK seemed to be as unique as its national broadcaster in its stance, especially in a new post G20 cooperative world order. Worked out well there at the UN, did it?

Was it smart thinking along the lines of 'keep your friends close..', or Gordon & David's latest Danegeld buy off 'investment' to buy some more short term political advantages that others will inherit.

The public has a right to know, not just the obligation to pay.

When African refugees started turning up on Israel's doorstep Israel applied for, and were granted by the UN, dispensation to turn them away or export them elsewhere because to accept them would compromise the racial purity of the Israelis.
Meanwhile in the rest of the world Israeli supporters keep up constant agitation and funding in support of their belief that all countries other than Israel should increase immigration.
How is that not racist?

Let's get this straight.

The latest leaked (maybe this should be 'whattheyaretellingustheywillbesaying'news'@bbc.co.uk) big budget idea is to accommodate the growing population being encouraged (how is that working out, as one doubts these folk will consume much less) is... build more council homes. Concrete. Driveways. Water for washing cars and running off to drains. Lots of extra A+, but still energy sucking devices. And as a bit of free feedback to help that multimillion £ research, I suspects bees don't thrive when the greenery is paved over. Just a thought.

It's many things (lots of lovely voters). But let's give up any pretence of it being green. And remind me, what are the fuel consequences of grinding around all (school zones for sure worthy) urban areas at 20mph? Not a problem for 'leccy motors, but then they still need washing, sadly.

"...Ahmadinijad had previously stated he "wanted to wipe Israel off the map" ..."


Anything said by Ahmadinejad has been said in spades by the Israelis. Israelis threaten on a daily basis to bomb Iran.

All in the old 'two wrongs..' school of debate, but just wondering... which bits of the map has Israel stated that it wishes to wipe Iran off of?

All of it, per Mr. A's rather colourful phrase, or just the pinpricks glowing with secret, underground peaceful nuclear research?

Both rather worrying, but one appears more tactical and the other purely genocidal.

PAT PAT PAT PAT PAT!

Well done the Blogdog - and by association Cybernewsnight. I never expected the issues above to be aired.

Mankind is a mess; religious mankind the more so, and Post TV-Man totally rogered.
The Land of Milk and Honey (LMH) was - so the story goes - earmarked for ethnic cleansing by Jehova (sort of the UN of the time - very fair but not as we know it). Then we had the 'Clearances' by various other terrestrial tyrants (not unlike what England did to Scotland - because we could). And then, after WWII we get the spectacle of 'England' doing a (what is the opposite of 'clearance' - clutterance?) in the LMH with all the downstream mayhem argued over above.

And on top of it all (on TOP!!!) There is Tony Blair.

I am not sure if 'people of faith' read this blog. If they do here is a question: "If you were Omni Everything, would you want a bunch of confused apes second guessing you all the time, with a side-order of chanting and singing?" Or would you just want them to behave well and get on with life?

'There is probably no God', but if there were, he would be drinking himself witless about now. If some particular brand of intoxicant has popped into your head, the score is: advertisers 1 - impressionable apes 0.

".. just the pinpricks .."



Are they the same pinpricks employed in the bombing of Gaza?

Ok, as the point has been missed for some reason, let's make it 'multiple wrongs do tend to make for global devastation' and weigh in.

But, by way of devil's advocacy, I do have to concede the human condition leaves little logical hope for idealism, at least historically.

As President O is finding, while might might not be right, baring throats does not always achieve the same result as in the animal kingdom.

So, as we are trading locations (Google Earth at dawn?), let's see if we can locate the places over the exterior of the Gazan border where all those silly little rockets landed that only caused folk to live in bunkers for the last decade, shall we?

Do I think Israel and the IDF are always in the right, and free and clear to do what they fancy, even if it is by their terms in defence? No.

But I do concede that, if maybe from the added benefits of modern delivery systems, they do tend to try and deal with those shooting at them with some effort to restrict casualties to those pulling triggers.

As to the incoming efforts.... not so much, and indeed there does seem to be a stated desire to get non-coms, women and kids in the target zones. Which, if I read Mr. A right, seems to be anyone inside the borders of the country.

That, IMHO, does suggest a slight difference in intention, and execution thus far.

Once nukes are on the table, it would look like getting even less surgical and more messy.

Personally I think it's too late for Israel to think of repeating its previous nuclear inhibiting efforts in the region, so the fall back would be diplomacy based on MAD. However, as that latter term is also a noun I would use for guys soon to have fingers on buttons as well as triggers, and the former dependent on a now vanished skill set of statespersonship anywhere worldwide, I am not holding my breath.

Mistress76uk (#35) "Ahmadinijad had previously stated he "wanted to wipe Israel off the map," and today at the joke of a body called the UN, delegates, quite rightly, walked out."

He didn't you know.

I quote from the link below:

Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada who presented a paper at the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust conference in Iran, believes the text is a mistranslation.

"Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation—"wipe Israel off the map"—suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.

What you are repeating is an English translation of his Farsi.

I strongly suggest you look up what he actually said in context, try to understad it, and give some thought to how this pro-Israel (which has often played the victim to secure support) propaganda game is played against the English speaking public in order to marshall support against her regional enemies. When considering the main victim game, ask why, when European populations have below replacement level TFRs (especially in East Europe where a TFR of 1.3 means a population halves in 60 years naturally) and have been falling for years hence immigration, how it is that the World Jewish population today is still about 14 million, when before WWII it was about 15 million when they too have below replacement level TFRs (and through the highest prevalence of NCAH/CYP21 polymorphism on C6p21, mild fertility problems too).

If one doesn't ask these questions I fear larger numbers effectively end up being lulled into supporting Israel and Jewish causes blindly.

Note, I have no objection to supporting Israel or Jewish peole in general where that is just and rational. By not discriminating sub-groups with agendas within larger groups, one is apt to miss where minority group member abuse larger group members to fight or vote in their favour in battles which have nothing to dow ith them and bring them into conflict with others,

pithywriter (#16) That's the best comment/question I've found in the past few days, I think the answer may be, because the issue is being invetigated, on the premiss that if it's happening in one Hospital, could it be in others? I suspect it may well be, I know of at least two other Hospitals in witch there could be some doggy practice taking place, and one I am 99% certain of, Some time ago I lost my Brother, he had a drink problem, he was admitted to Hospital I couldn't get to visit him but my Sister could, she phoned me to tell me how my Brother was, he was looking and doing well and was hooked up to one of those morphine drips and would be out in about five days, he died the same night, my Sister told me, she couldn't understand how? or why? the death certificate showed double pneumonia as the cause, my sister said no way, he(my Brother) looked to well, and talking OK, but we accepted those reasons at the time, I have always thought something was not right, I now think that what has been going on at the Hospitals in question, had something to do with my Brothers case at the Hospital he was in at the time, and I would like to see every NHS Hospital looked at, because I think this is a serious and wide-spread practice, furthermore it's been going for quite sometime. DaveS596-XE1

nortongriffiths (#37) "When African refugees started turning up on Israel's doorstep Israel applied for, and were granted by the UN, dispensation to turn them away or export them elsewhere because to accept them would compromise the racial purity of the Israelis.
Meanwhile in the rest of the world Israeli supporters keep up constant agitation and funding in support of their belief that all countries other than Israel should increase immigration.
How is that not racist?"

What most fail to see (or refuse to acknowledge if they do so out of fear), is that both actions share the same group promoting agenda. This is to increase Jewish hegemony at home in Israel and elsewhere where thay comprise smaller settlements (e.g. the USA, UK, France etc). It's what groups do, else why have a group at all?

Encouraging immigration into nations where they have settlements weakens the host nation, driving the indigenous population out of he urban areas where new immigrants settle (think East London or NYC). The new immigrants (e.g S Asians in Tower Hamlets and Newham, or Black Caribbeans before them in Hackney, and Soutwark) serve as uncritical consumers supported by these Jewish ex-immigrants, who present themselves as a minority group which has done well for itself (which it indeed has). Sadly the new immigrants don't do as well for themselves as the success is a product of genes, endogamous group support, and opportunity to benefit financially from other immigrant or low skilled sections of society (think clothes, trainers, gangsta-rap, sub-prime etc).

I guess in the end one could say this is just economics or politics? But is it fair?
Looking at the statistics, the answer is no. Should anything be done about it? Can anything be done about it in a free-market, liberal-democracy?...

On Mandelson he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and simultaneously told there was no bunny rabbit heaven.

To me that suggests that the economic situation is even worse than anticipated as he is the chief "talker-upper" - and that perhaps the 10 billion in saving will need to be a lot more.

Perhaps he was just in a deflated mood.

#46 Jaded_Jean

"looking at the statistics, the answer is no. Should anything be done about it? Can anything be done about it in a free-market, liberal-democracy?"

1. You use refuted statistics (there were no reliable census of Jewish people in the 30's) to "validate" your view of the Holocaust. Stats that you won't be taking to the Djemjanjuk trial.

2. You favour Hitler style planned economies but you are always reticent to say what you would replace "a free-market, liberal-democracy" with.

I won't labour the point as I think most Newsnight viewers are intelligent enough to see where you are coming from.

"I think most Newsnight viewers are intelligent enough to see where you are coming from."

That's a relief.

Are you saying you're not very intelligent?

Speaking of which, if there were no reliable data in the 1930s (and you should tell the Jewish sites this perhaps), how does anyone know, reliably, how many 'went missing'?

Do you think Moscow (see above link) might have 'reliably' known a thing or two about Jews in pre and post-war 'Europe'?

thegangofone (#47) "Perhaps he was just in a deflated mood."

Almost normal in fact!

I'm a "Newsnight viewer" and I know where Jaded is coming from, it's that part of the anatomy people normally sit on, but then all anti-Semitic garbage comes from there, as far as I can tell, or is this BNP propaganda, that's found and being allowed a voise on this site, all in the name of free speach???? I really am at a loss to understand just what, remarks about Jewish people is all about, and what point is being made, I can only assume it IS "anti-Semitism" if this is the case, I am disgsted that its allowed to propagate and unless someone can tell me different, I'm washing my hands with the site, and I think the BBC should look carefully, if this is the case, at just what is going on, free speach is one thing, Fascist propaganda is a very different box of tricks, I don't want to associate with sad little freaks, DaveS596-XE1

DaveS596XE1 (#51) "I really am at a loss to understand just what, remarks about Jewish people is all about, and what point is being made, I can only assume it IS "anti-Semitism""

No, here are some other options:

1) Follow the links, the logical argument and the evidence (and sometimes, absence of). Learn.

2) Ask respectful questions where you do not understand. Learn.

3) Don't abuse what you don't understand, it makes you look silly and ignorant.

Here is a link to what happened in the walkout, see earlier posts too. Note the Vatican delegates did not walk out. Are you playing dramatic political games or do you sincerely wish to know what is going on?

Paxman was right to be hard on our UK EU ambassador (who carefully avoided answering the question put to him as to whether he was instructed to walk out (flounce) by our Home Secretary). The ambassador also failed to rationally answer the question as to what the difference there is between Zionism and racism.

Such irrational, theatrical, melodramatic and feminized acts by EU delgates, along with the boycott by others, just made them all lose credibility in the eyes of the rational world. Hardly in their best long-term interests.

But I guess there's no telling them?

(#52) Jaded Jean > I'm not on about walkout's, or delegates and I'm not playing any dramatic political game(What ever that is supposed to mean?) and I'm not just talking about today's comments, everything you post on this site has anti-Semitic connotation, it is thinly veiled to look like meaningfull political comments, but it allways has a hidden agenda, and if you are NOT anti-Semitic, you are taking a long time to say so, and there's nothing I could ever learn from you so don't be so presumptuous as to thinking I could. DaveS596-XE1

I have stayed out of stocks this year because my gut feeling has long been that there will be another panic this year and that the DOW and NASDAQ would plummet as a result.

I have long believed that the solvency of the US banks, now that Alt-A and 'bog' mortgagees are begining to default just as subprimers did, would be the main trigger and possibly hedge funds being forced to unload shares would be the secondary cause.

I would not be surprised to see the DOW in the 6,000s before 2009 is out and the NASDAQ down around 1,000. Oh, and that would put the FTSE below 3,000. Just my personal view of course.

Obama seems a nice guy but he is not riding to the rescue on this one - he should have cleared out everything when he first got in. Anything he does from now on will look like his mess and not the fault of Bush.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

ArtP?

GOTT IN HIMMEL

JP asking sensible ex MPC member about Japan and imminent budget here last night:

ex MPC member:"in some ways we're in a worse position than Japan.."
JP off camera:"Oh..god......"
ex MPC member continues....
JP off camera:"this is really depressing!"

It had me briefly sardonically chucking anyway........

Especially with Ken Clarke grimacing and then anarchistically banging on about keeping more in higher education, education, education, which in my view helped cause this entire mess in the first place (by dumbing us down through (delayed) dysgenesis via differential fertility..)

Heaven help us, as the likes of Ken Clarke, Gordon Brown/Alistair Darling, and Vince Cable/Nick Clegg surely won't.

tawese57 (#55) "Obama seems a nice guy but he is not riding to the rescue on this one - he should have cleared out everything when he first got in."

Looks like a sound assessment to me.

IF HE LOOKS LIKE A NICE GUY AND ORATES LIKE A NICE GUY . . .

You have three possibilities:
(1) he IS a nice guy.
(2) he is very good at coming over nice.
(3) he is really a VERY CONVINCING DUCK.

Blair was a lawyer with a lawyer wife, charisma, oratory and that damned smile.
He started out very popular, yet proved to be false and deluded. History is full of such men.

It is so apt that smiles and words are the stock-in-trade of the con-man, as he lies in his teeth.

Barrie (#60) Having seen what was done to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush I & especially II, surely one should be looking at the White House team not the star player? Despite all that we know, why do we still treat these heads of states as if they are all powerful despots?

What I was agreeing with above was that he hasn't cleaned out any stables, and for some of us, his time is running out..

The recent UN antics have been sadly revealing.

"33. turbojerry wrote:

markieboyrulesok

You forgot to mention that when you say "historic homeland" what you really mean is "the land occupied by Jews after they committed genocide against the existing inhabitants a few thousand years ago". By that measure we would give Poland to the Germans as they invaded and occupied them in 1939, your argument simply comes down to "might is right". However if you talk to Zionists you'll soon discover that they believe God gave them the land, so killing the inhabitants is okay for them, in fact if they thought for one second that God gave them your house or my house they certainly wouldn't have a problem killing you or me so why are you in favour of this? Or are you one of the Chosen People?"

MY RESPONSE:

* I AM INDEED ONE OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OR ZIONISTS (I.E. JEWISH). DOES THAT INVALIDATE MY COMMENTS? IF YOU WANT TO SAY JEWISH, WHY NOT COME OUT AND SAY SO?

* RE COMMENT ABOUT LAND OCCUPIED BY JEWS AFTER THEY COMMITTED GENOCIDE AGAINST LOCAL INHABITANTS A FEW THOUSAND YEARS AGO: I AGREE THAT THE LAND OF ISRAEL WAS CONQUERED BY FORCE AT THE TIME OF JOSHUA AND YEARS FOLLOWING. BUT YOU SHOW ME ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE OF CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH ANY TERRITORY HAS NOT BEEN CONQUERED BY FORCE, INCLUDING FOR THAT MATTER THE UNITED KINGDOM (SEVERAL TIMES OVER). ONE THING THAT IS PLAIN BEYOND ARGUMENT IS THAT JEWS DID NOT LEAVE THE LAND OF ISRAEL VOLUNTARILY, BUT ONLY AFTER THE ROMAN EMPIRE DESTROYED THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM IN 70 C.E., AND (ACCORDING TO JOSEPHUS) KILLED OVER 1 MILLION JEWS.

* I DON'T FOLLOW YOUR "MIGHT IS RIGHT" ARGUMENT. THE BASIS OF JEWISH RIGHTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL IS AS FOLLOWS:

- BIBLICAL (SEE ESP THE 5 BOOKS OF MOSES, THE PROPHETS AND THE CHRONICLES)

- HISTORICAL - INDEPENDENT JEWISH STATES FOR APPROX 1,000 YEARS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL FROM APPROX 1000 B.C.E. -586 B.C.E. AND AGAIN 516 B.C.E. - 70 C.E.

- RELIGIOUS - A CLOSE RELIGIOUS BOND BETWEEN JEWS AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL EXPRESSED IN ALL DAILY PRAYERS ETC

- LEGAL: UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION OF 1947, AND MANY SUBSEQUENT UNSC RESOLUTIONS THEREAFTER; THE 1993 DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE PLO ETC.

- LAND RIGHTS: THE ACQUISITION OF SIGNIFICANT PROPERTY THROUGH LAND PURCHASES THROUGHOUT THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES.

TO 34. Markonee1:

Thanks for your enlightenment in post #30
markieboyrulesok

NO PROBLEM.

I have a few morequestions, some consequential.

OK. I WILL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER IF I CAN.

Before the Balfour agreement, was it not the case that the British offered the Zionists a large chunk of fertile Kenya, as an easier option? It was of course refused, yet effectively taken up instead as a major tourist destination, which was why those terrorists in the recent past were able to target plane loads of Israelis, with missiles.

YES IT WAS. BUT FOR REASONS I'VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN IN OTHER POSTS, JEWS ARE AND WERE NOT INTERESTED IN BUILDING A STATE IN KENYA OR INDEED ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD. OUR SPIRITUAL HOME IS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL. EVEN THE NON-RELIGIOUS ZIONISTS (WHO MADE UP THE BULK OF THE POLITICAL ZIONIST MOVEMENT IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY), OR AT LEAST MOST OF THEM, UNDERSTOOD THIS.

RE TOURIST SPOT: NO DOUBT KENYA (PRIOR TO RECENT ETHNIC CONFLICTS AT LEAST) IS POPULAR WITH TOURISTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, INCLUDING THE UK!!

The Supreme Court does indeed seem to try and uphold International law with respect to Arabs rights, but has general policy still been to displace the local Arab where it suits, and that it is not possible for a local Arab to buy anywhere, that his money can afford?

THE COMMENT THAT IS "NOT POSSIBLE" FOR A LOCAL ARAB TO BUY ANYWHERE (ASSUMING HE HAS THE MEANS) IS SIMPLY WRONG.

I ALSO DON'T SEE WHAT IS MEANT BY "LOCAL ARAB" ANY MORE THAN "LOCAL JEW"; THERE ARE JEWISH, ARAB AND OTHER CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL - NO MORE, NO LESS.

IT IS CLEARLY THE CASE THAT MANY ARABS AND JEWS, FOR THAT MATTER, TEND TO RESIDE IN AREAS WHERE THEY MAKE UP THE MAJORITY IN THOSE AREAS. BUT THERE ARE PLENTY OF MIXED NEIGHBOURHOODS IN ISRAELI CITIES. FOR EXAMPLE, THE ABU TOR NEIGHBOURHOOD IN JERUSALEM IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF GOOD RELATIONS BETWEEN JEWISH AND ARAB NEIGHBOURS; AND THE ARABS THERE ALL OF COURSE OWN THEIR OWN HOMES.

Was it not a fact that during the early years of creation, it was strict policy of the Israeli govt, not to issue further land certificates, or to revolk existing ones to any Jew who employed local Arabs on their land.

THE SHORT ANSWER TO THIS IS I DON'T KNOW.

Was this not racist, but more importantly,were not many of the simple local peoples who gave up their land in return for small payments, not deceived into thinking that the European Jew was coming to bring prosperity, technology, and paid employment in exchange?

ACTUALLY, I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT MUCH ARAB LAND WAS BOUGHT FROM ARAB ABSENTEE LANDLORDS FOR AN AMOUNT FAR IN EXCESS OF ITS MARKET VALUE, AND YOU COULD SAY THAT THIS WAS PRETTY TOUGH ON THE ARAB "FELAHEEN" WHO ACTUALLY LIVED ON THAT LAND. BUT THAT SURELY IS A COMPLAINT TO BE DIRECTED AT THE VENDORS, NOT THE PURCHASERS.

RE "EUROPEAN JEW": THE MAJORITY OF THE CURRENT JEWISH POPULATION OF ISRAEL IS ACTUALLY OF NON-EUROPEAN DESCENT - MAINLY JEWS FROM NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST. THE IDEA (WHICH IS PROMULGATED IN A FEW OF THE POSTS WHICH I'VE READ) THAT ISRAEL IS A "EUROPEAN" INVASION OF ARAB TERRITORY IS TOTAL FICTION. APPROXIMATELY 700,000 JEWS CAME TO ISRAEL FROM ARAB LANDS IN 1948 AND YEARS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING. AND OF COURSE THERE WERE SUBSEQUENT MIGRATIONS OF JEWS FROM YEMEN AND OF COURSE ETHOPIA.

It never really happened as far as the Palestinians were concerned, did it?

AGREED. BUT ONE HAS TO SAY WHERE DOES THE BLAME LIE FOR THAT. IN PART, YES, WITH ISRAEL AND ITS JEWISH POPULATION. BUT ALSO IN LARGE MEASURE WITH THE PALESTINIAN ARAB LEADERSHIP WHO CONTINUALLY REJECTED THE CHANCE FOR PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE (AS WELL AS PARTITION) AND OF COURSE ARAB COUNTRIES.

It was probably not helped by the gullible student population of yesteryear, who worked for nothing except sand sea, sex and a few bagels in the Kibbutz's. Was this not work that the locals could have done [ not the sex bit] Was that not racist?

I CAN'T REALLY COMMENT ON THAT, HAVING LITTLE OR NO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF LIFE ON A KIBBUTZ. WHAT I CAN SAY IS THAT ARAB ISRAELIS HAVE A HIGHER STANDARD OF LIVING AND BETTER EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL PROSPECTS, AND OF COURSE THE ABILITY TO PARTICIPATE IN CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIFE (THERE ARE OF COURSE AROUND 20 ARAB MEMBERS OF THE ISRAELI PARLIAMENT - NOT BAD FOR A "RACIST" COUNTRY!!), THAN MOST ARAB AND MUSLIM POPULATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. ARE THINGS PERFECT IN ISRAEL? OBVIOUSLY NOT. IS THERE A DEGREE OF INSTITUTIONALISED DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ARABS? IN TRUTH, PROBABLY YES, BUT THEN ONE COULD VALIDLY SAY THAT ABOUT PRACTICALLY EVERY WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY (INCLUDING THE UK) AND THE US; I DON'T THINK THAT MAKES ISRAEL A RACIST COUNTRY, IT JUST MEANS ISRAEL IS NOT A PERFECT COUNTRY.


On an unrelated topic, but likely answerable by someone as knowedgeable as yourself, can you explain how an Eruv allows people to avoid the rules of the Sabbath?

COMPLICATED QUESTION. BUT IN A NUTSHELL THE ERUV DOES NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO "AVOID" THE RULES OF THE SABBATH:

* THE ERUV ALLOWS PEOPLE TO CARRY CERTAIN ESSENTIAL MATERIALS WITHIN A DEFINED SPACE ON THE SABBATH. WERE THERE TO BE NO ERUV, THEN CARRYING WOULD BE PROHIBITED IN THAT SPACE.

* THE ERUV IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE SABBATH LAWS, SO THERE IS NO QUESTION OF "AVOIDING" THE RULES BY BUILDING AND USING AN ERUV - INDEED, IT'S CONSTRUCTION AND USE IS A POSITIVE OBLIGATION AS A MATTER OF JEWISH LAW.

* ON A SPIRITUAL DIMENSION: THE SABBATH IS DESIGNED TO SANCTIFY "TIME" - THAT IS, JEWS SET ASIDE A DAY FOR FOCUSSING ON RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY RATHER THAN MUNDANE, EVERYDAY ACTIVITY (WHICH IS FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK). THE ERUV IS DESIGNED TO SANCTIFY "SPACE".

Is there one in Israel. THERE ARE MANY ERUVIM (PLURAL OF ERUV) ALL OVER ISRAEL, AND INDEED IN MANY CITIES AROUND THE WORLD. THERE MAY EVEN BE AN ERUV (OR MORE THAN ONE) IN THE CITY YOU RESIDE IN!!

I HOPE THESE ANSWERS ARE SOMEWHAT HELPFUL. I LOOK FORWARD TO READING YOUR RESPONSES.

"37. Nortongriffiths wrote:

When African refugees started turning up on Israel's doorstep Israel applied for, and were granted by the UN, dispensation to turn them away or export them elsewhere because to accept them would compromise the racial purity of the Israelis.
Meanwhile in the rest of the world Israeli supporters keep up constant agitation and funding in support of their belief that all countries other than Israel should increase immigration.
How is that not racist?"

THIS IS TRULY ONE OF THE SADDEST COMMENTS I HAVE EVER READ. SOME BASIC FACTS:

* ISRAEL HAS A LARGE NUMBER OF BLACK AFRICAN (NON-JEWISH) REFUGEES CURRENTLY LIVING AND WORKING IN ISRAEL. WHY DO YOU THINK THEY COME TO ISRAEL? BECAUSE THEY ARE LOOKED AFTER PROPERLY AND HUMANELY. GO TO EILAT, FOR EXAMPLE, AND YOU WILL SEE MANY BLACK AFRICANS WHO LIVE AND WORK IN PROPER AND DECENT CONDITIONS.

* WHAT "RACIAL PURITY" OF ISRAELIS ARE YOU REFERRING TO? ISRAEL HAS A LARGE JEWISH POPULATION (APPROX 4 MILLION) AND A LARGE ARAB POPULATION (1.5 MILLION). ISRAEL'S JEWISH POPULATION IS MADE UP OF A MASSIVE NUMBER OF ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS - WHITE JEWS FROM EUROPE AND THE US, "BROWN" JEWS FROM NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST AND BLACK JEWS FROM ETHIOPIA.

* ARE YOU SUGGESTING ISRAEL IS "RACIST" SIMPLY, BECAUSE LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, IT HAS IMMIGRATION CONTROLS? IS THERE ANY COUNTRY THEREFORE THAT IS NOT "RACIST" IN YOUR VIEW?

* WHEN YOU SAY THAT "ISRAELI SUPPORTERS" AGITATE AND FUND FOR IMMIGRATION IN ALL COUNTRIES OTHER THAN ISRAEL - DO YOU MEAN JEWS? EITHER WAY, WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR YOUR COMMENT? THAT TO ME SOUNDS LIKE UNSUBSTANTIATED AGITPROP.

49. JadedJean

"Speaking of which, if there were no reliable data in the 1930s (and you should tell the Jewish sites this perhaps), how does anyone know, reliably, how many 'went missing'?"

FAIR QUESTION.

SUGGEST YOU TAKE A LOOK (IF YOU HAVE THE TIME AND INCLINATION) AT THE TRANSCRIPT AND JUDGMENT IN THE HIGH COURT DECISION IN IRVING V LIPSTADT (THE JUDGMENT AT LEAST IS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET). I THINK YOU WILL SEE THERE RELIABLE AND OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE AS TO THE MASS MURDER OF BETWEEN 5 AND 6 MILLION JEWS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR BY THE NAZIS AND THEIR ASSOCIATES. INDEED, I THINK YOU WILL SEE THAT MR IRVING CONCEDED AS SUCH IN THE COURSE OF THE HIGH COURT PROCEEDINGS.

ARE YOU SUGGESTING OTHERWISE? IF SO, I THINK IT WOULD MORE INTELLECTUALLY HONEST IF YOU WOULD COME OUT AND SAY SO EXPLICITLY (I.E. THAT THE HOLOCAUST IS A HOAX OR LIE) RATHER THAN ADOPTING SLY INNUENDO. THAT WAY, WE CAN SEE YOUR TRUE COLOURS.

markieboyrulesok (#65) "SUGGEST YOU TAKE A LOOK (IF YOU HAVE THE TIME AND INCLINATION) AT THE TRANSCRIPT AND JUDGMENT IN THE HIGH COURT DECISION IN IRVING V LIPSTADT"

This was a civil, libel case brought by Irving against Lipstadt. He lost the case (rightly in my view) because he is a) a fan of Hitler and b) to some extent, a 'holocaust denier' as Lipstadt said. To assert the trial had anything to do with the truth or falsehood of the details of the Holocust is egregious.

Neither of these are criminal offences in the UK. The judge made it quite clear that history was not on trial. British courts do not decide what is true or false in history.

To be a holocaust denier one has to be able to clearly define, i.e exactly, what the holocaust comprised. Else how can anyone be said to be denying it? Irving like many doubts the popular story. So do the staff at Auschwitz as the numbers have been drastically revised down. People died. People do die. Why did people die. How did people die?

The case which you have to make is a forensic one not a political one. Why so many Jewish people want there to have been a Holocaust is a mite suspicious don't you think?. The original IMT trials were largely political show trials (see Tehran conference 1943 minutes and beyond), and most of the popular evidence was provided by the Soviets for poilitical purposes (which, like Katyn has since been shown to have been fabricated or at least dubious). This is why Abbas' thesis (his stance softened since Oslo Accords), undertaken in Moscow was of interest. The post war denzificaion 'Collectve Guilt Campaign' was used by the allies for political purposes to democratize (i.e change Germany from a command to free-market economy) and Jews benefited form affirmative action through this in my view. Most of the horrific imagery was provided by allied psychological warfare, and the popular images were from Western camps where the deaths were due largely (probably) to estensive allied bombing/straffing of Germany which induced typhus epidemics (e.g. Belsen). I have no doubts that many Jews died, and that many Jews were uprooted from their legitimate homes and businesses whch caused almost homicidal levels of resentment towards Germans (which some took out on local civilians at the end of the war), but the majority of Jews in Europe, it must be understood, were in Central/Eastern Europe, and these areas went behind Soviet lines at the end of the war. This isolation from the West was probably why counting them (especially given the USSR's efforts to not recognise religious groups) became such a problem I suspect. Talk of the Holocaust did not become as salient until the 60s during the Arab-Israeli wars, and I suspect it has been used politically ever since, not just by Israel, in order to reinforce anarchistic free-market neo-liberal democracy and those who benefit from it.

I remind you. 15 million ews in the world in 1930s, 14 million odd today, with an overall below replacement level of fertility typical of Europeans, except amongst the relatively smalll Orthodox communities. On top of that, Judaism loses members through marrying out and assimilation.

I think you need to look into what was decided at Tehran in late 1943, what Morgenthau and Dexter-White came up with for Germany after the war, and why Marshall (after the volte face once the UA realised what the USSR was up to with Dexter-White's help, objected to Truman recognising Israel. Incidentally, Jews still form settlements/enclaves/colonies elsewhere in the world (e.g. London, Manchester, and NYC). This is not through persecution, but through choice.

This is just group politics at work in my view.

Addendum (#66) One also has to bear in mind that people can be both Jewish AND Bolsheviks/Trotskyites OR Jewish AND financial speculators/anarchists. Many people were interned because they were deemed enemies of the state or likely to be sympathetic to causes which were threats to the state (just as Japanese Americans were interned in the USA). If America had been bombed the same way that Western Germany was bombed, who knows what might have happened to those interned in the USA, as anti-biotics were not widely available until after the war. That's why fumigation of clothes etc was required. We know thousands died of typhus after Belsen was liberated by the British. Why was all that said sotto voce until relatively recently? Most people didn't know....Was that convenient?

It goes without saying that any mass-murder of innocents at any time is intolerable but acts which are war crimes now were not in WWII (e.g. fire-bombing Dresden etc, and Japan, not to mention the atomic bombs). Today, attacks on Gaza might have been were it not for Isael like the USA not being signed up to the ICC). However, if people are emotionally pressured not to ask rational questions, one should, I suggest, be highly suspicious of the motives of those who induce such feelings (especially if there is any evidence of such individuals or their extended family, securing financial gain, celebrity or affirmative action through such beaviour). Don't you think?

66. JadedJean

LET'S UNPICK THIS.

This was a civil, libel case brought by Irving against Lipstadt.

AND, ACTUALLY, ALSO BROUGHT AGAINST PENGUIN (AS THE FIRST DEFENDENT).

2 POINTS HERE:

1ST - THE ALLEGATION YOU MAKE IS THAT IT IS JEWS WHO RESENT ANY SPECULATION OR QUESTIONING OF THE HOLOCAUST. THE FACT THAT IT WAS DAVID IRVING THAT BROUGHT THE LEGAL ACTION, USING WIDELY DRAWN ENGLISH LIBEL LAW, AGAINST LIPSTADT AND PENGUIN DEMONSTRATES THAT IT IS ACTUALLY THE HOLOCAUST DENIERS WHO WANT TO "CHILL" THE DEBATE ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE IN WW2.

2ND - THE FACT THAT THE TRIAL WAS A CIVIL CASE ACTUALLY MEANT THAT THE BURDEN OF PROOF PUT ON IRVING WAS ONLY AT A CIVIL LEVEL - A "BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES" - RATHER THAN THE MUCH MORE DEMANDING CRIMINAL LEVEL - "BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT". AND YET, EVEN WITH THAT LOWER EVIDENTIAL BURDEN, HE STILL LOST THE CASE ON ALL POINTS.

To assert the trial had anything to do with the truth or falsehood of the details of the Holocust is egregious.

IT IS NOT EGREGIOUS; TO THE CONTRARY - THE DETAILS OF THE HOLOCAUST, AND THE EVENTS OF WW2 GENERALLY, WAS AT THE VERY HEART OF THE CASE. THE DEFENDANTS, PLEADING "JUSTIFICATION", PRODUCED EXTENSIVE EVIDENCE OF ALL THE KEY COMPONENT POINTS THEY WERE SEEKING TO ADDUCE IN DEMONSTRATING THE VERACITY OF THE "HOLOCAUST" - NAMELY, THE INTENTIONAL MASS GENOCIDE OF JEWS IN WW2 BY THE NAZIS - INCLUDING INTER ALIA (1) MASS SHOOTING OF JEWS BY EINSATZGRUPPEN IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING THE INVASION OF RUSSIA BY GERMANY ON 22 JUNE 1941 AND (2) MASS GASSING OF JEWS IN VARIOUS EXTERMINATION CAMPS, INCLUDING AUSCHWITZ.

Neither of these are criminal offences in the UK.

I AGREE WITH THAT (I.E. IRVING'S VIEWS). NOR IN MY VIEW SHOULD THEY BE.

The judge made it quite clear that history was not on trial. British courts do not decide what is true or false in history.

SEE ABOVE. IN ORDER FOR THE JUDGE TO PASS JUDGMENT IN THE CASE, IT WAS OF COURSE NECESSARY FOR HIM TO HEAR, CONSIDER AND DETERMINE THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE BEFORE HIM. HE COULD NOT RULE (AS HE DID RULE) THAT IRVING WAS A "HOLOCAUST DENIER" IF IN FACT THE HOLOCAUST DID NOT HAPPEN IN EXACTLY THE WAY THE DEFENDANTS SAID THAT IT DID BY REFERENCE TO THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED.

To be a holocaust denier one has to be able to clearly define, i.e exactly, what the holocaust comprised.

I AGREE; SEE MY COMMENTS ABOVE.

Else how can anyone be said to be denying it?

WHAT A NONSENSICAL ARGUMENT. I CAN DENY THAT I HAVE TYPED UP THIS MESSAGE. THAT DOES NOT MAKE THAT DENIAL TRUE. I DO OF COURSE AGREE THAT HISTORY OUGHT TO BE ACTIVELY (AND PASSIONATELY) SCRUTINISED AND ANALYSED. WHAT IS DIFFERENT IS TO BLINDLY SHUT ONE'S EYES TO THE EVIDENCE. THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT WAS AT THE HEART OF THE IRVING CASE. THE POINT WAS THAT THE JUDGE AGREED THAT, (1) IN DENYING THE MASS EXTERMINATION OF JEWS IN WW2 AND THE EXISTENCE OF GAS CHAMBERS AT AUSCHWITZ TO EFFECT MUCH OF THAT MASS MURDER, (2) ASSERTING THAT HITLER HAD NOT KNOWN OR PROMOTED THE CAMPAIGN OF GENOCIDE AND (3) EXAGGERATING THE SIZE OF GERMAN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AT DRESDEN, AS WELL AS A HOST OF OTHER POINTS, IRVING HAS DELIBERATELY SHUT HIS EYES TO THE EVIDENCE. I PUT IT TO YOU THAT EITHER (1) YOU ARE IGNORANT OF THE EVIDENCE OR (2) YOU TOO ARE DELIBERATELY BLINDING YOURSELF TO THE EVIDENCE.

Irving like many doubts the popular story. So do the staff at Auschwitz as the numbers have been drastically revised down. People died. People do die. Why did people die. How did people die?

GOOD QUESTIONS - AGAIN ALL OF WHICH ARE ANSWERED BY THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED BY THE DEFENDANTS IN THE IRVING CASE, ALL OF WHICH WAS ACCEPTED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY THE JUDGE.

NB: YOUR REFERENCE TO "NUMBERS BEING DRASTICALLY REVISED DOWN" IS ENTIRELY UNSUBSTANTIATED. WHAT IS YOUR SOURCE?

The case which you have to make is a forensic one not a political one.

THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED IN THE IRVING CASE IS POSSIBLY THE MOST FORENSIC EXAMINATION OF THE DETAILS OF THE HOLOCAUST EVER PUT TOGETHER. THE JUDGMENT GIVEN BY A HIGHLY-RESPECTED BRITISH JUDGE ENTIRELY IN FAVOUR OF THE DEFENDANTS, AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THAT EVIDENCE, WAS DECIDED ON THAT BASIS - NOT ON ANY POLITICAL BASIS.

Why so many Jewish people want there to have been a Holocaust is a mite suspicious don't you think?.

ACTUALLY, I DON'T THINK THAT THERE IS A SINGLE JEW WHO WANTS THERE TO HAVE BEEN A HOLOCAUST AT ALL; WE WOULD ALL MUCH HAVE PREFERED THERE TO HAVE BEEN NO MURDER OF JEWS. ON A PERSONAL NOTE, MY GREAT-GREAT GRAND-MOTHER, TWO OF MY GREAT-GREAT UNCLES AND ALL OF THEIR FAMILIES WERE MURDERED BY THE NAZIS. IF YOU WANT DATES AND PLACES, I'M HAPPY TO PROVIDE. ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT THIS IS SOMETHING I (OR ANYONE ELSE) WOULD WANT?

... the majority of Jews in Europe, it must be understood, were in Central/Eastern Europe, and these areas went behind Soviet lines at the end of the war.

AGREED, AND ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. LET'S FOCUS ON A NON-POST SOVIET JEWISH COMMUNITY: SALONICA (NOW THESSALONIKI) - 65,000 JEWS BEFORE WW2; 1,500 JEWS AFTER THE WAR. ALMOST ALL OF THE "MISSING" JEWS IN QUESTION WERE DEPORTED TO, AND GASSED IN, AUSCHWITZ. I'D BE INTERESTED IN YOUR ALTERNATIVE "EXPLANATION".

Talk of the Holocaust did not become as salient until the 60s during the Arab-Israeli wars, and I suspect it has been used politically ever since, not just by Israel, in order to reinforce anarchistic free-market neo-liberal democracy and those who benefit from it.

WRONG AGAIN. I THINK IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT THE HOLOCAUST ACTUALLY BECAME A PROMINENT ISSUE WITH THE CAPTURE AND TRIAL OF ADOLF EICHMANN IN 1960-1961 (PRE-DATING THE 6 DAY WAR) BY 6-7 YEARS. WE COULD OF COURSE TALK ABOUT THE EVIDENCE IN THE EICHMANN CASE AS WELL.

I remind you. 15 million ews in the world in 1930s, 14 million odd today, with an overall below replacement level of fertility typical of Europeans, except amongst the relatively smalll Orthodox communities. On top of that, Judaism loses members through marrying out and assimilation.

THANKS FOR THE PATRONISING COMMENT. I FAIL TO SEE THE RELEVANCE. THE ISSUE HERE IS NOT THE "REPLACEMENT" RATE OF JEWS. THE ISSUE IS THE VERACITY OF WHETHER THERE WAS MASS MURDER OF JEWS BY THE NAZIS IN WW2. AS YOU RIGHTLY POINT OUT, YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE FORENSIC EVIDENCE RELATING TO THAT AND THAT ALONE. AGAIN, I HAVEN'T SEEN ONE POINT YOU'VE RAISED THAT EVEN REMOTELY GOES TO UNDERMINING THE EXTENSIVE EVIDENCE ADDUCED BY THE DEFENDANTS IN THE IRVING CASE. PLEASE DO SO AND THEN WE CAN ENGAGE IN PROPER DEBATE.

Incidentally, Jews still form settlements/enclaves/colonies elsewhere in the world (e.g. London, Manchester, and NYC). This is not through persecution, but through choice.

AND THIS IS RELEVANT TO WHAT EXACTLY??

67.JadedJean

One also has to bear in mind that people can be both Jewish AND Bolsheviks/Trotskyites OR Jewish AND financial speculators/anarchists.

PRESUMABLY, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO BE A BOLSHEVIK / TROTSKITE / FINANCIAL SPECULATOR OR ANARCHIST??

QUESTION: DO YOU THINK IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE JEWISH AND A PERFECTLY DECENT HUMAN BEING? I MERELY ASK BECAUSE IT WASN'T IN YOUR LITTLE LIST.

Many people were interned because they were deemed enemies of the state or likely to be sympathetic to causes which were threats to the state (just as Japanese Americans were interned in the USA). If America had been bombed the same way that Western Germany was bombed, who knows what might have happened to those interned in the USA, as anti-biotics were not widely available until after the war. That's why fumigation of clothes etc was required.

RELEVANCE??

We know thousands died of typhus after Belsen was liberated by the British. Why was all that said sotto voce until relatively recently? Most people didn't know....Was that convenient?

BELSEN WAS NOT AN EXTERMINATION CAMP (LIKE AUSCHWITZ, TREBLINKA AND SOBIBOR). RE TYPHUS - WHO SAID THIS SOTTO VOCE; THIS WAS WELL DOCUMENTED FROM ITS LIBERATION.

It goes without saying that any mass-murder of innocents at any time is intolerable

DOES IT REALLY ... YOU SURPRISE ME.

ALSO, I'D BE INTERESTED TO KNOW WHETHER YOU WOULD PUT THE 1.5 MILLION JEWISH CHILDREN MURDERED BY THE NAZIS IN THAT CATEGORY?

but acts which are war crimes now were not in WWII (e.g. fire-bombing Dresden etc, and Japan, not to mention the atomic bombs).

SO ON THAT BASIS ARE YOU SAYING THE MASS GASSING OF CIVILIANS IN AUSCHWITZ IS OR ISN'T OR A WAR CRIME??

Today, attacks on Gaza might have been were it not for Isael like the USA not being signed up to the ICC).

However, if people are emotionally pressured not to ask rational questions, one should, I suggest, be highly suspicious of the motives of those who induce such feelings (especially if there is any evidence of such individuals or their extended family, securing financial gain, celebrity or affirmative action through such beaviour). Don't you think?

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH ANYONE ASKING QUESTIONS. MY PROBLEM IS WITH PEOPLE NOT LISTENING TO THE ANSWERS AND / OR NOT BEING ABLE TO CONSIDER AND EVALUATE EVIDENCE - BUT SIMPLY WRITE (AS YOU DO) UNSUBSTANTIATED INNUENDO.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE, NEITHER I NOR "MY EXTENDED FAMILY" GET ANY BENEFIT FROM MY PUBLICLY CHALLENGING YOUR GROUP SLANDER ON THIS WEBSITE. PERHAPS WE SHOULD QUERY YOUR MOTIVES. DO YOU JUST HAVE A VISCERAL DISLIKE OF JEWS? IF SO, WHY NOT JUST COME OUT AND SAY SO - IT WOULD BE FAR MORE INTELLECTUALLY HONEST TO DO SO.

markieboyrulesok (#69)

"One also has to bear in mind that people can be both Jewish AND Bolsheviks/Trotskyites OR Jewish AND financial speculators/anarchists."

PRESUMABLY, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO BE A BOLSHEVIK / TROTSKITE / FINANCIAL SPECULATOR OR ANARCHIST??

Of course not. Some=NOT(ALL),x) and ALL=(NOT(SOME),x) It's a matte of frequencies.

QUESTION: DO YOU THINK IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE JEWISH AND A PERFECTLY DECENT HUMAN BEING? I MERELY ASK BECAUSE IT WASN'T IN YOUR LITTLE LIST.

Of course I do. In the work I often cite, Herrnstein was Jewish, Gottfredson is Jewish, Jensen is half Jewish. Lots of good people are Jewish. But they have been given a hard time by some (in my view disreputable) Jewish people too.

"Many people were interned because they were deemed enemies of the state or likely to be sympathetic to causes which were threats to the state (just as Japanese Americans were interned in the USA). If America had been bombed the same way that Western Germany was bombed, who knows what might have happened to those interned in the USA, as anti-biotics were not widely available until after the war. That's why fumigation of clothes etc was required."

RELEVANCE??

Work it out for yourself.

We know thousands died of typhus after Belsen was liberated by the British. Why was all that said sotto voce until relatively recently? Most people didn't know....Was that convenient?"

BELSEN WAS NOT AN EXTERMINATION CAMP (LIKE AUSCHWITZ, TREBLINKA AND SOBIBOR). RE TYPHUS - WHO SAID THIS SOTTO VOCE; THIS WAS WELL DOCUMENTED FROM ITS LIBERATION."

Who to? It wasn't made clear to the Germans in the 'Collective Guilt Campaign' or at the IMT. It wasn't made clear to millions of others who saw the 'death-mills' films after the war.

(The other camps you list were liberated by the Soviets and not visited by the Western allies. We do not know what to believe of the Soviets after the Katyn fabricated evidence, since admitted by the Russians).

The typhus epidemic as cause of death was not made clear when the bodies were being bulldozed into pits or when the Jewish Chaplain was filmed saying how disgusted he was. If you think it was, you are very much mistaken. These scenes were used for the Collective Guilt Campaign which helped secure denazification ie. the free-market economy (see Friedman and Von Hayek, Neocons for examples of anti-statism).

It may have been made clear to some of the military entering the camp at the time so they didn't spread infection. Perhaps that's what you mean?

"It goes without saying that any mass-murder of innocents at any time is intolerable"

DOES IT REALLY ... YOU SURPRISE ME.

More classic invective. Why is that? Would you like me to favour murdering innocent people? Would that serve your egregious propaganda purposes better? Would you like there to have been mass murder of Jews by horrific means in 'death-camps'. If so why? To promote your favoured Liberal-Democratic politics/economics perhaps? Do you note how Burman, N. Korea, Irq, Iran, Uzbekistan after the USSR went into the frame for assault?

ALSO, I'D BE INTERESTED TO KNOW WHETHER YOU WOULD PUT THE 1.5 MILLION JEWISH CHILDREN MURDERED BY THE NAZIS IN THAT CATEGORY?

You'd have to provide forensic evidence of murder. 1.5 million Jewish children murdered? How many adults? How were they murdered. How many German children were 'murdered' in the bombing of the German cities? How many Russian children? How many Polish? If lots of civilians were killed in the war, would not many Jewish children have been killed too? Especially if the war was very intense in Central/Eastern Europe? If there was disease in Belsen, why not elsewhere too?

"but acts which are war crimes now were not in WWII (e.g. fire-bombing Dresden etc, and Japan, not to mention the atomic bombs)."

SO ON THAT BASIS ARE YOU SAYING THE MASS GASSING OF CIVILIANS IN AUSCHWITZ IS OR ISN'T OR A WAR CRIME??

First you have to prove that were gassings (rather than fumigation of clothes) of people in Auschwitz wouldn't you? Where has that ever been forensically proven? Auschwitz and the other Eastern camps were in USSR territory I remind you. Shortly after the war, the USSR became the West's enemy. A lot of evidence now makes claims of mass gassings look unlikely, for example, the doors would have leaked to start with. Please don't appeal to now widely doubted confessions of people whose confessions were written in English when they didn't write or read English and may have been extracted under torture. The Americans are still doing that, and the British did it to the IRA years ago.

"Today, attacks on Gaza might have been were it not for Israel like the USA not being signed up to the ICC.

However, if people are emotionally pressured not to ask rational questions, one should, I suggest, be highly suspicious of the motives of those who induce such feelings (especially if there is any evidence of such individuals or their extended family, securing financial gain, celebrity or affirmative action through such behaviour). Don't you think?"

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH ANYONE ASKING QUESTIONS. MY PROBLEM IS WITH PEOPLE NOT LISTENING TO THE ANSWERS AND / OR NOT BEING ABLE TO CONSIDER AND EVALUATE EVIDENCE - BUT SIMPLY WRITE (AS YOU DO) UNSUBSTANTIATED INNUENDO.

Then you had better provided some good forensic evidence rather than just hearsay. You had better produce some forensic evidence which would stand up in a proper court of law (and scrutiny by pathologists/scientsist) rather than ones which waived normal rules of evidence (IMT, see the articles defining terms of reference at AVALON). You're also going to have to explain the very high number of Jews (14m) in the world today given the Jewish below replacement level of fertility, the tendency to marry out, and to leave the faith, and the similar number of Jews in the world in the late 30s (15m) as it doesn't currently add up. The populations of big UK cities has gone down outside London, and even London has lost indigenous people - high immigration compensates for low TFRs.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE, NEITHER I NOR "MY EXTENDED FAMILY" GET ANY BENEFIT FROM MY PUBLICLY CHALLENGING YOUR GROUP SLANDER ON THIS WEBSITE. PERHAPS WE SHOULD QUERY YOUR MOTIVES. DO YOU JUST HAVE A VISCERAL DISLIKE OF JEWS? IF SO, WHY NOT JUST COME OUT AND SAY SO - IT WOULD BE FAR MORE INTELLECTUALLY HONEST TO DO SO.

We don't know that though do we? You are anonymous. People do make a lot of money out of Holocaust stories (see Finklestein), films etc, and Hollywood is largely Jewish. Preying upon other people's emotions/natural guilt is, I suggest a despicable, predatory thing to do, and when it's for money or political hegemony, it's venal and should be investigated and punished do you not think?

Whilst I have no visceral (or any other) dislike for all Jews, I am however, able to identify criminal and psychopathological behaviour in any group, and I am very suspicious of this entire guilt trip (and your wish to defend it). I have seen too many stories like this played by other people who are usually motivated by personal, political and criminal self-serving gain whilst denying that they are doing so (it's easy to do), not to highlight such egregious behavour when it's encountered. It's done at other trusting people's expense. Charges of anti-semitism, like racism and sexism are often deployed/abused not for prima facie morally just reasons, but in order to distract other people from real group differences which are abused for predatory/exploitative purposes, where the perpetrators would prefer others not to notice.

Do you not understand that all groups have predators?

Finally, it would be good if you didn't not use capitals in future as it makes it appear that all that you have to say deserves emphasis and I don't think it does. You have presented no evidence, just emotonal hyperbole/rhetoric.

Addendum - Some people confuse innuendo with their own inability to clearly grasp what others explictly tell them. That is, some people are just not very good at understanding what other people have to say (lack of empathy etc). I have covered this elsewhere in the context of NPD and oyter Axis II Cluster B PDs. Prevalence differs, I predict, across groups, sustained by gene-barriers (like endogamy).

markieboyrulesok (#68)

I had not seen this one when submiting my last two posts, so I address its main points below:

AND, ACTUALLY, ALSO BROUGHT AGAINST PENGUIN (AS THE FIRST DEFENDENT).

2 POINTS HERE:

1ST - THE ALLEGATION YOU MAKE IS THAT IT IS JEWS WHO RESENT ANY SPECULATION OR QUESTIONING OF THE HOLOCAUST.

This appears to be true for many Jews.

THE FACT THAT IT WAS DAVID IRVING THAT BROUGHT THE LEGAL ACTION, USING WIDELY DRAWN ENGLISH LIBEL LAW, AGAINST LIPSTADT AND PENGUIN DEMONSTRATES THAT IT IS ACTUALLY THE HOLOCAUST DENIERS WHO WANT TO "CHILL" THE DEBATE ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE IN WW2.

I did not speculate on why David Irving brought the case. An awful lot of Jewish people appear to make a good living out of the Holocaust though. That is a fact. I'm sure you can name some.

2ND - THE FACT THAT THE TRIAL WAS A CIVIL CASE ACTUALLY MEANT THAT THE BURDEN OF PROOF PUT ON IRVING WAS ONLY AT A CIVIL LEVEL - A "BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES" - RATHER THAN THE MUCH MORE DEMANDING CRIMINAL LEVEL - "BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT". AND YET, EVEN WITH THAT LOWER EVIDENTIAL BURDEN, HE STILL LOST THE CASE ON ALL POINTS.

The case was a simple one. Did the plaintiff have a good case that he was libeled. He did not. Irving himself provided written evidence which showed that the defendant had not lied in print. It is in fact irrelevant de facto whether or not any Holocaust actually happened. Can you see that?

To assert the trial had anything to do with the truth or falsehood of the details of the Holocust is egregious.

IT IS NOT EGREGIOUS; TO THE CONTRARY - THE DETAILS OF THE HOLOCAUST, AND THE EVENTS OF WW2 GENERALLY, WAS AT THE VERY HEART OF THE CASE.

Only to the extent that what Irving had written could be shown to have substatiated what the plaintiff had put in print. This was a libel case, not a test of history by inqusition.

THE DEFENDANTS, PLEADING "JUSTIFICATION", PRODUCED EXTENSIVE EVIDENCE OF ALL THE KEY COMPONENT POINTS THEY WERE SEEKING TO ADDUCE IN DEMONSTRATING THE VERACITY OF THE "HOLOCAUST" - NAMELY, THE INTENTIONAL MASS GENOCIDE OF JEWS IN WW2 BY THE NAZIS - INCLUDING INTER ALIA (1) MASS SHOOTING OF JEWS BY EINSATZGRUPPEN IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING THE INVASION OF RUSSIA BY GERMANY ON 22 JUNE 1941 AND (2) MASS GASSING OF JEWS IN VARIOUS EXTERMINATION CAMPS, INCLUDING AUSCHWITZ.

The relevance to libel being? In some of the material, Irving's written behaviour, and verbal behaviour in courst served as evidence regarding the charge. That is what you must look at. But you must look at what the charge he brought was, and what he furnished in support of the case which he prosecuted.

Neither of these are criminal offences in the UK.

I AGREE WITH THAT (I.E. IRVING'S VIEWS). NOR IN MY VIEW SHOULD THEY BE.

Good.

The judge made it quite clear that history was not on trial. British courts do not decide what is true or false in history.

SEE ABOVE. IN ORDER FOR THE JUDGE TO PASS JUDGMENT IN THE CASE, IT WAS OF COURSE NECESSARY FOR HIM TO HEAR, CONSIDER AND DETERMINE THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE BEFORE HIM. HE COULD NOT RULE (AS HE DID RULE) THAT IRVING WAS A "HOLOCAUST DENIER" IF IN FACT THE HOLOCAUST DID NOT HAPPEN

Yes he could (see teh point of de facto vs de jure below). This is the point you must grasp. The case was a civil libel case about what was written in print, and whether what the defendant had written about Irving was true or false. She had said he had written material evident of a) and b). Irving provided written and verbal evidence in court that which showed she was rigtht to say he had asserted a) and b).

If Irving had written that a) pigs fly and b) all cats love swimming, and then brought a case against some author asserting that said author had libeled him by writing that he had said or logically implied a) and b) in print, and then gone to court showing clearly that he had written or logically implied a) and b), he would have, and should have, lost the case. That is how you must see this case I suggest.

"To be a holocaust denier one has to be able to clearly define, i.e exactly, what the holocaust comprised.

I AGREE; SEE MY COMMENTS ABOVE.

This is a different point. This is point of definition.

Else how can anyone be said to be denying it?

WHAT A NONSENSICAL ARGUMENT.

No, it is an expilication of a quantifier - here it. There are two ways that holocaust denier is being used here. One de facto one de jure. If someone is to be held up as a 'holocaust denier' de facto, you must state exactly what it comprised. De jure is a matter of context, see the libel point.

I CAN DENY THAT I HAVE TYPED UP THIS MESSAGE.

You can indeed. Here we have no idea who the reference I is. You are anonymous.

THAT DOES NOT MAKE THAT DENIAL TRUE.

It makes it meaningless under the circumstances.

I DO OF COURSE AGREE THAT HISTORY OUGHT TO BE ACTIVELY (AND PASSIONATELY) SCRUTINISED AND ANALYSED. WHAT IS DIFFERENT IS TO BLINDLY SHUT ONE'S EYES TO THE EVIDENCE.

By definition. So why say it?

THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT WAS AT THE HEART OF THE IRVING CASE.

No, I repeat, it was a libel case.

THE POINT WAS THAT THE JUDGE AGREED THAT, (1) IN DENYING THE MASS EXTERMINATION OF JEWS IN WW2 AND THE EXISTENCE OF GAS CHAMBERS AT AUSCHWITZ TO EFFECT MUCH OF THAT MASS MURDER,

That was evidence that Irving was a 'Holocaust Denier'. But this has nothing to do with whether or not there was a Holocaust. The judge made this quite clear. Irving could in addition behave in ways consistent with him being a racist, anti-semite and all sorts of other unpleasant things, but as unpleasant and offensive as all that might be, it is not relevant. Do you see this? It could be abused politically of course.

(2) ASSERTING THAT HITLER HAD NOT KNOWN OR PROMOTED THE CAMPAIGN OF GENOCIDE

This is speculation about an intensional state which is almost impossible. What one has to do is provide physical evidence of a command, i.e behaviour. The rest is immaterial. We do not try people for thought crimes - yet.

AND (3) EXAGGERATING THE SIZE OF GERMAN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AT DRESDEN, AS WELL AS A HOST OF OTHER POINTS,

This is done in times of war for propaganda reasons.

IRVING HAS DELIBERATELY SHUT HIS EYES TO THE EVIDENCE.

That may well be so in some areas. In history as in science, sometimes one has to disregard some evdience as of questionable reliability. If one does that to selectively make a case, it usually shows up. I am not defending Irving as a historian here.

I PUT IT TO YOU THAT EITHER (1) YOU ARE IGNORANT OF THE EVIDENCE OR (2) YOU TOO ARE DELIBERATELY BLINDING YOURSELF TO THE EVIDENCE.

I am aware of a lot of the supposed evdience and I am, as you should be, aware that much of this evidence has been misrepresented. As I recall, Gray was also suprised at how thin much of the evidence actually was.

Irving like many doubts the popular story. So do the staff at Auschwitz as the numbers have been drastically revised down. People died. People do die. Why did people die. How did people die?

GOOD QUESTIONS - AGAIN ALL OF WHICH ARE ANSWERED BY THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED BY THE DEFENDANTS IN THE IRVING CASE, ALL OF WHICH WAS ACCEPTED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY THE JUDGE.

You are equivocating in the use of the term 'evidence'.

The judge was not trying history. He accepted evidence presented as evidenece for the libel trial. Evidence here is being used as material relevant to the case he was judging, which I repeat, was not whether or not 'the Holocaust took place, but whether Irving had a legitimate libel case against the defendant.

NB: YOUR REFERENCE TO "NUMBERS BEING DRASTICALLY REVISED DOWN" IS ENTIRELY UNSUBSTANTIATED. WHAT IS YOUR SOURCE?

There are many. Look them up, don't close your eyes to the evdience. Try the plaque at Auschwitz. See also the doctoral thesis of the Palestinian President.

The case which you have to make is a forensic one not a political one.

THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED IN THE IRVING CASE IS POSSIBLY THE MOST FORENSIC EXAMINATION OF THE DETAILS OF THE HOLOCAUST EVER PUT TOGETHER.

This was libel trial. You don't appear to have grasped this. Forensic evidence would require physical evidence of mass murder by gas etc.

THE JUDGMENT GIVEN BY A HIGHLY-RESPECTED BRITISH JUDGE ENTIRELY IN FAVOUR OF THE DEFENDANTS, AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THAT EVIDENCE, WAS DECIDED ON THAT BASIS - NOT ON ANY POLITICAL BASIS.

It doesn't matter how respected he is. This is not a celebrity game. It was a libel case. That you appeal to such invalid arguments (the ad hominem) is grist to my mill. cf. narcissism.

Why so many Jewish people want there to have been a Holocaust is a mite suspicious don't you think?.

ACTUALLY, I DON'T THINK THAT THERE IS A SINGLE JEW WHO WANTS THERE TO HAVE BEEN A HOLOCAUST AT ALL; WE WOULD ALL MUCH HAVE PREFERED THERE TO HAVE BEEN NO MURDER OF JEWS.

So, consider the statistics> there are 14m today and about 15m in the 1930s. Most Jews were in Central and Eastern Europe (look up the maps provided) These areas, Poland, USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries (Hungary, Rumania, etc) went behind the Iron Curtain. Most of the Jews in France were still there after the war, as were the British Jews. In England, please note, since 1945, major cities have shrunk demographically. There was no holocaust in Liverpool, it was down to low TFRs which are characteristic of Europe generally, especially Eastern Europe. Europeans have below replacement level fertility - a TFR of 1.3 means a population halves in 60 years whilst a TFR of 1.1 means it halves in just 30 years. Do you understand the force of this point?

ON A PERSONAL NOTE, MY GREAT-GREAT GRAND-MOTHER, TWO OF MY GREAT-GREAT UNCLES AND ALL OF THEIR FAMILIES WERE MURDERED BY THE NAZIS.

You are anonymous. We have no idea if that is true or how to corroborate that. You should not use such tactics.

IF YOU WANT DATES AND PLACES, I'M HAPPY TO PROVIDE. ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT THIS IS SOMETHING I (OR ANYONE ELSE) WOULD WANT?

I am saying that whether this is, or is not, the case is irrelevant. Unless one can provide forensic proof of murder all one can say is that some people lost contact with Displaced Persons after WWII. We know that happened. Some people moved to the USA oters went behind the Iron Curtain. The Holocaust for many has become a money spinner and affirmative action cause celebre (see allied 'Collective Guilt Campign'). It has a political purpose. It has done much harm in my view.

... the majority of Jews in Europe, it must be understood, were in Central/Eastern Europe, and these areas went behind Soviet lines at the end of the war.

AGREED, AND ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. LET'S FOCUS ON A NON-POST SOVIET JEWISH COMMUNITY: SALONICA (NOW THESSALONIKI) - 65,000 JEWS BEFORE WW2; 1,500 JEWS AFTER THE WAR. ALMOST ALL OF THE "MISSING" JEWS IN QUESTION WERE DEPORTED TO, AND GASSED IN, AUSCHWITZ. I'D BE INTERESTED IN YOUR ALTERNATIVE "EXPLANATION".

If they were deported to the East, they would have ended up behind Soviet lines would they not?

Talk of the Holocaust did not become as salient until the 60s during the Arab-Israeli wars, and I suspect it has been used politically ever since, not just by Israel, in order to reinforce anarchistic free-market neo-liberal democracy and those who benefit from it.

WRONG AGAIN. I THINK IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT THE HOLOCAUST ACTUALLY BECAME A PROMINENT ISSUE WITH THE CAPTURE AND TRIAL OF ADOLF EICHMANN IN 1960-1961 (PRE-DATING THE 6 DAY WAR) BY 6-7 YEARS.

It may have done for interested Jews. It did not became highly salient for the rest of the world until the Arab-Israeli wars (which actually began in the 40s and 50s).

WE COULD OF COURSE TALK ABOUT THE EVIDENCE IN THE EICHMANN CASE AS WELL.

Let's not, as it would give this issue, from this egregious persective more airtime/propaganda time than it warrants. Much of what he had to say in writing was not deemed suitable for release by the Israeli President allegedly because he kept denying things! Let's recall that it was Israel that declared itself a state, a UDI, after a campaign of terrorism against Britain. Marshall warned Truman not to recognise it. Interestingly, the USSR did recognise it. I think you should try to see what I have been saying about all of this not through some lens of antii-semnitism, but as a critique of measures taken to support predatory 'Liberal-Democracy' which surreptitiously promotes equality whilst simultaneously preying upon the very people it claims to 'liberate'.

I remind you. 15 million [j]ews in the world in 1930s, 14 million odd today, with an overall below replacement level of fertility typical of Europeans, except amongst the relatively smalll Orthodox communities. On top of that, Judaism loses members through marrying out and assimilation.

THANKS FOR THE PATRONISING COMMENT. I FAIL TO SEE THE RELEVANCE.

Is that because you don't understand basic demography or is it just very convenient for you to ignore damning empirical evidence?

THE ISSUE HERE IS NOT THE "REPLACEMENT" RATE OF JEWS.

Oh yes it is, as with the below repacement level of fertility characteristic if Jews (as Europeans, especially with the higher prevalence of NCAH via CYP21 polymorphisms on C6p21 amongst the Ashkenazim), the population today and the population in the 1930s could be taken to suggest there may well have been no 'Holocaust', I suggest There may have been deaths due to shootings, disease, war etc, but many Jews were communists and the war was against a particular type of communism/anarchists and financiers. Many in the Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states etc resented the disproportionate power which Jewish communists had in theese ares under the original Bolshevik regime.

THE ISSUE IS THE VERACITY OF WHETHER THERE WAS MASS MURDER OF JEWS BY THE NAZIS IN WW2. AS YOU RIGHTLY POINT OUT, YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE FORENSIC EVIDENCE RELATING TO THAT AND THAT ALONE. AGAIN, I HAVEN'T SEEN ONE POINT YOU'VE RAISED THAT EVEN REMOTELY GOES TO UNDERMINING THE EXTENSIVE EVIDENCE ADDUCED BY THE DEFENDANTS IN THE IRVING CASE. PLEASE DO SO AND THEN WE CAN ENGAGE IN PROPER DEBATE.

You appear to be missing the point. Many people died in the war. Some Jews died in the war. The war in the East was more ruthless than on the Western front. Many Jews lived in the East. In the 1930s, Stalin too was still removing Jewish Bolsheviks (and others like them) - in pursuit of Socialism in One Country rtaher than Jewish Trotskyist/Zinovievist international socialism/financialism. Purging is not the same as killing by the way.

Incidentally, Jews still form settlements/enclaves/colonies elsewhere in the world (e.g. London, Manchester, and NYC). This is not through persecution, but through choice.

AND THIS IS RELEVANT TO WHAT EXACTLY??

Look up TFRs and hegemony. Look at the demographics of NYC and how they have changed over the years. I have provided links to this in the past. which is the dominant ethnic white group in NYC? This is entirely legitimate enclave group behaviour in pursuit of poitical and economic power over other groups. It is not illegal, it's wat happens in liberal-democracies. Power groups emerge at the expense of other groups. It is called politics. If you are not a beneficiary of your own groups' politics, maybe you should have a word with those who are doing well and see if they would like your services?

To Jadedjean (per comments above):

CAPITALISATION used for convenience - not for emphasis. (My apologies if this is breach of etiquette etc.)

You have raised a plethora of points. However, the essence of your arguments is that for reasons of self-aggrandisement, the allegation of a Holocaust has either been fabricated or exaggerated by Jews. I have responded by reference to the findings of fact on Auschwitz (dealing with the existence of gas chambers to murder Jews in their hundreds of thousands) in the Irving v Lipstadt trial which you say has no bearing on this. So let's look at the decision of the trial judge itself (noting it was unanimously upheld by the Court of Appeal) to see what he has to say on these issues (all paragraph references below are to the judgment itself:

* At para 1.3: "It will be necessary for me to rehearse, at some length, certain historical data. The need for this arises because I must evaluate the criticisms of or (as Irving would put it) the attack upon his conduct as an historian in the light of the available historical evidence."

* At para 7.5 (with respect to the mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz): "The overall question which I have to decide is whether the available evidence, considered in its totality, would convince any objective and reasonable historian that Auschwitz was not merely one of the many concentration or labour camps established by the Nazi regime but that it also served as a death or extermination camp, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically put to death in gas chambers over the period from late 1941 until 1944."

* At para. 7.6 - 7.7 (summarising the Defendants' case with respect to Auschwitz):

"7.6 Auschwitz was not, on the Defendants' case, either the first or by any means the only extermination camp where gas chambers were employed to kill Jews. However, according to the Defendants, the evidence establishes that more more deaths occurred at Auschwitz than in all the other extermination camps put together. The case advanced by the Defendants can by simply summarised: they contend that there is a substantial body of evidence, from a variety of different sources, which should demonstrate to any fair-minded objective commentator that gas chambers were constructed at Auschwitz and that they were used to extermination Jews on a massive scale. This case rests upon what the Defendants contend is abundant evidence, both contemporaneous and more recent, which amounts to convincing proof that Auschwitz played a pivotal role in the Nazi scheme to exterminate European Jewry. It is the Defendants' case that in the period from late 1941 to 1944, when the gas chambers were dismantled, approximately one million Jews were murdered by the use of gas at the camp.

7.7 The Defendants allege that, if Irving had approached the evidence in a detached and objective manner, he could not have failed to appreciate that the evidence is overwhelming that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were systematically used to kill Jews. In arriving at an answer to this question, the Defendants submit that it is relevant to bear in mind the concessions that Irving has already made as to the fact, scale and systematic nature of, firstly, the killing of the Jews in the East by shooting and, secondly, the gassing of Jews from Poland and from Europe in the Reinhard death camps. The Defendants maintain that Irving's denial of the genocidal use of the gas chambers, often expressed in the most intemperate language, flies in the face of the evidence and is explicable only on the basis that Irving is driven by his own extremist ideological views. Moreover the Defendants point out that Irving's denial appears to have been prompted, almost overnight, by his reading the Leuchter report, which, say the Defendants, is deeply flawed from both a scientific and an historical point of view."

* At paras 7.8 - 7.14 (summarising David Irving's case with respect to Auschwitz):

"7.8 As it was originally formulated, the case advanced by Irving was that no convincing evidence exists that gas chambers were at the material time in existence at Auschwitz and that there is no evidence that such chambers were commissioned. Further, said Irving, there is no convincing evidence that any Jew at Auschwitz lost his or her life as a result of being gassed (though he conceded from the outset that many died as a result of the epidemics which, due to the appalling lack of hygiene, regularly swept the camp).

7.9 The reason why Irving originally adopted that stance was that he was enormously impressed by a report compiled in 1988 by a Mr Fred Leuchter, described by Irving as a professional consultant who routinely advised penitentiaries on electric chair and gas-chamber execution procedures. His report entitled "An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek Poland" concluded that no gas chambers operated at Auschwitz. Irving regarded that report as an important historical document and he adopted its major conclusions. He contended that subsequent tests had replicated the results obtained by Leuchter.

7.10 At this trial Irving appeared to place less reliance on the Leuchter report than he had done in his written statement of case. He advanced a variety of arguments for discrediting the evidence relied on by the Defendants. He relied heavily on the argument that the roof of morgue 1 at crematorium 2 (which is where on the Defendants' case in excess of 500,000 Jews were gassed to death) shows no sign of the wire-mesh columns through which the Defendants maintain that the gas was introduced into the chamber below.

7.11 In the course of the trial Irving modified his position: he was prepared to concede that gassing of human beings had taken place at Auschwitz but on a limited scale. However, he continued to assert that it was not a death factory (totesfabrik). He maintained that there is certainly no question of 500,000 Jews having perished in morgue 1 of crematorium 2 as the Defendants contend.

7.12 In support of his modified denial that Jews were put to death in the gas chambers on any significant scale, Irving relied on the fact that in all the surviving contemporaneous archival and other documentary records of the Third Reich, there is no reference to the commissioning, construction or operation of the gas chambers. He emphasised that amongst the voluminous documentary material relating to Auschwitz, there is only one document which contains what might be regarded as a reference to the genocidal use of the crematoria. Irving argues that the lack of (as he put it) incriminating documents is extraordinary, if indeed gas chambers were in operation on the scale alleged by the Defendants.

7.13 Amongst the arguments advanced by Irving in support of his case that killing by gas took place at the camp on no more than a limited scale was the fact that the top-secret daily reports sent from the camp to Berlin in cypher, which purport to record the numbers of inmates, arrivals and 'departures by any means', including deaths, make no mention of any inmate having been gassed, although they contain many references to deaths from illness, by shootings and hangings. The number of deaths recorded in these reports is far smaller than the number of those who, on the Defendants' case, lost their lives in the gas chambers. Moreover, asked Irving, if so many were led to their deaths in the gas chambers, what has become of the cadavers. Why, Irving continued, should Eichmann, whose diaries were remarkably frank in regard to the killing of Jews, omit to mention gas chambers when recording his visit to Auschwitz in early 1942.

7.14 According to Irving the evidence simply fails to establish that Jews were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz on anything approaching the scale claimed by the Defendants."

* At paras 13.68 - 13.70 (summarising the issues before him with respect to Auschwitz):

"13.68 When the trial started, it appeared from Irving's written statement of case that he was adhering to the position often adopted in his speeches about Auschwitz, namely that no gas chambers were commissioned or operated at the camp and that in consequence no Jew lost his or her life in gas chambers there.

13.69 As I have already observed in paragraph 7.11 above, in the course of the trial Irving modified his position: he accepted that there was at least one gas chamber (or "cellar") at Auschwitz, albeit used solely or mainly for the fumigation of clothing. He also accepted that gassing of Jews had taken place at the camp "on some scale". He did not indicate on what scale. Irving firmly denied the claim advanced by van Pelt that 500,000 Jews were killed in morgue 1 of crematorium 2. The case for the Defendants on the other hand was, as I have said, that almost one million Jews were put to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

13.70 In these circumstances the central question which, as it appears to me, falls to be determined is whether or not the evidence supports the Defendants' contention that the number of deaths ran into hundreds of thousands or whether Irving is right when he claims that the killing by gas was on a modest scale."

* At para. 13.71: "I have to confess that, in common I suspect with most other people, I had supposed that the evidence of mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers at Auschwitz was compelling. I have, however, set aside this preconception when assessing the evidence adduced by the parties in these proceedings."

* At para. 13.75 (commenting on the documentary evidence with respect to Auschwitz): "Vulnerable though the individual categories of evidence may be to criticisms of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, it appears to me that the cumulative effect of the documentary evidence for the genocidal operation of gas chambers at Auschwitz is considerable."

* At paras. 13.77 - 13.78 (commenting on eye-witness evidence):

"Whilst I acknowledge that the reliability of the eye-witness evidence is variable, what is to me striking about that category of evidence is the similarity of the accounts and the extent to which they are consistent with the documentary evidence. The account of, for example, Tauber, is so clear and detailed that, in my judgment, no objective historian would dismiss it as invention unless there were powerful reasons for doing so. Tauber's account is corroborated by and corroborative of the accounts given by others such as Jankowski and Dragon. Their descriptions marry up with Olere's drawings. The evidence of other eye-witnesses, such as Hoss and Broad, would in my view appear credible to a dispassionate student of Auschwitz. There is no evidence of cross-pollination having occurred. It is in the circumstances an unlikely explanation for the broad similarity of the accounts in this category.

13.78 My conclusion is that the various categories of evidence do "converge" in the manner suggested by the Defendants. I accept their contention which I have summarised in paragraph 7.75 above. My overall assessment of the totality of the evidence that Jews were killed in large numbers in the gas chambers at Auschwitz is that it would require exceedingly powerful reasons to reject it. Irving has argued that such reasons do exist."

* At para. 13:80: "In the light of the evidence of van Pelt and Irving's answers in cross-examination, I do not consider that an objective historian would have regarded the Leuchter report as a sufficient reason for dismissing, or even doubting, the convergence of evidence on which the Defendants rely for the presence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz."

* At para. 13.91: "Having considered the various arguments advanced by Irving to assail the effect of the convergent evidence relied on by the Defendants, it is my conclusion that no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews."

There you have it.

The trial judge formally ruled, as part of the ratio of his decision, that several hundred of thousands of Jews were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz by reference to the very extensive evidence adduced by the Defendants - and wholly rejecting Irving's arguments (and so-called "evidence") to the contrary.

I put it to you, once more, that you are plainly shutting your eyes to / wilfully and deliberately ignoring the FORENSIC (CAPITALISED FOR EMPHASIS!!) evidence - evidence that was tested in open court by a respected High Court judge (and whose judgment was unanimously upheld by the Court of Appeal).

What say you to this?

PS: Is it CRIMINAL for Jews (or indeed anyone else) to say that there was mass-murder of Jews by the Nazis in WW2? Under whose law exactly?

JadedJean - Also see the following from the judgment of Grey J in Irving v Lipstadt:

"13.97 It is part of the Defendants' case on justification that the statements made by Irving which are apostrophised by the Defendants as Holocaust denials are false in the sense that they are unsupported by the evidence. I have summarised in paragraphs 8.16 to 8.36 the reasons why the Defendants so contend.

13.98 I have already made findings that the evidence supports the following propositions: that the shooting of the Jews in the East was systematic and directed from Berlin with the knowledge and approval of Hitler; that there were gas chambers at several of the Operation Reinhard camps and that (as Irving during the trial admitted) hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed in them and that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, where hundreds of thousands more Jews were gassed to death. It follows that it is my conclusion that Irving's denials of these propositions were contrary to the evidence."

markieboyrulesok (#73) This is getting a little irrational as I have already said that it is not legitimate to use this case to argue for the truth or falsehood of historical fact, and that Grey himself made this point.

What you have to do is look to what Grey said very carefully in the context of it being a libel case and in the context what I have said the purpose of the post-war denazification, 'Collective Guilt Campaign' was, particularly in the context of Roosevelt's (and after his death, Truman's), Churchill's and Stalin's Tehan Conference (December evening meeting) and its consequences as an alternative to killing 50-100,000 German officers.

You write: "the essence of your arguments is that for reasons of self-aggrandisement, the allegation of a Holocaust has either been fabricated or exaggerated by Jews."

Not quite, whilst Jews were/are major beneficiary as a group in my view, this was, I am suggesting, a systematic fabrication/exaggeration perpetrated by the allies (Western and Soviet) for entirely political purposes (mixed ones it turned out).

"I have responded by reference to the findings of fact on Auschwitz (dealing with the existence of gas chambers to murder Jews in their hundreds of thousands) in the Irving v Lipstadt trial which you say has no bearing on this."

Correct, although Grey was very careful in his wording you will note if you read very carefully (as a lawyer would).

"So let's look at the decision of the trial judge itself (noting it was unanimously upheld by the Court of Appeal) to see what he has to say on these issues (all paragraph references below are to the judgment itself:"

Which is irrational, as I have said it can not be used this way. It was a libel trial. This is suble and if ou persist in ignoring this I will have to conclude that your motives are disreputable.

Take this paragraph, noting the words which I have highlighted in bold. Please read this paragraph in the context of the entire thing being the work of allied psychological warfare corps.

"* At para 7.5.... "The overall question which I have to decide is whether the available evidence, considered in its totality, would convince any objective and reasonable historian that Auschwitz was not merely one of the many concentration or labour camps established by the Nazi regime but that it also served as a death or extermination camp, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically put to death in gas chambers over the period from late 1941 until 1944."

Now, was it not the job of Soviet (NKVD), American and British psychological warfare/intelligence people to do exactly that i.e convince convince any objective and reasonable historian that "hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically put to death in gas chambers over the period from late 1941 until 1944" ?

Note also "* At para. 13.75 (commenting on the documentary evidence with respect to Auschwitz): "Vulnerable though the individual categories of evidence may be to criticisms of the kind mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, it appears to me that the cumulative effect of the documentary evidence for the genocidal operation of gas chambers at Auschwitz is considerable."

But note, documentary evidence is not forensic evidence. We now know that at least some of the photographic imagery and someof t he documentary evdinece (furnished by the Soviets at the IMT) was faked (over many months of postings here I have linked to this in the German press and our own FCO).

What I am asserting is that allied psychological warfare/intellence (and these were the first into the camps East and West) would not have done their job effectively if they had not marshalled documentary evidence which served the Collective Guilt Campaign' and the spread of anarchistic Liberal-Democracy and anti-statism (which, I remind you, has been my main point throughout in te context of our deteriorating socio-economic situaion). In the end, demographically speaking, this is only secondarily about Jewish people, most of whom today are, I suspect, just innocent beneficiaries.

Bear this in mind:

* At para. 13.71: "I have to confess that, in common I suspect with most other people, I had supposed that the evidence of mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers at Auschwitz was compelling. I have, however, set aside this preconception when assessing the evidence adduced by the parties in these proceedings."

A note on your #75 where you you cite "13.98 I have already made findings that the evidence supports the following propositions: that the shooting of the Jews in the East was systematic and directed from Berlin with the knowledge and approval of Hitler"

Bear in mind that the 4 einsatzgruppen comprised about 1000 troops each (see Gilbert). This was a small ratio to the Jews in the Baltic states. What one has to appreciate is that commissars and other political leaders may well have been disproportionatly Jewish. There is therefore a risk of abuse of co-extensives (i.e Jewish-Bolsheviks) here. Stalin, it must be remembered, was also removing the original (disproportionately Jewish) leadership throughout the 1930s. Judaism has all the properties of a political movement as well as, conveniently, an ethnic/racial group. This muddle can be and is often has been abused in my view, sometimes even at Jews' expense.

Finally, you have completely ignored (not understood?) the demographic point. For orienation (aside from what I have said repeatedly in this blog about East European TFRs in the 1.1-1.3 range especially - Speian, Italy etc are not much better) see these cities. Below Replacement Level fertility and differential fertilty are major problems for the Liberal-Democracies (both East and West).

JadedJean

I do not find your comments remotely helpful.

Let's take 2 of your particularly fatuous points in turn:

Point 1: "... documentary evidence is not forensic evidence. We now know that at least some of the photographic imagery and someof t he documentary evdinece (furnished by the Soviets at the IMT) was faked (over many months of postings here I have linked to this in the German press and our own FCO)."

MY RESPONSE: I agree, but obviously you haven't read the judgment. The judge looked at ALL of the evidence (contemporaneous documentary evidence, eyewitness evidence, expert evidence as to the function of Auschwitz etc) brought to the court - this section deals (as my note points out) specifically with the documentary evidence. For the judge's formal ruling on forensic evidence, see the following:

"13.84 I have no doubt that Irving is right that there was throughout a need to have fumigation facilities at the camp. There is documentary evidence of concern about the effect on the labour supply of prevailing mortality levels. As van Pelt accepted, ovens would have been required to cremate the large number who succumbed to disease. But in my judgment there is ample evidence which would have convinced an objective commentator that there were also gas chambers which were put to use to kill humans. In the first place there is the eye-witness evidence to which I have referred. Secondly, there is the evidence of van Pelt that the redesign of crematorium 2 in late 1942 was intended to cater for live human beings to walk down to an undressing room before being led into the chamber and to do away with the corpse-slide previously used to convey dead bodies downstairs. Thirdly, there is evidence that a camp doctor asked in January 1943 for the provision of an undressing-room, which would have been unnecessary if the crematorium were intended for corpses. Finally there is the evidence of the letter dated 31 March 1943 in which Bischoff requisitions, as a matter of urgency, a gas-tight door with a spy-hole of extra thickness. It is difficult to see why a spy-hole would be necessary in the door of a chamber used only for fumigating corpses or other objects. For these reasons I do not accept that an objective historian would be persuaded that the gas chambers served only the purposes of fumigation. The evidence points firmly in the direction of a homicidal use of the chambers as well.

13.85 I turn to Irving's alternative argument that the redesign work carried out in early 1943 was to convert crematorium 2 (and crematorium 3) for use as an air-raid shelter. I accept his claim that there was at the time some concern about Allied air-raids in the region. I am prepared to assume in Irving's favour that it was standard practice to equip shelters with gas-tight doors opening outwards and equipped with a peephole (although probably not with a metal grille on the inside). Nevertheless there appear to me to be cogent pragmatic reasons for a historian to conclude that the evidence does not support the air-raid shelter argument.

13.86 If the redesign was to convert the buildings to air raid shelters, there would have been no reason why the drawings and associated documents should not say so. But there is no hint in the documents that such was the intention. The question arises for whose benefit such shelters would have been built. It appears to me to be unlikely that the Nazis would be concerned to shelter the camp inmates. In any case the shelters would have been too small to accommodate more than a fraction of them. But the shelters would not have been suitable for SS personnel either, since the SS barracks were about one and a half miles way. So I cannot accept that this argument comes anywhere near displacing the conclusion to be drawn from the convergent evidence relied on by the Defendants for their contention as to the object of the redesign work.

13.87 Irving advanced a number of subsidiary arguments. I can deal with them briefly because they did not impress me. I do not consider that they would have impressed a dispassionate historian either.

13.88 Irving relied on the fact that the camp registers or "death books" released by the Russians record deaths at Auschwitz, but make no mention of any deaths by gassing. The short answer to this point is that, according to the unchallenged evidence of a large number of witnesses, the books record only the deaths of those who were formally registered as inmates of the camp. The Jews who were selected on arrival to die were taken straight to the gas chambers without being registered. One would not therefore expect to find mention of the cause of death of those Jews in the death books.

13.89 Reports were sent regularly from the camp to Berlin in cypher. They were intercepted and decoded at Bletchley Park. Although these reports often gave the cause of death, they did not mention gassing. In my judgment there are two reasons why little significance is to be attached to this: the first is that there was a strict rule of secrecy about the gassing and the second is that, like the death books, these reports related to registered inmates only.

13.90 Irving argued that the quantity of coke required to burn one body would have been 35kg. He contended that the amount of coke which is recorded as having been delivered to Auschwitz is nothing like enough to kill the number of Jews who the Defendants say lost their lives in the gas chambers. But I accept that the evidence of van Pelt, which was based on contemporaneous documents (see paragraph 7.125 above), that, if the incinerators were operated continuously and many corpses were burnt together so themselves providing fuel, no more than 3.5kg of coke would have been required per corpse."

Point 2: "Not quite, whilst Jews were/are major beneficiary as a group in my view, this was, I am suggesting, a systematic fabrication/exaggeration perpetrated by the allies (Western and Soviet) for entirely political purposes (mixed ones it turned out)."

MY RESPONSE: Another point directly addressed by Mr. Justice Grey (at paragraph 13.99):

"13.99 There remains only the question whether the evidence supports Irving's claim that the gas chambers were a propaganda lie invented by British Intelligence. I have recited the rival contentions of the parties in paragraphs 8.31 to 8.36 above. There are three questions: firstly, did the British invent the notion that Jews were being killed by the Nazis in gas chambers; secondly, even if the British did not invent the story, did they disbelieve it and, thirdly, was use made of the story for propaganda purposes. As to the first question, Irving was unable to present any evidence that the British invented the story. It was provided to the Foreign Office by the secretary to the World Jewish Council, who in turn had received it from a source in Berlin. As to whether the British disbelieved the story, the only evidence to which Irving was able to point was the note made by Cavendish-Bentinck that there was no evidence to support the claim. That appears to me to be far cry from disbelieving the story. As to whether British Intelligence made propaganda use of the story, the evidence produced by Irving extended no further than second-hand accounts of BBC broadcasts about the gassing. There was no indication that British intelligence played any part in these broadcasts. In my judgment the evidence does not support the claim made by Irving."

I'm not surprised you are desperate to avoid looking at this judgment - as it absolutely demolishes each one of the quite absurd "arguments" that you are looking to rely upon.

markieboyrulesok (#77) "I do not find your comments remotely helpful."

Perhaps it would help if you re-read my posts and looked up some of the key terms e.g. TFR, Below Replacement Level Fertility, Collective Guilt Campaign? and Libel Case?

78. JadedJean

No, it wouldn't "help".

Perhaps it would help if you actually bothered to address the points expressly articulated by the judge. Since (of course) you will not do so, there is no point in continuing this particular "dialogue" any further.

markieboyrulesok (#79) "No, it wouldn't "help".

Which is why, I suggest (sadly), mass expulsion was resorted to, both in Germany, and other European countries in the last century, just as it was at earlier times in human history

Plus ca change....because behaviour is largely genetic and people don't 'learn'

:-(