Pia Akerman, The Australian - Sydney, Australia, 24 January 2009

REVISIONIST commentator Fredrick Töben will fight charges of Holocaust denial in Germany within weeks of escaping extradition proceedings in London, after negotiating with German prosecutors to face a European court.

In a video posted on YouTube, Dr Töben declares he will travel to Germany to meet Mannheim prosecutor Andreas Grossman, responsible for the failed extradition case against the former Adelaide schoolteacher in Britain last year. "Mr Grossman, here is a message for you: that in the near future I shall be travelling to Germany, I shall be visiting you and we shall be thrashing it out in the German court," Dr Töben says in the video. "I am progressing to that next stage in our battle for truth, in our battle for civilisation, in our battle to liberate the people who are oppressed. "We shall see whether truth will prevail ... whether we can in fact get some justice or whether you are simply going to demolish me, criminalise my thoughts and therefore further kill the German soul."

Dr Töben, 64, declined to say when he would go to Germany when contacted by The Weekend Australian yesterday. But he said he had already been in email contact with Mr Grossman to arrange the court proceedings. "I don't like being threatened by people who say they are going to hunt me down," he said. "Let's be civilised in these things, and discuss it and thrash it out."

Dr Töben spent seven months in Mannheim prison in 1999 for inciting racism. He will now face up to five years in jail, with parole an unlikely prospect unless he recants his claims. British police arrested Dr Töben last October on a plane at Heathrow airport, acting on a European Union arrest warrant issued in Germany, which accused him of publishing internet material "of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature". A British judge ruled the arrest warrant invalid, a decision Germany initially appealed against before withdrawing.

Dr Töben would not say if he had already arranged legal representation, as he will almost certainly face another jail term. "Nothing is ever certain, but I just don't like this nonsense of being targeted and pulled off a plane," he said. "This is just primitive."

In the YouTube video -- where he speaks in front of Canberra's Parliament House -- Dr Töben foreshadows a visit to an upcoming revisionist conference to be held in Tehran. He was a speaker at a similar conference organised by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian capital in 2006 that sparked strong condemnation from international leaders.

Meanwhile, a Federal Court judgment in a civil case against Dr Töben is still pending. He has pleaded not guilty to 28 charges alleging he breached orders by the Federal Court in 2002 not to publish offensive material on his website. The material breached the Racial Discrimination Act, implying that the Holocaust did not happen and doubting the existence of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He faces a finding of criminal contempt if found guilty.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24955339-5013404,00.html

___________________________________

The Australian local scene continued -

Holocaust history

Letters to the Editor,

Wimmera Mail-Times,

2 January 2009

Sir: No German can be trusted when he writes about the second world war holocaust, especially when he does not mention the First World War’ holocaust’ of the six million Jews and eight hundred children dying due t the tyranny of war and the lust for Jewish blood in Poland and Ukraine popularised inter alia in print, in the American Hebrew by the Governor of the State of New York, Martin Glynn, in October 1919.

In Dr Toben’s writ there are other important errors of facts, omissions and deductions. Some I will list below.

Dr Toben conceals that Rabbi S Weiss, a personal friend of President Roosevelt, and the president of the World Jewish Congress, in a leading article in the foremost The American Hebrew – the mouthpiece of the influential Jewish American Committee – informed that because of the expense of mass gassing with Zyklon B, Nazis stopped using this method and resorted to having German doctors injecting air bubbles into veins of Jews on the deportation trains.

This news was confirmed by the even more respected The New York Times, which a few years later, February 1943, informed the world that Nazis killed 2 million Jews with steam in bathhouses at the Treblinka death camp – the news now dismissed as war-time propaganda.

Dr Toben conceals or omits a far more important fact than the court testimony of the now late Prof R Hilberg – a distant friend of mine – that because of the lack of top Nazi orders of killing Jews, two Holocaustian schools emerged, that of the intentionalists and functionalists, who believed that some Nazis were killing Jews without the orders by sensing the intention of their leaders, while others killed them to make more space for themselves and to garner Jewish personal diamonds and gold.

Dr Toben is factually wrong about the victim count of Auschwitz. In July 1991 the count was reduced by the Auschwitz museum with the approval of the Israeli scholars, prompted by a small article by Jacek Pater – a member of our Polish Historical Society – in The New York City Tribune from 4 million to 1,100,000.

In January 1945 it was raised by Lech Valesa, the president of Poland, to 1,500,000, because his father spent there a few months.

In September 1998, reported in The New York Times, it was further reduced by Israeli scholars to 800,000.

Eventually the foremost holocaustian scholar of the Auschwitz camp, J-C Pressac, sponsored by the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, reduced the Auschwitz count to 460,000, albeit this time less widely publicised.

Hence Dr Toben does not provide accurate facts. Dr Toben, although a scholar, has a habit in his letter not to site sources so they could be verified. It might be an item of his imagination that some German historical journal in 2002 refuted the story of mass homicidal gassings at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps and relegated them to a far away two little barns and outside of electrified, especially at night, camps’ wires, a fact refuted by war-time American aerial photo reconnaissance.

Dr Toben’s demand ‘can you show me the murder weapon, the homicidal gas chamber?’ is utterly false and preposterous. No-one can show to another even the most recent last winter’s snow. But everyone’s can be turned, with gasoline engine running, into a suicidal or by accident, deadly gas chamber, while Zyklon B stained the brick of the delousing chambers with the intensely blue deposits of ferrocyanides.

Dr Toben is circumspect even about the on-going history. He describes the recent largest theft of the stock market, but withholds the Jewish name of Bernard Meadow, the perpetrator.

He also omits the names of the other Jewish fraudster such as Ivan Brodski, nicknamed ‘Grozny’ Milliken, the still-in-jail ‘king of junk bonds’; and minor ones, almost every year ‘busted’ by authorities in New York’s Brooklyn and Westchester County areas.

Both Mr Morrow and Dr Toben should remember the illustrated and extraordinary article by Irene Zdziarski, of the Polish Historical Society, published in the New York Times on January 1, 1994, and titled “Do not cut off all debate about the Holocaust”, of which the main thrust was “do not trust survivors as then exemplified by the John Demjanjuk acquittel at the Jerusalem trial”.

Jan Kamola, Elllenville, New York.

Letter to the Editor, Wimmera Mail-Times

Fredrick Töben, 4 January 2009

With mixed feelings I respond to your correspondent, Jan Kamola, Elllenville, New York, Letter: 2 January 2009, because his real name is actually Dr M Dragan, of Polish-Ukrainian background, who belongs to neither of the two Holocaust camps – the believers or the Revisionists but rather to another eccentric variety made up of his own concerns. He has been in the Holocaust-Shoah scene for many years and has operated under many aliases. His justification for using a pseudonym when spreading ‘dangerous’ Revisionist knowledge is his claim that were he to use his real name, then he would be pursued by such pressure groups as the Anti Defamation League, USA, which was once branded a terrorist organisation, and his life would be in danger.

He uses this method of operating in the public domain, then augments it by abusing anyone who writes on the topic. In his response to my letter, for example, he uses the following phrases in an attempt to discredit me: - is factually wrong; conceals or omits; does not provide accurate facts; demand … is utterly false and preposterous; is circumspect even about the on-going history; should remember. My responding in detail to such allegations would require more than two pages of your paper, and I am quite conscious of the fact that the airing of this current issue is already taking up a lot of space.

Dragan then also generalises his attacks in order to eliminate any of his rivals, for example, when he opens his letter with a statement: “… No German can be trusted when he writes about the Second World War holocaust”.

Although Dr Dragan has in the past produced some factual information about the Holocaust-Shoah – for example, commissioning an helicopter aerial photo shoot of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration complex that was to be used for the Irving v Lipstadt London 2000 defamation trial – his general output is not serious scholarship because of his inherent fear of facing his perceived ‘enemy’. His work is also an example of what professor Robert Faurisson calls busy work because it merely confuses anyone who is not well versed in the Holocaust-Shoah topic. If you re-read his letter and try to sum up the essence of his argument, then it is obvious Dr Dragan is all over the place with is version of the Holocaust-Shoah narrative.

The important points about the Holocaust-Shoah narrative are:

1. the reduction of the death numbers at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1.-1.5 million on account of the 1988 Ernst Zündel Toronto trial without this reduction affecting the overall claim that six million Jews died. Zündel is serving a 5-year prison sentence in Germany for refusing uncritically to believe in the Jewish Holocaust.

2. the 1996 de-commissioning of Krema I, Auschwitz-Stammlager, as a homicidal gas chamber by Robert Jan van Pelt and Deborah Dwork in their book: Auschwitz: From 1270 to the present, p.363-64. To this day the Auschwitz tour guides still show visitors the alleged ‘homicidal gas chambers’ there!

3. Fritjof Meyer’s article in Osteuropa in May 2002, wherein Auschwitz-Birkenau’s Krema II is de-commissioned as a homicidal gas chamber and the gas-killing centre is re-located to two farm houses outside of the concentration camp.

This in effect ends the myth that Auschwitz was a death camp just as Professor Arthur Butz had concluded as early as 1976 in his book: The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.

If we want to find out the truth about the Holocaust – or ‘Shoah’ as Jews refer to this period in history – then we cannot get past Germar Rudolf’s 1995-published book Lectures on the Holocaust. This book is now banned in Germany while its author is serving a 3.5 year prison sentence for having broken Section 130 of the German Penal Code that criminalises anyone who dares to ask questions, that makes it a criminal matter to think and to express your opinion. That in all so-called western democracies the university systems are hopelessly contaminated by this Holocaust-Shoah narrative, is an objective fact.

In 1983 the University of Göttingen revoked a doctor title it had conferred on Judge Wilhelm Stäglich during the 1950s because in 1979 he wrote the book The Auschwitz Myth. The signal sent through German academia was loud and clear – don’t touch the subject matter if you value your academic standing.

Then the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, resisted pressure from New Zealand’s Jews to downgrade an MA(hons) conferred in 1993 on Dr Joel Hayward for his thesis about the Holocaust: The Fate of Jews in German Hands: An historical enquiry into the development and significance of Holocaust revisionism. The university concluded Hayward had not told any lies but merely concluded that there was no proof of any systematic extermination of European Jews in homicidal gas chambers during World War Two.

In 2003 Canterbury University lecturer Thomas A Fudge authored an article titled ‘The Fate of Joel Hayward in New Zealand Hands: From Holocaust historian to Holocaust?’ Dr Fudge’s article was to appear in the university’s history department’s journal, but this was subsequently withdrawn and pulped.

On a personal note: In 1996 Jeremy Jones, of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, took me to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission – HREOC – before which he stated that no reputable university in the democratic western world would offer ‘Holocaust denial’ as a subject. In 1998 Dr Joel Hayward sent me his thesis, which I duly submitted as evidence before HREOC. Soon thereafter the Jews of New Zealand began a hate campaign against Dr Hayward, which led to his receiving death threats. Hayward re-canted, saying: “I stuffed up”, and based his change of mind – revising his opinion – on material that emerged from the 2000 London Irving v Lipstadt trial, a claim also made by Fritjof Meyer in his article of 2002. In both instances I requested that the gentlemen inform me what information it was that caused them to change their minds – I am still waiting to hear from them. So much for freedom of research!

And the final rubbish floating about as a result of the Jewish attack on the Palestinians is that these ‘Zionists’ are like the Germans.

Bavarian Prosecutors Investigating Catholic Bishop

The district attorney of Regensburg, Bavaria is investigating a Catholic bishop of the Saint Pious X Order on charges of “inciting the masses.”

On Friday, acting section chief Edgar Zach confirmed a corresponding report of the Bavarian Broadcasting Company.

In an interview with the Swedish TV broadcasting company SVT the British Traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson had expressed doubts that the National Socialists murdered six million Jews during World War II. According to Italian press reports, Bishop Williamson is one of four Traditionalist bishops whose excommunication Pope Benedict XVI intends to rescind.

“It is my understanding that according to the best scientific estimates, 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in National Socialist concentration camps, but none of them in homicidal gas chambers” he stated in the interview, which is posted on the website of SVT as well as on YouTube.

The bishop explained that where laws and worldly matters are concerned the Traditionalist Order are of the opinion that objective and scientific evidence should take precedence over subjective and emotional responses.

Objective evidence shows that concentration camps such as Auschwitz had no facilities to murder large numbers of prisoners.

For one thing, the alleged homicidal gas chambers lacked airtight doors. He referred to the investigatory work of Fred Leuchter, an American engineer who designs homicidal gas chambers for US prisons. To express doubts about the “Holocaust of 1939-45" is a criminal offense in Germany punishable by up to five years in prison.

[Scrupulous reporters specify which “Holocaust” of six million Jews they mean, since the New York Times and other Jewish newspapers reported a large number of “Holocausts” of six million during the 20th Century. The first of these was an article by Rabbi Stephen Wise that appeared the NYT issue of 11 June 1900, followed by reports of at least six other “Holocausts” in Russia, Poland and the Ukraine before 1933.]

The TV interview was apparently recorded at the seminary of the Brothers of Piety in Zaitzkofen near Regensburg.

The Regensburg District Attorney has confiscated the tape of the six-minute interview, which was conducted in English.

Concerning official reaction in Germany, it is significant that at the end of the interview, Bishop Williamson acknowledged that he understands it is a crime for him to express his opinions in Germany. He acknowledged that the interview could result in his imprisonment “before I leave Germany.” (kna/kipa 23Jan2009 bp)

The Original German Version

Staatsanwaltschaft ermittelt gegen Pius-Bischof

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Regensburg ermittelt gegen einen Bischof der Priesterbruderschaft St. Pius X. wegen Volksverhetzung. Der stellvertretende Behördenleiter Edgar Zach bestätigte am Freitag einen entsprechenden Bericht des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Der britische Traditionalisten-Bischof Richard Williamson hatte in einem Interview mit dem schwedischen Fernsehsender SVT bestritten, daß die Nazis sechs Millionen Juden ermordet hätten.

Williamson ist einer von vier Traditionalisten-Bischöfen, deren Exkommunikation Papst Benedikt XVI. laut italienischen Presseberichten angeblich zurücknehmen will. "Ich denke, daß 200.000 bis 300.000 Juden in Nazi-Konzentrationslagern starben, aber keiner von ihnen in Gas-Kammern", sagt Williamson in dem Interview, das auf der Webseite des Senders zu sehen ist. Es gehe nicht um Emotionen, sondern um historische Beweise, führte der Traditionalisten-Bischof aus. Diese sprächen dafür, daß Konzentrationslager wie Auschwitz nicht für die Vergasung von Menschen angelegt gewesen seien.

So seien die Schornsteine zu kurz und die Türen nicht dicht genug gewesen.

Williamson berief sich auf den bekannten Holocaust-Leugner Fred Leuchter. Die Leugnung des Holocaust ist seit 1994 ein eigenständiger Straftatbestand in Deutschland und wird mit bis zu fünf Jahren Gefängnis geahndet.

Das Fernseh-Interview soll in Bayern aufgezeichnet worden sein, und zwar im Priesterseminar der Pius-Brüder in Zaitzkofen südlich von Regensburg. Damit ist die Regensburger Staatsanwaltschaft zuständig. Sie hat das knapp sechsminütige, auf Englisch geführte Interview sichergestellt. Für die Aufnahme in Deutschland spricht, daß Williamson am Ende des Interviews einräumt, daß seine Äußerungen in Deutschland strafbar seien. Der Reporter könne dafür sorgen, daß er ins Gefängnis komme, "bevor ich Deutschland verlasse". (kna/kipa 23.01.2009 bp)

http://www.radiovaticana.org/ted/Articolo.asp?c=260809

Would a liar be able to summon up such fortitude?

Attorney Horst Mahler is a hero for every German who wants to be a German.

With his youthful comrades filing legal self-accusations in order to fight political repression, his place in post-BRDDR history is assured.

The “BRDDR” (Bundes Republik Deutschland + Deutsche Demokratische RepubliK: the vassal BRD or Federal Republic of Germany merged with the vassal DDR or German Democratic Republic in 1989 to form the vassal BRDDR) courts are subjecting Mahler, 73, to endless trials in order to exhaust and impoverish him.

As the Süddeutsche Zeitung cynically reported: “Under extreme security measures, another of Attorney Mahler’s countless trials began in Munich on Monday...Probably not even Mahler is able to keep track of them all.” (sz.de, 12 Jan 2009)

As always, Germany’s Zionist-controlled media gave full vent up to unmitigated hatred at the beginning of the trial, as Mahler again presented the results of what he has investigated in many years of tireless effort.

The media’s most frenzied attack is directed against his revelations of the Jewish Zionist national agenda, above all this observation: “‘Holocaust’ is the most powerful weapon that Judaism has ever employed against Germany” (Die Welt, 13 Jan 2009, p. 4)

Mahler has never suggested that ordinary individual Jews are Germany’s enemies, however. He is referring to Jewish law, especially the Old Testament or Thora, which designates the whole non Jewish world as its enemy.

Mahler emphasizes that since the Jewish ruling elite consider us their enemy, we must take their hostile views into consideration. This view is not new.

The magazine Focus recently quoted the Roman historian Tacitus: “‘They consider everything unholy that we consider holy’ he observed, expressing amazement that the Jews ‘hate all other peoples as their enemies.’” (Focus, 38/2001, p. 130)

The Zionist controlled German media all agree on one point: Mahler must not be allowed to express defense arguments in court. This can only mean that the German media are unanimously opposed to legitimate trial procedure, human rights and Democracy.

The leading news magazine Spiegel dismisses Mahler’s right to a defense on account of “anti-democratic utterances.” (Focus, 38/2001, p. 130)

As the trial began, Presiding Judge Martin Rieder violated democratic principles and legal procedure by denying the accused opportunity to present on grounds of extreme security measures his defense statement.

The Einlassung is firmly anchored in Western law and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. “The judge interrupted him and demanded that Mahler discontinue his utterances concerning Holocaust.”

(sz.de,12.01.2009)
German courts are clearly terrified of Mahler’s command of the facts, empirical evidence and eloquence: The judge “threatened to shut the eloquent 73-year-old out of the main proceedings.” (Spiegel.de, 12.01.2009)
From the Christian point of view, such suppression of empirical truth brings to mind St. Paul’s Letters.

Paul was persecuted by Jewish officials for telling the truth to the Galileeans, just as those who declare historical truth and warn of the Jewish plans for the world conquest are persectued today.

In his letter he asks the question: “Have I become your enemy becauce I tell the truth?” (Luther Bible, 1912, Galileeans 4:16)

In the following we are releasing, in italics, selected passages from Mahler’s opening statement, which was read aloud and disseminated in written form to the Court as well as the journalists present.

For reasons of space we have had to abbreviate his homage to Sylvia Stolz, which we will soon release in a separate message.

Yes! I did indeed mail Germar Rudolf’s book Lectures on the Holocaust in digital form to three different addresses, and I also distributed the DVD Die kurzen Beine der heiligen Lüge to a large number of recipients. I am standing here because I choose to stand here.

Do you know why I choose to do this? I respond to the question of why I am doing this with an observation by Prof. Robert Faurisson, the famous French revisionist and expert on the subject of the legends surrounding homicidal gas chambers. These legends form the very heart of the “Holocaust” cult or religion.

The following quotation appeared in the newspaper La Montagne on 8 January 2009: “The Zionist-American axis has bombed German children with phosphorus, bombed the Japanese with atomic bombs, bombed Vietnamese children with Agent Orange and bombed Iraki children with depleted uranium. It is high time that the defeated, humiliated and slandered of the world strike back, and I have been doing this for many years with the “atom bomb of the poor.”

That is Historical Revisionism. Revisionism is a weapon that kills and disfigures no one.

It destroys nothing but lies, slanders defamation, and the myth of “Shoa” along with its horrible “Shoa Business” that is so dear to the likes of Bernard Madoff, Elie Wiesel, all those “miraculously rescued” survivors of “Holocaust” and the murderers of the children of Gaza.

In the Book of John, Jesus spoke to the leaders of the Jews and said: “You belong to your father the devil, and you wish to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And now because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” – John 8, 44-45.

Today we are living in a thoroughly Judaized world that is based on lies, and the greatest lie of all is the “Holocaust” lie. It is the first duty of every German who wants to remain German to combat this lie.

I experience great pain when I observe how many of my fellow Germans, blinded by Satan, believe the lie to be the truth. They persecute those who, after great pain and effort, have struggled and escaped from the cave of illusions and now made their way back into the sunlight.

In carrying out my duty as a German to combat the “Holocaust” lie, I will give you some examples of what I mean.

The Jewish god Jahwe commands the Jews to conquer the world by means of usury, loaning money for interest, because it is written in their holy book: “The Lord thy God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations, but you will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.” – Deuteronomy 15,6, and “You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord willl make you the head and not the tail. If you obey the commands of the Lord that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top and never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, neither to the right nor to the left, following other gods and serving them.” – Deuteronomy 28, 11-14.

The Jews are commanded by Jahweh to enslave all the nations and kill all who resist. Their holy book makes them the following promise: “Foreigners will rebuild your walls and their kings will serve you. Although in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open. They will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of nations, their kings leading them in procession. For the nation that will not serve you shall perish, it shall be utterly ruined.” – Isaiah 60:13.

How foolish are the non-Jews who do not take these threats seriously! The powerful Jews, the global money lords, live by these rules and follow them exactly. Once more it has become unmistakably clear that they do not have a bad conscience when they deceive and rob us... When they commit robbery and murder, they are but following the commandments of their god!

In our own time global Jewish rule is coming to its inevitable end. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 10 January 2009, a historic break occurred in September 2008 with the bankruptcy of the Jewish bank Lehman Brothers. “With the implosion of unregulated ‘shadow’ banking, a main pillar of the neoliberal economic model has collapsed.” – FAZ, 10 Jan 2009, p. 19.

Their money is gone and it will never return on the basis of private banking systems. This is because money is a social relationship of trust. The bearer of this trust was the private banking system. It is now understood that the private banking system was exposed to systematic deception. We now know that, as a monetary system, it was identical with deception.

However a swindler can be successful only as long as he is not recognized as such. Now the whole world has recognized the Jewish swindler for what he is!

Historically, National Socialism had recognized interest slavery as a malignant tumor in the national body, but not yet recognized the systemic compulsion to globalistic treachery as such.

Through their “Holocaust” cult, the Jews succeeded in following their compulsion unchecked in the “globalized” world for 20 years, until the present global collapse.

During that time their success hindered recognition of global Jewry as the “negation of the lives of nations” (Martin Buber) that is, as a deceiver, thief and murderer of nations.

Now confidence in the Jewish currency, the “digital dollar,” is gone forever; and with this confidence goes the money itself: Jewish power disappears along with Jewish money. The world has reached a turning point such as occurs once every thousand years.

In the present situation, money can again circulate only under the auspices of National Socialism in conjunction with the abolition of interest slavery.

Now the taxpayer is amazed to learn that the State has suddenly appeared as the savior and rescuer of the banks!

However, the State was drowned in debt long ago. It is itself a nonproducing asset, hopelessly indebted to the Jewish banking system.

The astronomical “rescue packages” that we read about are nothing except a recycled version of global monetary deception (see Hamer) inflated more than ever. They are bound to usher in sudden hyperinflation.

Only the State that liberates the national economy from debt slavery by nationalizing the banks on the basis of a truly national (National Socialist) state will be able to create the necessary confidence for creating a new monetary system.
Since developed nations with their complex division of labor cannot survive without a monetary system, the irresistible energy of national self-preservation will result in a revitalization of National Socialism. It will be Germany that, on the basis of its unique vocation and historical experience, shows the family of nations the way out of the present catastrophe.

As a first step, our historic National Socialism, as embodied in Adolf Hitler, must be retrieved from the acid bath of Jewish lies and falsifications. Only this can bring about the end of the “Holocaust” cult.

The initial impulse for this international act of liberation must come from the German people themselves. This is because our natural allies in this struggle, especially in the Muslim world, cannot bring about anything effective as long as Germany continues to be perceived as a murderer of Jews.

The GUTMENSCHEN – hypocritical do-gooders – among us, those who have succumbed to constant brainwashing and are now infected with the psychosis of self-hatred, must be confronted with the real cause of their malaise.

They are supporters of the moral genocide of more than just the German nation.

They also share responsibility for the genocides of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghanis and all the future genocides that are presently being plotted in the USA under the direction of Israel.

“Holocaust” persecution is the decisive front in the resistance struggle of Germans who are determined to be German. The German courtroom is the battleground of this struggle.

Sylvia Stolz, the attorney from Ebersberg whom many call the “German Joan of Arc,” has set the most intrepid example for us. She has given us the best example of how to proceed, and I salute her with boundless gratitude and respect. She has become my life’s companion and my dearest comrade in the struggle.

The age of moral personalism began in 1933, with Germany’s ascendancy under National Socialism. United in the true national spirit, Germany was large enough and strong enough to cast off the yoke of interest slavery and take the lead in the global revolution against Mammonism.

In the native lands of “laissez-faire” individualism – Great Britain, France and the USA, National Socialist Germany was a mortal threat to the old order of things on account of its example.

In response to this danger, the powers of the Old Order conspired against the German Reich, the challenger, in order to defeat it with their combined strength. They did this under the leadership of the plutocrats, or Lords of Money, even though these powers were traditional enemies of one another. They hoped to drive National Socialism from the stage of world history forever.

The specific requirements for continued success of the Money Lords are as follows:

1. Their relentless war against the German Reich must be made to appear as peace.

2. Germany must perceive its enemies as its friends.

3. We Germans must be made to believe that the Basic Law imposed on us by the victors of World War II is our “constitution” and that the “Federal Republic” is our state. We must be made to think that the collaborators appointed to rule over us are legitimate representatives of our nation.

4. We Germans must continue to be brainwashed in order to maintain our guilt complex or psychosis, which makes it impossible for us to be proud of our nation and our history.

5. We Germans must be made to internally deny and resist our innate hostility to Judaism and “God’s chosen people,” our eternal enemies. We must conceive of our eternal enemies as “innocent victims” of our irrational hatred and envy. We must continue to perform every conceivable form of repentance exercise and pay unending tribute.

6. By means of ever-intensifying propaganda of lies and deceit, the National Socialist Weltanschauung must appear to coming generations as a product of hell, so that unbiased consideration will forever be an impossibility. Any possible approach to the subject of National Socialism must bring a Pavlovian sweat of anxiety to their brows of all our people..

7. Instead of a National Socialist view, we Germans must have the “American Way of Life” hammered into our skulls as the only desirable and worthwhile truth -- incessantly and in all areas.

8. In order to neutralize our characteristic German compulsion to improve the world, the evil desires that lurk in everyone must be titillated with the most sophisticated methods. In view of the omnipresent decadence of those around us, we must finally give in to despair and accept that “man is evil by nature..” We must believe that our attempts to improve mankind merely make fools of ourselves.

9. Our natural resistance to this propaganda of decadence must be overcome by Jewish power and control of the media. Our resistance must be sunk into a spiral of silence.

10. In order to maintain this spiral of silence, those individuals who choose historical correctness over political correctness must be silenced through use of the criminal laws. Now put these observations to the test by exposing them to actual experience:

Is it possible that the enemy who believes he is commissioned to enslave all the peoples of the world, and to crush all those who resist –- the enemy who also realizes that he is hated by all the nations –- is it credible that this enemy would suddenly be filled with love for mankind, especially for us Germans?

Is it believable that following his military victory over the Reich, our enemy has abandoned his war aims?

Is it believable that our enemy would voluntarily open up his most potent psychological weapon (the “Auschwitz Cudgel” as Martin Walser call it) to scrutiny by independent courts in the nation he conquered?

Our enemy still needs this weapon, and discovery of its secrets would hurl him into the abyss.

Whoever believes such a thing is beyond all help!

The Stolz trial was an attempt by the enemy to protect its heavy artillery, which is emplaced in the German courtroom. It was a desperate attempt to protect this artillery from observation and destruction.

Whether the enemy’s attempt will be successful or not, depends on all of us. It is time that we rise up against foreign rule by our enemies!

I am standing before you because I cannot do otherwise. I cannot live in a Judaized world. I am not willing to kill myself in order to escape it, however. Therefore, my only alternative is to commit everything I have as my contribution to changing this Judaized world.

Deutschland erwache! Wake up Germany!

Germany's far right has welcomed the move by German Pope Benedict XVI to lift the excommunication of British bishop Richard Williamson, who denied the Holocaust in an interview last week. German Jewish leaders are appalled at the decision.

In the churches and chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X, the incense burners at the holy masses have been swung with even greater vigor since the weekend in joy over the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to lift the excommunication of their founding father, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the bishops he ordained, among them Archbishop Richard Williamson.

DPA

British bishop Richard Williamson denied the Holocaust in an interview on Swedish television.

Germany's far right is equally pleased with the decision and is hailing Williamson as a hero -- because he has denied the Holocaust. He told Swedish television in an interview broadcast last Wednesday: "I believe there were no gas chambers." He claimed that only 300,000 Jews perished in the Nazi concentration camps, instead of the 6 million figure that is widely accepted by historians.

"A bishop is saying what he believes," said one far-right supporter in the Internet blog German Wehrmacht which featured the transcript of the interview along with a video clip of it. "One must distance oneself from the content of the video if one wants to avoid any kind of trouble," the author goes on to warn, in reference to the fact that denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany. Nevertheless, he adds, "thoughts are free."

Another far-right site, Störtebeker-Network, also celebrates the Society of Saint Pius X. Williamson, says an editorial posed on the site, has shown "how one should position oneself as a true Christian these days against general materialistic decay and decadence, by holding on to the original values of one's faith."

A "Reconciliation Gift" for Germans

One commentator writes: "His Excellency Williamson: after David Irving there's a further Briton who has given us Germans a big reconciliation gift."

The closing of ranks between the German pope and the right fringe of his church is threatening to turn into the biggest mistake of his term.

The head of the Society of Saint Pius, Bernard Fellay, knows why Benedict XVI announced the lifting of the excommunication of Williamson and other brethren of the society: "1,703,000 rosaries were said to Our Dear Lady to bring about the end of this disgrace," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Meanwhile the head of the German arm of the Society of Saint Pius, Pastor Franz Schmidberger, is attempting damage control in the wake of Williamson's comments on the Holocaust. "It's clear that the comments Bishop Williamson is reported to have made don't mirror the stance of the Society of Saint Pius X and only the author himself is responsible," he declared in a statement.

Williamson himself has made no further comment and is believed to be in Argentina. If he were to travel to Germany he would very soon have to contend with the Regensburg public prosecutor's office, which has opened an enquiry into his remarks, which constitute an illegal offense in Germany.

"Complicit in the Murder of Christ"

Schmidberger's argument that the Society of Saint Pius isn't anti-Semitic despite the comments of its senior bishop Williamson isn't especially convincing given that Schmidberger merely states: "Our Lord Jesus Christ in his human nature is Jewish, his sacred mother is Jewish, all the apostles are Jewish. For that reason no upstanding Christian can be anti-Semitic."

The Central Council of Jews in Germany begs to differ. It had pointed out what it said was an anti-Semitic passage in a letter written by Schmidberger and his brethren before Christmas. The letter was sent to all bishops of the 27 Catholic dioceses in Germany, and none of the Roman Catholic bishops protested against it.

In the letter, Schmidberger stated: "We look on with sorrow as Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI go into a Jewish synagogue." Another passage reads: "The Jews of our days (are) not only our older brothers in faith as the pope claimed during his visit to the synagogue in Rome in 1986; rather they are complicit in the murder of Christ as long as they do not distance themselves from the guilt of their forefathers by acknowledging the divinity of Christ and through baptism."

Schmidberger now says: "The statement that today's Jews bear the guilt of their fathers" only refers to "those Jews who welcome the killing of Jesus Christ."

"Pure Anti-Semitism"

Is that enough to placate the Central Council of Jews? Its vice president Dieter Graumann told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Monday: "It's not just that one passage. The whole letter breathes the spirit of pure anti-Semitism."

None of Germany's bishops got in touch with Jewish leaders in response to the controversy, said Graumann. So far only the bishops of Aachen and Hamburg have said the Catholic Church doesn't have anything to do with the Society of Saint Pius because its bishops had been excommunicated.

Now that the pope has lifted that excommunication, Germany's Catholic bishops won't be able to avoid the issue so easily in the future. Graumann had demanded that the Catholic Church distance itself more forcefully from this peripheral group on its right wing. Instead, the German pope has rehabilitated it.

The German Bishops' Conference this week tried to defuse the row. Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff, the chairman of the conference's commission on relations with the Jewish faith, said the church "utterly disagreed" with Williamson's Holocaust denial.

Graumann is appalled by the lifting of the excommunication. "By rehabilitating the Pius Brothers the Vatican is importing all the old anti-Semitism back into the church after one thought it had got over that stance long ago. The danger is obvious. If neo-Nazis are cheering the Pius Brothers, then the Catholic Church must surely ask itself whether it's done something wrong," he said.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,603770,00.html

THE Jewish community is considering legal action against The Age newspaper over "poisonous" anti-Semitic commentary published over the weekend.

The article, headed "Israelis are living high on US expense account" and written by Michael Backman, blames the 9/11 attacks and the London and Bali bombings on Israel's inability to "transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends".

Backman, a business writer for the Melbourne newspaper, wrote: "It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don't like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response. Rather, it is Israel or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians that is at the nub of these events."

John Searle, president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, said his community was considering legal action against the publication and predicted individuals would take action by boycotting the paper.

A joint statement from Mr Searle and Danny Lamm, president of the Zionist Council of Victoria, condemned the article, saying it encapsulated "centuries of hate speech against Jews in a few hundred words".

The article stated that the historical persecution of Jews constituted punishment for the death of Jesus and suggested Israelis and Jews were uninterested in the welfare of others and did not invest financially or socially in the broader community.

"It is inexplicable why The Age would publish such a pernicious article," the statement said.

"The Victorian Jewish community's experience is that such commentary rouses violence and hatred against local Jews."

Jewish MP Michael Danby, federal Labor member for Melbourne Ports, yesterday called on Backman to apologise for using "the blood of 80 Australians for his bigoted theories".

Mr Danby said stereotypes in the article about young Israelis not paying bills in Nepal fed into primitive prejudice about "penny-pinching" Jews.

"Backman's poisonous article in Saturday's business Age has no place in serious commentary, I call on Backman to apologise," Mr Danby said.

Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said while legitimate criticism of Israel was acceptable, the article reflected "the bigotry of rank anti-Semitism" and promoted appalling stereotypes.

The Age did not return The Australian's calls yesterday.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24935537-5006785,00.html

The song remains the same: it's all the fault of Israel

January 20, 2009

Michael Backman, in the business pages of The Age, blames Islamist terrorism on arrogant, penny-pinching Israelis

ISRAEL'S utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel's failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York. It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don't like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response. Rather, it is Israel - or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians - that is at the nub of these events.

Of course, today Israel must defend itself. If the residents of Bendigo started firing rockets into Melbourne, you would expect Melbourne to retaliate. But what must Melbourne have done to Bendigo to make it do such a thing?

Trekking in Nepal is fashionable among young Israelis. So much so that many shops in Kathmandu and Pokhara have signs in Hebrew. But many guesthouses in this poor country will even tell Israeli trekking groups that they are full rather than accept them. They say that the young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

Israel needs to change. The Parsees of India might provide a model. They are not flashy or arrogant. They have established hospitals, libraries, schools, museums for everyone. So the Parsees have peace and the Israelis do not.

A letter in online publication Issues of Concern for Justice and Society:

THE Backman piece (17/01) is disturbing because suddenly one is reminded of Der Sturmer, 1939. The feeling I get from Backman's opinion is that the world is worse off because Israel exists. However, my world is better because Israel exists. As a Jew, I have shelter from persecution because of Israel. I have shelter (in Israel) from anti-Semitic slander. I have shelter from people like Backman who are too cowardly to say that they hate Jews, so they vilify Israel. I have shelter from newspapers that are too cowardly to publish this in the opinion section so instead they publish it in the Business section.

When Backman tries to persuade the public that Israel is responsible for global terrorist attacks, we are reminded of Hitler telling the German people that the Jews were responsible for, among everything else, the losses they suffered in World War I. Here's a novel idea. Why don't we blame the perpetrators of these evil events rather than the Jews?

Tim Blair in his Daily Telegraph blog:

"IF the residents of Bendigo started firing rockets into Melbourne you would expect Melbourne to retaliate. But what must Melbourne have done to Bendigo to make them do such a thing?"

Could be any number of root causes, really. Maybe someone in Melbourne drew cartoons that were disrespectful of Bendigo prophet Colleen Hewett. Or perhaps Bendigo's charter simply demands Melbourne's obliteration.

The Australian Jewish News reports:

THE Age's coverage has been the most problematic. Even worse was The Age's opinion balance. By contrast, The Sydney Morning Herald generally avoided the worst of (The Age's) anti-Israel sensationalism in the headlines and photos. However the SMH suffered from repeated conspiratorial "analysis" from chief correspondent Paul McGeough. The Australian outclassed all other papers with excellent sensationalist-free coverage, opinion pieces from both sides, and two excellent editorials.

Mark Steyn in the National Review Online on the act of Jew-baiting, then and now:

A COUPLE of months back, I found myself on Cable Street in East London for the first time in years. It was the scene of a famous battle in 1936, when Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, in a crude act of political intimidation, was determined to march through the heart of the Jewish East End. They were turned back by a mob of local Jews, Irish Catholic dockers, commie agitators et al all standing under the Spanish Civil War slogan, "No pasaran": They shall not pass.

They didn't. And, although many self-aggrandising myths attached to the old Left's "Battle of Cable Street" in subsequent decades, that day marked the beginning of the decline of Mosley and the BUF.

Things are different now, as Ezra Levant's dispatch on the intimidation of Calgary Jews in the heart of their own neighbourhood makes clear: there's no resistance, no old leftist solidarity, no nothing, just a fatalistic shrug as supporters of banned (and explicitly eliminationist) terrorist organisations commandeer private property to compare Jews to Nazis. What can you do? They shall pass, week after week. It's as if Sir Oswald had marched through Cable Street in triumph, and then decided to make it a twice-weekly event.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24934681-20261,00.html

- and here is the article in full:

Israelis are living high on US expense account — Michael Backman. The Malaysian Insider,

JAN 17 — There's a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film “Munich”. After the 1972 Munich Olympic Games killings of Israeli athletes, Prime Minister Golda Meir tells confidants she wants to show the plotters that killing Jews "is expensive". She then organises for the assassination of each of the plotters.

Today, it is Israel itself that has become expensive. Most directly, it is very expensive to the US, which subsidises and arms it. But Israel's utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel's failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don't like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response. Rather, it is Israel — or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians — that is at the nub of these events.

The world's Muslims have no head: no overarching caliph or pope equivalent exists — no single power source with whom to negotiate. Instead, Islam is remarkably decentralised. So, how extraordinary that Israel and the West have managed to unite this headless, diverse, dispersed grouping without any institutional framework, around just one issue — anger at the treatment of the Palestinians.

Otherwise dispersed groups of Muslims do seem to feel for one another in a way that Christians and others do not. In this respect, the international Islamic community is like a body: kick it in the leg and the rest of the body feels it. Kick it hard enough and the entire body will be energised to defend itself. Pictures of distraught Gazan mothers beside the mutilated bodies of their children are circulating right now among Muslim communities worldwide. It is pictures like these that make them want to do something.

Consider Malaysia. Every citizen of this outpost of Islam has printed in his or her passport that the passport is not valid for Israel. And given that Malaysians are not allowed to hold dual citizenship, this essentially means that every Malaysian citizen, including the 40 per cent who are not Muslims, are banned from visiting Israel.

"When will Malaysia recognise Israel?" I once asked the then finance minister. "Once Israel treats the Palestinians better," was his reply. How would he determine that? "When the Palestinians tell us," he said. It is not Israel's right to exist that is at issue.

The enmity many Muslims now feel for Israel has nothing to do with religion. The historical persecutors of the Jews have been Christians — their punishment for the death of Jesus. Jews and Muslims have lived in peace for hundreds of years in many parts of the Islamic world. When Catholic Spain and Portugal expelled its Jews, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul invited them in. It is the Palestinian issue that has ruined all this.

Of course, today Israel must defend itself. If the residents of Bendigo started firing rockets into Melbourne you would expect Melbourne to retaliate. But what must Melbourne have done to Bendigo to make them do such a thing? Constantly slapping an opponent in the face, kicking it down to its knees, and watching it struggle in the dirt will not teach the opponent to love or respect you. It teaches only hatred.

Persecuting people does not weaken them. Israel should know that. The Jews have been persecuted for centuries. It didn't destroy them but gave them the impetus to survive.

One characteristic that is common among persecuted groups is a strong investment in education — when people's physical wealth is in danger of destruction from war and persecution one store of wealth that stays with individuals even when they must flee as refugees is education. It explains why such groups often insist on their own schools — education is too important to be entrusted to others.

Hamas did not enjoy the support of all the people of Gaza. It does now. Why does Israel keep getting it wrong?

Trekking in Nepal is fashionable among young Israelis. So much so that many shops in Kathmandu and Pokhara have signs in Hebrew. But once you get on the trekking circuit and speak with local Nepalese guides and guesthouse operators you soon discover how disliked the Israelis are. Many guesthouses in this poor country will even tell Israeli trekking groups that they are full rather than accept them. This has nothing to do with religion or politics: Nepalese people are some of the warmest, most hospitable in the world. Rather, they say that the young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

Israel needs to change. The Parsees of India might provide a model. The Parsees are a very tiny, very rich ethnic and religious minority. They own perhaps most of the land in central Mumbai as well as the country's largest conglomerate. And yet ordinary Indians admire and respect them. Violence against them is unthinkable.

How have they achieved this? They are not flashy or arrogant. Their overriding characteristic is a deep interest in the welfare of others. They have established hospitals, libraries, schools, museums and many other institutions and, most importantly, not for the Parsee community exclusively but for everyone. So the Parsees have peace and the Israelis do not. — The Age

_____________

FT comments and sends a note to The Age:

A notice comes up when trying to access the article from The Age website:

type Status report

message No result defined for action au.com.fairfaxdigital.deliverer.core.webapp.action.DisplayArticleAction and result noSuchResource

description Therequestedresource(Noresultdefinedforactionau.com.fairfaxdigital.deliverer.core.webapp.action.DisplayArticleAction and result noSuchResource) is not available.

http://business.theage.com.au/business/israelis-are-living-high-on-us-expense-account-20090116-7j82.html?page=2

Don't blame the Jews, blame those that bend to Jewish pressure!

I cannot find the article at the given URL but found it in The Malaysian Insider.

If The Age has censored this article, then we shall see who will bend to Jewish pressure.

Any legal action would establish that Beckman's 'crime' is criticising Jews, a no-no in today's world where the Anglo-American-Zionist capitalist predators rule the roost, namely in the so-called 'free and democratic western nations.

This vicious kind of censorship essentially rests on a post World War Two world order where the 'Holocaust-Shoah' narrative acts as a unifying principle.

Note how when talking about freedom-and-democracy the western democracies exposed their hypocrisy when the president of Iran, Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, convened the International Holocaust Cnnference in Teheran in December 2006.

Then, while welcoming the Iranian President, president of Princeton University, Bollinger, insulted his guest - a first for a university president to show up his bad behaviour. Anyone who insults an invited guest has lost the plot.

Now it is time for the world to recognise the Holocaust-Shoah lies and how they are used to justify the Jewish state of Israel's aggression against the Palestinians.

But if you run with this weapon of truth, be prepared to defend yourself against their weapons consisting of the following concepts:

Hater, Holocaust denier, anti-Semite, racist, Nazi, xenophobe, terrorist

And if you cry out that you are exercising your free expression, then you will be faced with a split: free speech and hate speech. Your speech will be deemed HATE speech!

And so the bully- boys and girls continue to look out for individuals who refuse to bend to their pressure.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/breaking-views/

136-breaking-views/16138-israelis-are-living-high-on-us-expense-account--michael-backman

UPDATE: The Michael Backman column has been removed from his website. His Wikipedia entry has been recently edited, and his Facebook page seems to be missing.

I was out frying other fish yesterday so did not catch up with the controversy consuming The Age newsroom until late afternoon. This morning as I ring around, it is clear that the newsroom remains tense and upset. Staff are rallying around. They fear unfairness.

It’s all about an anti-Semitic column by regular contributor to the business pages, Michael Backman. published last Saturday - and about the bizarre “apology” The Age had on page two yesterday.

The original column has been taken down from the Age website, but is still available on Backman’s own website,

Bad enough. Very bad, in fact. How did such a racist column come to be published? Keep reading, but first some more background.

Yesterday a bizarre apology was published on page two of the Age, under the usual pro forma information about contact numbers and the like:

A column by Michael Backman headlined “Israel living high on US expense account’’ was published in error.

The Age does not in any way endorse the views of the columnist, apologises for the distress the column caused to many readers, particularly in the Jewish community and regrets publication of the column.’

Now, if publishing the column was strange, this was even stranger. The wording suggested that the column was - woops - published as a production error - without anyone realising or thinking about it or noticing what it said. This was not the case, as I detail below.

As for saying that the Age does not endorse the views - who ever said it did? Every day newspapers around the world publish columns expressing dozens of views that the editorial team does not endorse. That is part of the job of a newspaper.

So why was this strange apology published? Part of the background is the instant action by the Jewish community, and in particular the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council and its chairman Mark Leibler and executive director Colin Rubenstein.

Rubenstein spoke to Age editor Paul Ramadge on Monday morning, and he and Leibler met Ramadge face to face that afternoon.

Rubenstein told me this morning that Ramadge “happily agreed” that the column was offensive and outrageous, said its publication was due to a “breakdown in editorial proceedures” and promised that he had the affair “under the microscope”. He also promised an unreserved apology.

Is Rubenstein happy with the result? This morning he did not argue when I suggested the wording of the apology was a little strange, but said it was a “gesture in the right direction”. What was really needed, he said, was an investigation into how the piece came to be published and an assurance that such things could not happen again.

Caroline Overington of The Australian has been breaking the news on this controversy, and expressing strong opinions on her blog. She was the one who got comment yesterday from former Age editor Michael Gawenda, which The Australian (no doubt gleefully) published as a news story today. Gawenda accused the paper of journalistic failure. He said to Overington:

I think the real question here is what publication of this article says about the prevailing journalistic culture at The Age. The apology is a non-apology really. It apologises for the hurt it caused some people, especially Jews. This is a clayton’s apology–the sort, for instance, that Wayne Carey once offered up when he apologied for grabbing a young woman’s breast.

The apology states that The Age does not hold the views expressed in the article. I assume The Age publishes many oped pieces that do not express the views of The Age.

What this apology seems to be aimed at doing is limit the damage to the paper from the publication of this piece. What I want to know is how it came to be published and how The Age has reached the point where racist rubbish like this gets published. And what the new editor in chief intends to do about changing this culture.

There is a history to this. Just a few months ago Gawenda accused editor Ramadge of “payback”. This was because Gawenda had been sacked as a columnist after his criticism of of Farifax management in the A. N. Smith Lecture in journalism at Melbourne University. There is no love lost between the two men.

Nevertheless there is no doubt that the apology is weird - and so is the fact that the article ran at all. So how did it run?

I have to say here that I am somewhat constrained. I am not naming names, because I have found out this morning that the person within The Age who is getting the blame - and who has taken responsibility for the “error” - is both under enormous strain, and not solely or chiefly to blame. Nor, in case management should think otherwise, are they talking to me.

There is a strong view in the newsroom that there is unfairness afoot in the promised “under the microscope” review.

Here is what happened, as I understand it. The Business editor, Michael Short, was on holiday. So too was Ramadge. Backman’s column arrived as usual. It was clearly evident that it was a strange piece, well off Backman’s area of expertise and offensive to Jews. Should it be run?

There was debate around the sub’s table. The person who is now getting the blame for running it was reluctant. Others argued strongly in favour of publication. Part of the argument was that pieces critical of Muslims often got a run. The Age should not be seen to be frightened of the “Jewish lobby”, and Israeli treatment of Palestinians and actions in Gaza were legitimate topics of debate.

The final decision was collegiate - and now of course deeply regretted.

So what are we to make of all this?

Here’s what I think. The column is clearly offensive, and also weird and badly written.

It makes the classic logical error of the racist - generalising from the particular deeds of an individual or group to the race as a whole. It manages to blame Jews for Muslim extremism and violence, talks carelessly about that classic of anti-Semitic hate speech - that Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus - and leaps bizarrely from what is happening in Gaza to the alleged rude behaviour of Israeli tourists trekking in Nepal.

I don’t think it should have been published.

Yet is the case really all that clear cut compared to other things that have been published recently in mainstream media, without the organisation concerned feeling the need to apologise, or to disassociate itself from the views expressed?

I can understand how this decision was made, in an understaffed holiday season newsroom where the subs are reduced in number and under pressure.

Think about other controversial material recently published. What about some of Paul Sheehan’s columns? Crikey, reported a case a while ago where Sheehan used the words “parasites” to describe refugees let in during the 1970s and 80s (in other words, Lebanese). These words were quickly amended in the website version, but are still on Brisbane Times site.

Sheehan’s writing is largely a legitimate, though controversial, questioning of policies of multiculturalism and immigration. There are also legitimate questions to be asked about Israel’s actions in Gaza and treatment of Palestinians. Sheehan sometimes steps over the line, as Backman has. He still gets published, and nobody suggests it is necessary for the Sydney Morning Herald to disassociate itself from his views.

Then there are the practices described by Media Watch in this program a few years back. There are the diatribes from Alan Jones in the lead up to the Cronulla riots.

Or the Janet Albrechtsen column that led to her stoush with Media Watch, that includeed this paragraph:

‘French and Danish experts say perpetrators of gang rape flounder between their parents’ Islamic values and society’s more liberal democratic values, falling back on the most basic pack mentality of violence and self-gratification.’

The Australian July 2002

You can read for yourself the controversy that generated on the Media Watch site. The Australian, of course, vigorously defended Albrechtsen. No apologies or disassociation.

Then there was the media treatment of African youths in Flemington late last year, something I have written about in Crikey before. In that case the facts were incorrectly reported, and that resulted in opinion columns based partly on incorrect facts, chiefly by Andrew Bolt. No apologies. No disassociation.

I think the Backman column shouldn’t have been published. It’s a pretty vile and silly piece.

Do I think it was so extreme, so obviously and extraordinarily vile, that it was obviously not the kind of thing the mainstream media should publish? No.

Colin Rubenstein said to me this morning that “it is a long time since we have had this kind of thing from the mainstream media.”. Well, I disagree. It happens all too often. The Jewish community is efficient at combatting it, and in this case good on them. Not all communities have such able spokespeople.

What will the “under the microscope” examination promised to Leibler and Rubenstein by Ramadge amount to?

I hope not laying blame where blame does not really belong.

I would hope that it might result in some transparency - in Ramadge taking the readers into his confidence about what happened, and engaging in some debate about what constitues legitimate, if controversial expression of views, and what crosses over the line in to unacceptable racism.

If space prohibits doing this in the pages of the newspaper, there is always online, where the technology favours an open exchange with readers.

I rang Ramadge asking for comment yesterday afternoon. I have not yet had a return phone call. I have not been able to contact Backman.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/contentmakers/2009/01/21/the-michael-backman-column-weird-and-unpleasant-happenings-at-the-age/

The Australian local scene continued -

The following letter-of-reply was too long for publishing

Christian Herold: Horst Mahler’s Heroic Struggle
Translated from the German by J M Damon
www.globalfire.tv/nj/09de/verfolgungen/mahler.htm

CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY

German Far-Right Hails Holocaust Denier Williamson. By Peter Wensierski

____________________________________________________________

Lipstadt Blogspot – Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bishop Williamson Apologizes to Pope for Furor [no pun intended] But Not for Holocaust Comments

A Left-wing cartoonist is to go on trial on Tuesday on charges of anti-Semitism for suggesting Jean Sarkozy, the son of the French president, was converting to Judaism for financial reasons.

By Henry Samuel in Paris. Last Updated: 1:02AM GMT 27 Jan 2009

Jews consider legal action over 'racist' article in The Age

The song remains the same: it's all the fault of Israel

The Michael Backman Column: Weird and Unpleasant Happenings at The Age

The Australian local scene continued -

The following letter-of-reply was too long for publishing

Christian Herold: Horst Mahler’s Heroic Struggle Translated from the German by J M Damon www.globalfire.tv/nj/09de/verfolgungen/mahler.htm

CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY

German Far-Right Hails Holocaust Denier Williamson. By Peter Wensierski

____________________________________________________________

Lipstadt Blogspot – Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bishop Williamson Apologizes to Pope for Furor [no pun intended] But Not for Holocaust Comments

A Left-wing cartoonist is to go on trial on Tuesday on charges of anti-Semitism for suggesting Jean Sarkozy, the son of the French president, was converting to Judaism for financial reasons.

By Henry Samuel in Paris. Last Updated: 1:02AM GMT 27 Jan 2009

Jews consider legal action over 'racist' article in The Age

The song remains the same: it's all the fault of Israel

The Michael Backman Column: Weird and Unpleasant Happenings at The Age

Christian Herold: Horst Mahler’s Heroic Struggle
Translated from the German by J M Damon
www.globalfire.tv/nj/09de/verfolgungen/mahler.htm