Posted on 02/22/2006 5:21:53 AM PST by SJackson
An Austrian court on Monday sentenced British Holocaust denier David Irving to three years behind bars, thereby sparking a controversy about whether it's appropriate to imprison anyone for ostensibly only voicing his opinions.
The problem is that denying the murder of six million Jews is not an "opinion," but hate speech.
In 1989 Irving had delivered three lectures in Austria in which he contended that the Nazis had not exterminated Jews in World War II. At the time disputing the existence or extent of the Holocaust was already illegal in Austria, homeland of the two most notorious Adolfs - Hitler and Eichmann. As a result a warrant was issued for Irving's arrest.
When he decided last November to return to Austria and yet again address neo-Nazi audiences, he knew he was running a risk. Nevertheless, Irving opted for testing the limit of his hosts' tolerance, assuming perhaps that they would not dare detain him, or that at most he would spend a few nights in jail, and thus once more turn the media spotlight upon himself.
Irving had courted disaster before. In 2000 he sued American scholar Deborah Lipstadt for libel in the UK and lost ignominiously. The presiding judge at that trial dubbed him "an active Holocaust denier, an anti-Semite and racist."
Yet Lipstadt yesterday joined those who oppose prison terms for anyone exercising the right of free speech, no matter how abhorrent the message.
As a newspaper, we are hardly unsympathetic to the need to interpret the freedom of speech broadly. It surely includes the right to be offensive, as should be clear in the context of the rioting of Islamists over cartoons.
But it is not for nothing that Austria, Germany and even France enacted laws forbidding Holocaust denial. These laws exist because Holocaust denial is not another mindless theory.
The fact is that Holocaust denial has become the primary conduit for modern anti-Semitism. The favorite theme of all Jew-bashers of whatever variety is to portray the Holocaust as a Zionist fabrication contrived to hold the world to ransom, usurp Arab land and facilitate the implant of an interloper Jewish state within the Muslim sphere.
Holocaust denial is a common contention of those who seek to delegitimize Israel and promulgate Nazi-inspired bigotry. The denial of genocide is a warning sign of movements that have genocidal goals and endorse genocidal acts.
Irving, therefore, wasn't sentenced for his "opinions," but for disseminating hate and incitement. Countries where past excessive permissiveness spawned the worst genocidal horrors are right to be ultra-wary of repeat leniency for inflammatory rhetoric. In today's intemperate climate we can only applaud the resolve demonstrated by the Viennese court.
Holocaust deniers throughout the Mideast frequently quote Irving and his like. Irving operates in a particularly explosive context and his professed contrition must not be believed. It was uttered, as Irving stressed to British TV, only at his attorney's insistence.
Significantly Irving chose to enter court holding aloft his most controversial volume, Hitler's War which exonerates the fuhrer from plotting the "final solution." Nothing he says should be taken at face value. Lipstadt quipped: "If Irving said it was day, I'd open the window to check."
Individually, Irving may be every bit as pathetic as many claim. Indeed he will no doubt posture as the latest martyr of an international Jewish cabal. But it is not just about Irving's personal hang-ups. He has become a prophet of sorts not only for Europe's skinheads and neo-Nazis, but for their unlikely Mideastern cohorts.
The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad initiates Holocaust denial symposia and a government-controlled Iranian newspaper commissions a Holocaust-lampooning cartoon contest attests to the importance Iran attaches to this "opinion."
The fact that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah echoes his Teheran master and that the PA's newly elected Hamas leaders have chosen to hobnob with their Iranian sponsors underscores the commonality of motivation which stokes their enmity.
It is, in short, no coincidence that those entities most openly dedicated to a new genocide against the Jewish state are all closely allied... and vocally deny the Holocaust.
viennese weenies.
This whole thing is quite tragic. Irving started out as credible historian, writing what I consider to be (still) the best biography of Rommel. In that book, he demolished the British myth of Rommel as a "good German" who was not inclined to favor Hitler. Irving found out that, while not a doctrinaire Nazi, Rommel was more than willing to go along with the regime. I guess that led Irving along the same path himself.
I don't know if he was ever credible. Irving had to withdraw his book "The destruction of convoy PQ17" because the officer in charge of that convoy sued him and won 40.000 pounds in damages. His work was neve acclaimed by historians, only by casual reviewers.
Actually as a followup to a number of magazine articles on allied misconduct, he published his first bood on Dresden, claiming up to 250,000 victims in the allied atrocity. A number significantly reduced in subsequent printings, and not a book taken seriously. I believe his 3rd or 4th book dealt with an allied convoy in the North Atlantic. Accurate enough for him to be targeted with a libel suit, which he lost. I believe he lost another liber suit, prior to his action against Lipstedt (sp?). He may have some accurate work in there, but I don't think he's considered credible by many, a reputation that preceded his prominance as a Holocaust denier.
His first work on Dresden was immediately debunked. As I noted in the last post, I believe there was a third losing libel case in his career, though the book escapes me.
"Irving had to withdraw his book "The destruction of convoy PQ17" because the officer in charge of that convoy sued him and won 40.000 pounds in damages."
If I recall correctly, the subsequent declassification of Admiralty record for PQ17 ended up proving Irving to be correct.
Yeah, it's easy to win a libel case when the ugly truth is hidden behind a security classification stamp.
I haven't read his "Convoy PQ17", but I have read quite a number of books on Rommel and Irving's was the best.
I may abhor what a person says, but I'll defend his right to say it.
This use to be a basic principle of free speech. No more.
Now we have "hate speech" that can cause people to judge every word before they speak it, thus creating a society of fear -- fear of "offending" someone.
Our Declaration of Independence is full of "hate speech" towards King George. Yet without that "hate speech" of 200+ years ago we would have a different world today.
I honestly haven't heard of this. Could you post a source to your claim?
Diminishing the deeds of the Nazis or promoting the Nazi party has been illegal in Austria since 1947. As the article notes better than most, though not well enough, most of the 6 or 7 countries that have similar laws, particularly Germany and Austria, to a lesser extent France, have them and enforce them for rather obvious reasons to fear a resurgence of Nazi ideology. Yes, to an American it may sound as disconnected as Egypt banning the Muslim Brotherhood, but it's a political rather than a speech issue. And one that will only affect you if you're insistent on traveling to Austria or Germany and promulgating these views to neo-nazi audiences.
Free speech is great as long as you don't say something unpopular.
How exactly was he correct?
Yes, but the prime objective of that law was to ensure that unrepentant nazis were to be kept down. Most of those are dead by now and available documentation and historical work since easily debunks any attempt of Holocaust denial.
This is the way to remove the extermination of Jews during WWII from the realm of historical/debatable facts into realm of a dogma where the questioning or denial is a punishable offense.
What good can come from it?
Many millions of Russians, Ukrainians and others were killed by the Bolshevik regime. Would it be good to set once for all the correct version (with the fix numbers) of this crime and penalize any critical inquiry?
Then we have Armenian/Greek genocide in Asian Minor (Turkey), Tasmanian genocide (where English/Australians wiped out the whole race without trace). Should we apply the same rule?
Negative. If you had come out on 9/12/2001 and said America was asking for it and it should happen again, I would not defend your right to say it. I will also not defend your right to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theatre.
Denying the Holocaust in Europe is not a good idea. The Nazis did that.
I see another difficulty. I can imagine a more commited Nazi who does not deny Holocaust but embraces it as a good thing. You see, denial on the side of a Nazi is the admission that genocide is wrong and evil.
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