Wikileaks founder fears global Jewish Conspiracy against him

[frontpage]

Assange Complains of Jewish Smear Campaign

LONDON - The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, suggested in comments published on Tuesday that British journalists, including the editor of The Guardian newspaper, were engaged in a Jewish-led conspiracy to smear his organization.

This guy's delusional paranoia is finally showing through.

[nytimes.com...]

[J_RaD]

uhhh really?

is he just an attention wh*** at this point or what?

assange really...go crawl back in your hole, you are yesterdays news.

[Samizdata]

I can't blame Assange for being paranoid, given that prominent US politicians have called for his "execution" - but he just blew away most of his public support in England.

The Private Eye article quoted Mr. Assange as saying the conspiracy was led by The Guardian and included the newspaper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, and investigations editor, David Leigh, as well as John Kampfner, a prominent London journalist who recently reviewed two books about WikiLeaks for The Sunday Times of London.

When Mr. Hislop pointed out that Mr. Rusbridger was not Jewish, Mr. Assange countered that The Guardian’s editor was “sort of Jewish” because he and Mr. Leigh, who is Jewish, were brothers-in-law.

Private Eye has been in the leaks business for 50 years and Ian Hislop is popular and respected.

And stereotypical WikiLeaks supporters read The Guardian.

Assange is looking like an idiot, and an unpleasant one too.

...

[frontpage]

Assange is going for the trifecta -- accused rapist, anti-semite, and ex-convict (hacking conviction in 1991).

[graeme_p]

What he said does appear to have been heavily spun, and he and Hislop seem to disagree about what he actually said. Assange appears to want to defend Israel Shamir from accusations of being a holocaust denier, which is another can of worms.

[koan]

Assange is going for the trifecta

More like Assange is getting a dose of the easiest accusations people in the shadows use when they want to destroy someone's reputation.

[wyweb]

He needs to shut his mouth. That's his biggest enemy... his own friggin mouth.

[Samizdata]

the easiest accusations people in the shadows use

Ian Hislop has been editor of Private Eye for 25 years and star turn on TV's Have I Got News For You for 20 years. He also appears frequently on radio and is very well known to the public.

He is not in any shadows and published the article under his own byline.

...

[incrediBILL]

I'm thinking Julian and Charlie Sheen should start their own channel, PAW (Paranoid Attention Whores)

Well, there is a wee bit of twisted logic in his anti-Semitic rant since most lawyers, the good ones anyway ;), are primarily Jews, therefore the Jews are all after him.

[NixRenewbie]

Yeah, the guy is an attention whore. But he's also a real-life target. Whatever he says can and will be used against him even if he didn't say it.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I wonder if he would do it all again if he could turn back the clock.

[J_RaD]

But he's also a real-life target. Whatever he says can and will be used against him even if he didn't say it.

he put the noose around his neck.

[wyweb]

Assange appears to want to defend Israel Shamir from accusations of being a holocaust denier

Thank you. I think among intelligent people there's little doubt the holocaust actually happened. I've seen the pictures and they weren't shopped.

If you want to deny that, I won't play in your playground anymore. You've just totally lost any support I might have given you.

In fact I'll side with the team that's trying to put you away.

[graeme_p]

Wyweb, the question is whether Israel Shamir is actually a holocaust denier: i.e. Assange is not defending a holocaust denier, but someone who has been accused of being holocaust denier and denies being a denier.

Having read some of Shamir's web site his defence against the charge is fairly convincing. He is no David Irving and specifically says that it did happen, but that it is not qualitatively different from other genocides.

[wyweb]

@graeme_p

the question is whether Israel Shamir is actually a holocaust denier:

Thank you for that. I guess I should have researched this one further before popping off.

I appreciate the clarification.

Mans inhumanity to man has always pushed buttons in me. I react too quickly.

Again, thanks....

[StoutFiles]

It really sucks when the media cares about your story for a few months at most. Assange is now yesterday's news and without the media support he once had he's going to be really screwed.

[frontpage]

@ graeme_p

Explain why you are defending a man, Israel Shamir, who posted on his own website:

Mohammed Omar: Should it be allowed to criticize the Zionist version of the Holocaust?

Israel Shamir: More than that, I think it is a duty to do so.I think it is every Muslim's and Christian's duty to deny the Holocaust, to reject this belief, just as Abraham and Moses rejected the idols. Any person who confesses to God should deny the Holocaust. I think it's much more serious that people deny God, right?

It's pretty cut and dry.

1) The Guardian has called Shamir "notorious for Holocaust denial and publishing a string of antisemitic articles."

2) Shamir is described by New York Magazine as "an anti-semitic Holocaust denier"

3) The British anti-racist organization Hope not Hate has listed Shamir as a "notable Holocaust denier," citing the "rabid Holocaust denial material" on his website


Source: [israelshamir.net...]

[incrediBILL]

The whole convo is really idiotic because it's historically documented in print, film and in person as I've personally known people that barely escaped with their lives.

That's like saying 9/11 didn't happen when I know people that were in NY and watched it happen, just like I did on live TV.

Just like the morons that claim the moon landing never happened because you couldn't see stars in the background, what part of 1/125s shutter speed don't they understand as a fast shutter speed won't register those stars.

Just like the morons that think the (K) on products which is a Kosher symbol ran around in the 90s claiming Snapple was Klan endorsed with that (K).

How about the morons that claim humans were too stupid to come up with PI (3.141) several thousand years ago, which is an obvious math constant, that claim aliens helped humans with their math lessons.

Stupidity is what it is and you can't argue with stupid people once they believe something is true regardless of the actual facts.

If you deny the truth, especially when it's an absolute truth, it's more mental illness than anything else and should be treated as such, just like any other mental misfire on the fringe.

Just because the mental illness happens to manifest itself in antisemitism or any other form of racism or hatred doesn't make the illness any less than the disease it is.

Now for a fun fact, being anti-Semite or anti-Semitic isn't specifically anti-Jewish and the way I originally heard the term anti-Semite defined was anti-Arab.

The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopian Semites.

[en.wikipedia.org...]

Knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Lack of it makes people look stupid as a stump.

[wyweb]

I don't care about Assange. I don't care about what he does. I've had to look into this a little bit to try to stay informed but it seems all he likes to do is talk.

Nice catch frontpage. Good hands.

I wish someone would give a brief accurate overview of what's going on right now. No spins. No slants. I rely on others for my information sometimes. It saves me a huge amount of time and that's what I like to do.

[Samizdata]

a brief accurate overview of what's going on

WikiLeaks has been operating a website for five years and has published a significant amount of revealing leaked material, winning awards and drawing great praise in liberal quarters while annoying several govenments and corporations.

The most recent leaks were US diplomatic cables simultaneously published in the New York Times, the London Guardian and other other newspapers, and this led to calls from prominent US politicians for WikiLeaks' Australian founder Julian Assange to be "executed".

WikiLeaks' website was temporarily driven offline by persons unknown using DDoS attacks, and several high-profile US companies abruptly terminated all business with the organisation.

Mr Assange is currently in England appealing against extradition to Sweden for questioning about complaints made by two women he had sexual relations with on a recent visit there. The complaints may appear controversial to those unfamiliar with Swedish law and Mr Assange's bail was raised by several high-profile liberal supporters.

This thread was started in response to an article by a well-known British journalist who published an account of what Mr Assange said to him in a telephone conversation. Mr Assange claims the account is inaccurate but has not issued a writ.

Many liberals are instinctively supportive of the work WikiLeaks has done so far, but they may now be wondering if the organisation can continue to exist without Assange (who has managed a lot of negative PR lately). They are probably also extremely uncomfortable with what they have been hearing about one of his financial backers.

Hope this covers the salient points fairly.

...

[wyweb]

Nicely done Samizdata.

Look, I don't care about this guy. I don't give a rats ass what he's done or what he does in the future either.

I know he's got a big mouth. I suspect we all know that.

Holocaust was what got me wired up and got me involved.

It happened and there are some who deny it. I'd like to pop them in the jaw too.

I gotta get to bed. It's been a long day...

[tangor]

If you deny the truth, especially when it's an absolute truth, it's more mental illness than anything else and should be treated as such, just like any other mental misfire on the fringe.

Most of the time Bill, we think alike, but to equate "denial" as a mental illness we part ways. Denial is a lack of potty training, upbringing, education and, as a semi-medically trained fellow (Army Medic Back Then) I take exception to this small part of your generally on target post. Let us reserve mental illness for real disorders of the brain...not stupidity or self-delusion ... which should never be confused with a more realistic condition called neocortex delusion.

Then again, some folks just might be educationally brain dead (or graduated from liberal-biased academic institution) in areas of their neocortex and, therefore, delusional. :)

[wildbest]

If you deny the truth, especially when it's an absolute truth...

But isn't the truth what wikileaks is about? Or you think what they've published are just lies?

[graeme_p]

@frontpage, the question is not whether Shamir is a holocaust denier: it is whether Assange can reasonably believe he is not.

Your quote would be cut and dry evidence if it was accurate. What I found on the site you link to is very different:

As for the accusation of “Holocaust denial”, my family lost too many of its sons and daughters for me to deny the facts of Jewish tragedy, but I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols.

In other words he is not denying the historical facts (like David Irving, for example), but regards the holocaust as qualitatively no different from other genocides and mass murders (he mentions the Khmer Rouge, the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, the alleged Soviet starving of millions of Ukranians etc.)

There may be other evidence that he is a denier soft soaping it for public consumption, but I have not found any so far.

The newspaper quotes merely confirm that he has been accused of it: if he had not been there would be no argument for Assange to get involved in.

I have no particular interest in defending Shamir (I think his articles range from reasonable, but nothing special, to idiotic). The question is whether Assange is reasonable in defending him - not whether Assange is right to do so.

Samizdata's summary is good, but its worth adding that many people suspect that Assange is a victim of a sustained campaign by the US government. The recent mistreatment in prison of the man who leaked the cables (forcing him to sleep naked) only confirms that the US is out for vengeance.

@wyweb, I agree that holocaust deniers are repulsive, but its worth checking whether the accusations are true.

[frontpage]

@ graeme_p

I have no particular interest in defending Shamir

Based on your posts above, you have repetitively defended him.

Holocaust denier in charge of handling Moscow cables

[guardian.co.uk...]

Lord Ahmed's unwelcome guest
The Labour peer must admit his error in inviting an extreme anti-Semite to air his views


[timesonline.co.uk...]


Apparently, Assange shares Shamir's views of a global Jewish conspiracy.

Other gems by Assange's buddy -

"As I noted last week, he has called the Auschwitz concentration camp “an internment facility, attended by the Red Cross (as opposed to the US internment centre in Guantanamo),” not a place of extermination."

[reason.com...]

[edited by: lawman at 7:52 pm (utc) on Mar 9, 2011]

[Samizdata]

many people suspect that Assange is a victim of a sustained campaign by the US government

While they may well be right in so thinking, this thread concerns quotes attributed to Assange by a well-known British journalist who nobody would accuse of doing any government's bidding.

I read Mr Hislop's full article. It describes how Assange phoned to complain about an earlier piece - one he admitted he had not even read - before making his absurd and unpleasant conspiracy allegations and describing the editor of The Guardian as "sort of Jewish".

None of us heard the conversation so it's a judgement call (though not for the courts as Assange has not sued). But any suggestion that Mr Hislop invented the story on behalf of US government interests will surely provoke only laughter and ridicule.

...

[wyweb]

@wyweb, I agree that holocaust deniers are repulsive, but its worth checking whether the accusations are true.

I agree. I'm not up to speed here.

I apologize.

[graeme_p]

@Samisdata, I agree, Hislop is not out to help the US (or anyone else), but it is stil just his word against Assanges. I tend to distrust journalists. Journalists have reported what I have said inaccurately more often than they are done it accurately, and even (the BBC) just made stuff up.

@frontpage, All I said about Shamir is that I had found no cut and dry evidence on his websites, therefore Assange may sincerely believe that he is not.

All the quotes I have found can be explained away. Even the meaning of the apparently damning quote above is misleading. He is talking about why Aushwitz was not bombed during the war and says:

The camp was perceived as an internment facility, attended by the Red Cross (as opposed to the US internment centre in Guantanamo)

There is a huge difference between saying "people thought this at the time" and "it was true".

[graeme_p]

@wyweb, you have said nothing that needs apology.

I cannot even say that not being up to speed on Assange is that bad. I think the most important issue raised by the Wikilieaks case is the power we have seen the government has to go after people it does not like: leaning on Paypal to cut of both Wikileaks and Manning, leaning on Amazon and others to cut off facilities, etc.

[Samizdata]

I tend to distrust journalists

Julian Assange has long been a member of the Australian journalists union.

At WikiLeaks he is "editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists".

...