- In this lively interview, "Thin
Ice: Jewish Power in a Changing World, Part 2," Weber explains how
the recent sentencing of British historian David Irving to three years
in prison for "Holocaust denial" is helping the cause of freedom,
and how the Holocaust remembrance campaign is losing effectiveness. Weber
also speaks about President Bush's disastrously wrong-headed "war
on terror," the campaign of deceit in the neo-con push for war against
Iran, and the shifting place of "terrorism" in history.
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- Listen to the broadcast:
- http://nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=8400
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- On today's program, we continue our interview
with the Director of the Institute for Historical Review, Mr. Mark Weber
(pictured). When we left our talk last week, we were discussing the laws
in Germany that make it a crime to doubt the Jewish Holocaust story. Let's
rejoin that discussion now.
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- http://www.ihr.org/
- http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=8331
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- WEBER: The German law is also very bizarre
in another way. A German court has ruled that statements that violate the
German law against "Holocaust denial" are actionable even if
they're made in a country in a country where such statements are legal
-- as in the United States -- if those statements can be downloaded on
the Internet in Germany. That's the first count in the indictment brief
against Ernst Zündel. He's alleged to have broken Germany's law on
the basis of statements posted on his Web site, which is based in the United
States and is maintained by his wife, who is an American citizen. This
is very dangerous because if people can be put in prison for making statements
that are legal in the countries where they are made, but which violate
the laws of some other country, a kind of international chaos could ensue.
It could mean, for example, that someone who makes a statement on a Web
site based in Sweden or Argentina that calls for the end of Communism in
China could be considered to have violated Chinese law and therefore be
subject to Chinese prosecution for having made the statement.
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- KAS: Do you mean that right now an American
historian who questions aspects of the Holocaust story could be arrested
if he were to set foot in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, or any of these
other countries that have Holocaust denial laws?
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- WEBER: The only country that considers
such statements illegal even when made in a foreign country is Germany.
A German court has made a ruling to that effect. There's never been a similar
ruling in any of the other countries we've talked about.
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- KAS: But what about the next step, which
would be extradition even if the person doesn't set foot in Germany?
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- WEBER: Normally extradition treaties
only apply if the same or very similar laws exist in both of the countries
involved. So, at least for the time being or at least in theory, a person
would not be extradited from say, the United States to Germany for violating
Germany's Holocaust denial law -- because the United States has no similar
law. However, this is not the case if the person charged is a German national.
Ernst Zündel, for example, is a citizen of Germany. Because of this,
he was deported from Canada to Germany for having violated German law.
Doing things this way opens a real Pandora's box and it sets a dangerous
precedent.
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- KAS: Do you think we are seeing the high
tide of these laws -- these attempts at thought control by the Jewish power
structure?
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- WEBER: I know a lot of people have pointed
to the events of the last several months and said that they represent a
new crackdown. I don't think that's really accurate. David Irving's so-called
crime was committed sixteen years ago. He imprudently decided to visit
Austria knowing that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest there,
so it's only a coincidence that he was arrested in Austria and sentenced
right now. He could have avoided arrest if he had just stayed out of Austria.
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- In the case of Ernst Zündel, the
German authorities and Jewish organizations wanted him deported to Germany
immediately after he was taken into custody in Tennessee in February of
2003. Instead he was sent to Canada, where he had lived for more than forty
years. So Jewish organizations were hoping to have him jailed in Germany
three years ago. It's only a coincidence that he finally ended up in Germany
when he did, and his case is being tried right now.
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- Similarly, in the case of Germar Rudolf,
the authorities had been playing cat-and-mouse with him for some months
and he had exhausted all sorts of legal avenues of appeal and was finally
deported.
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- Nevertheless, I think there is a kind
of high tide that's been reached because these laws are so unjust that
they can only be applied and only survive when there's a lot of deceit
and propaganda surrounding them. The more people know about these laws
and the more they know about the case of Ernst Zündel or David Irving,
the more they see the injustice that's being done and they dislike it.
So in that sense, the Irving sentencing has actually done a service to
the cause of freedom by highlighting the existence of these laws and their
character. So, in general, I think that a high tide has been reached.
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- Now, having said that, the Holocaust
campaign, as a propaganda campaign and as a feature of society, is still
being promoted as aggressively as Jewish organizations and Hollywood can
promote it. But it's harder and harder to really see it having an effect,
because time keeps passing and World War II is a more and more distant
part of history for many people.
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- Also, it's very difficult to for Jews
to uphold an image of themselves as perpetually weak and innocent and victimized,
when the people whom the public actually sees being persecuted are people
like Ernst Zündel and David Irving. At the same time, the country
that pushes most eagerly for laws to punish people like them -- Israel
-- is itself a country that the whole world knows is guilty of blatant
oppression and criminal behavior.
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- KAS: This brings me to another question.
The so-called War on Terror has -- to some extent, at least -- been a tool
of the Jewish power structure, particularly the Zionist power structure.
Who is a terrorist is often defined by which side he's on -- and clearly
the Jewish power structure wants to define itself in terms of victimization,
and define its enemies with terms like "evil," "hater,"
and "terrorist." How do you view the "War on Terror,"
Mark?
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- WEBER: It's occurred to me that if, after
the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt had gone before
Congress and announced that the United States was going to declare war
on war, everybody would have thought he was nuts. But, after September
11, George Bush told the American public that he was declaring war on terrorism.
Terrorism is a tactic; it's not something that one can eradicate.
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- Terrorism is used -- and has been used
throughout history -- by virtually every people that does not possess state
power. It's the poor man's weapon, so to speak. By the definition of terrorism
that the United States government uses, the patriots of 1775 were terrorists.
Most Americans know that the opening shots of the American war for independence
from Britain were fired at Lexington and Concord. What really happened
in that exchange was that the British soldiers stationed in Boston marched
to nearby Lexington and Concord to seize illegal caches of weapons in those
places. As they were going back and forth, American patriots fired on the
British soldiers who were trying to do their job.
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- Virtually every nationalist movement
in history has been characterized by what the opponents of the nationalists
call terrorism. The leaders of Irish independence in the twentieth century
-- Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, and others -- were considered terrorists
and murderers by the British. When the United States opposed the Soviet
incursion into Afghanistan, our government gave weapons to the Afghan rebels
who were fighting the Soviets. The Soviets called the rebels "terrorists."
One of the most famous of the Afghan leaders fighting against the Soviet
occupation -- although he was originally from Saudi Arabia -- was Osama
bin Laden. He may not have been a great commander, but the United States
government considered him a "good guy" when he was fighting against
the Soviet occupation, blowing up Soviet tanks, and killing Soviet soldiers.
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- Throughout history this is how it has
gone. Two or three Prime Ministers of Israel have well-documented records
as terrorists. Menachem Begin was the head of the Irgun terrorist organization
in the years before Israel became a state. Yitzhak Shamir, who was a leader
in the so-called Stern gang, had a price on his head that the British authorities
were willing to pay to anyone who could turn him over to them, because
the Stern gang murdered British subjects and other people. And of course,
even an Israeli commission found Ariel Sharon responsible for the terrible
massacres at Sabra and Shatila during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The United States has rolled out the red carpet on numerous occasions for
these men who have well documented records as terrorists, criminals, murderers
or whatever you may want to call them.
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- Now we have a government that, in the
name of a war against terrorism, has proclaimed an open-ended war against
whomever the leaders in Washington think we ought to oppose. This included
Iraq, of course, and now they're gearing up for a war against Iran. But
the more the American people know about history, the more they should be
able to see just how threadbare and deceitful these slogans like "war
on terrorism" really are.
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- It's very understandable that people
were furious after the terrible 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
What the Bush administration did, however, was use that tragedy as a pretext
for a war against Iraq that has neither served American interests nor reduced
terrorism, but has instead served only Israeli and Zionist interests and
in the process made the threat of terrorism around the world far greater.
More and more Americans are coming to understand this with each passing
month, just as other people around the world do.
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- KAS: Some wag said that George W. Bush
is the greatest-ever recruiter for al-Qaeda.
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- WEBER: Yes, I heard that too. This sounds
cynical, I know, but for those people who were pushing for this war, it
was already a success right on its very first day. It shattered the Middle
East, it brought death and destruction and suffering to so many people,
and it helped foment ever-greater strife and discord in that part of the
world. That's been useful for Israeli and Zionist interests because Israel's
security depends upon discord, strife, and disunity among its neighbors.
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- KAS: Well, those were the unstated objectives
of the war. In terms of its stated objective -- bringing the war to those
who were responsible for 9-11 -- it's been very unsuccessful. We did manage
to install a new government in Afghanistan -- however, al-Qaeda is still
fully operational and very dangerous. We did manage to install a new government,
although an unstable one, in Iraq, but Iraq really had nothing to do with
the 9-11 attacks; so in terms of the stated objective, it's gone nowhere.
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- WEBER: In the immediate aftermath of
the 9-11 attack, George Bush announced that "Job One" was to
get Osama bin Laden. Well, the years have gone by and Osama bin Laden is
still doing what he does. Instead of "getting" him, we've had
this immense detour, this attack on Iraq, which has cost the lives of some
twenty-three hundred American servicemen, two or three hundred billion
dollars, and the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis. It has severely
hurt America's security and its place in the world.
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- There's probably never been such a blow
to America's credibility as the attack on Iraq, which was condemned around
the world and is increasingly condemned even here. But what's astonishing
is that in the face of all this opposition, the same people who brought
us this fiasco are now propagandistically preparing Americans for a new
war -- against Iran, another country that has not threatened the United
States and that poses no threat to us, and they're doing it using similar
deceits and lies.
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- KAS: I remember Wolfowitz saying this
would be a 90-day war. Well, instead it's a more than three-year war.
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- WEBER: That's right, and any war against
Iran would be a catastrophe. It's not merely that it would be an illegal
and destructive war. It would be a war that all of the other nations of
the world would understand is not in their interests. Our government has
said a lot about Iran in recent months, and the rank hypocrisy of the Bush
administration in this matter is just amazing. Bush denounces Iran for
not being a democratic country, while he himself came to office in an election
in which his opponent got more votes than he did. Iran has not attacked
another country in more than two centuries, although it has been attacked
by other countries repeatedly over the last hundred years. In 1941 two
allies of the United States -- the Soviet Union and Britain -- attacked,
invaded, and occupied Iran. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution,
Iraq attacked Iran with the connivance and support of the United States.
To denounce Iran as a great threat to world peace is not only untrue, it's
amazing hypocrisy coming from an administration with the record that this
one has.
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- KAS: Well, I think Americans are weary
of war, and clearly the so-called coalition of allies which brought war
to Iraq is very, very shaky -- if it even exists at all anymore. It seems
almost insane for the Zionist power structure to want to shake things up
further, to take more risk, and launch another, much larger war under those
circumstances. It has occurred to me that the only way that they could
be considering something like this is if they were hoping for, or planning,
or had foreknowledge of some Pearl Harbor-like event -- something like
9-11 -- that could galvanize the flagging support of the American people
for such a war.
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- WEBER: Yes, it is very hard to believe.
I've talked with many people about this. Of course it's all speculation,
but you'd think that, given the fiasco of the Iraq invasion and occupation,
it would be impossible to get the requisite support for an invasion of
Iran. But, incidents can also be created or can be exploited to try to
engineer such support.
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- One of the scenarios that's been talked
about is that Israel may strike Iran. In that case, Iran would retaliate
against Israel and then the United States would then claim that it has
to protect its ally and is only getting involved in order to help Israel.
That intervention would then escalate into a full-scale war. That's one
scenario that's been talked about quite a few times, but there are many
others.
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- Incidents can be created, and these are
very, very dangerous times we live in. What's essential is to increase
awareness among Americans about the origins of these conflicts, so that
they do not merely oppose war, but can oppose those who are responsible
for such wars and understand why they push for them. It's not enough to
be for peace; it's also necessary to oppose those who try to foment war.
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- KAS: Well, let me play the devil's advocate
for a moment. If the contention is that the Jewish power structure wants
this war in the Middle East, isn't that almost incredible, considering
that the Jewish power structure is the richest and most powerful leadership
stratum of any ethnic group on planet earth? They dominate the financial
infrastructure of the West; they dominate the media; and they have influence
over governments far beyond that of any other ethnic group in the world
today. Why would they want to shake things up?
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- WEBER: That's a good question and it's
an important one. The answer is because -- as great as Jewish power is
in the West and in the United States particularly -- Israel itself is not
a secure state. Throughout its entire existence, its security has always
been a precarious one. From the very first day of existence all the way
up to today, it's continually required huge infusions of money and weapons
from the United States, along with money from Germany and from world Jewry,
merely to survive.
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- This is the Achilles' heel, so to speak,
of world Jewry: that the Jews are committed to a country that is so inherently
unstable, whose status is so precarious. This is a country that does not
have a constitution, does not say what its borders are, and tries to uphold
its status as a Jewish state, even as demography works against it. The
birth rate of its non-Jewish population is much higher than that of the
Jewish population. Jews here in the United States who support Israel are
willing to tax Americans and let Americans die to support the state of
Israel, but very few American Jews actually want to go live in Israel.
They want other Jews to go live there, but very few American Jews -- for
understandable reasons -- want to live there themselves.
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- Jewish interests would be in many ways
better served if there were no state of Israel, because such tremendous
sacrifices of blood and money are needed maintain it.
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- KAS: And tremendous risk-taking, it seems
to me.
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- WEBER: Tremendous risk-taking, yes. The
state of Israel also demonstrates in a very dramatic way the double standard
that Jews push everywhere in the world. In every country where they live,
they insist on breaking down racial, cultural, and religious cohesion and
they insist that people be regarded merely as individuals. In Israel, however,
they insist that the specifically Jewish ethnic character of the state
be maintained at all costs.
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- KAS: Yes, and that hypocrisy is beginning
to show. Those who hate racial nationalism are calling Israel a hypocritical
nation, and those who embrace racial nationalism are calling Israel hypocritical
also.
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- WEBER: Exactly. If a White nationalist
says, "We want in our country the same fervent championing and support
of White racial interests that Israel has for Jewish ethnic and national
interests," such a person is considered a "Nazi," or a "racist."
This double standard isn't just dangerous for international Jewry, either.
It's really dangerous for the United States, because in supporting Israel
we are supporting a state whose policies are exactly the opposite of the
ideals that we claim to uphold -- ideals that we are even willing to kill
for and to impose by force in other parts of the world. It makes a mockery
of everything that the United States claims to stand for and it makes for
a confused, disastrous foreign policy. The world increasingly understands
this, and that's why American credibility has never been lower, and it's
why it will sink even more in the years ahead.
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- KAS: What do you make of the statements
and actions of the President of Iran?
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- WEBER: I think that his predecessor,
Khatami, was a more adroit and skillful leader. He understood the weight
that his words carried when he spoke; that is, he understood the impact
of his words outside of his own country. Ahmadinejad, the new President,
was the mayor of Teheran. He was a popular man, and he's considered a man
of the people and incorruptible, but he does not seem as measured or as
prudent in the statements that he makes. One of the best examples of this
is the remark he made that Israel should be wiped off the map. That statement
was construed by many around the world as meaning that he wanted to kill
all the Jews in Israel. That's not what he meant. There is, in fact, a
thriving Jewish community in Iran itself, and the Iranian constitution
guarantees that one seat in the Iranian parliament shall be reserved for
a Jewish deputy.
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- KAS: I did not know that.
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- WEBER: There's a reserved seat for a
Christian deputy and one for a Zoroastrian deputy as well, because those
are traditional religions there. But saying "Israel should be wiped
off the map" does mean that Ahmadinejad wants to kill everybody in
Israel. After all, many countries have been "wiped off the map"
over the years.
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- KAS: Nevertheless, it was probably not
the best choice of words.
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- WEBER: It was not prudent for him to
express himself in that way. President Khatami of Iran lived for some years
outside of his country. He lived in Hamburg, Germany, and he could speak
German. I think he understood much better than does the current President
the effects that these kinds of statements can have on the rest of the
world. Iran should be judged more by its policies and by what it does than
by sentences taken out of speeches that seem to be directed mainly at the
Iranian population itself and not intended for the world at large.
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- KAS: Ahmadinejad is one of the few world
leaders who has openly questioned the Holocaust story.
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- WEBER: Yes. He went so far as to call
the Holocaust "a myth," and again, that's a statement that he
should explain, otherwise it's just going to be just dismissed by much
of the world as the ravings of a madman. When somebody says "The Holocaust
is a myth," most people think that the person is dismissing the fact
that concentration camps existed and that the well-known pictures taken
in the camps after the war are not real -- things of that nature. Certainly
that's not what President Ahmadinejad meant. Presumably what he had in
mind was the orthodox Holocaust story that we've heard of the systematic
killing of six million Jews. He didn't explain his statement, however,
and a statement that is that sweeping or that categorical is very easily
misinterpreted and misunderstood, and can be very alarming to many people
outside of the Middle East.
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- KAS: His main action with regard to the
subject of the Holocaust seems to have been to call for a conference to
research the issue.
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- WEBER: The Iranian government has called
for a conference on the Holocaust and Iranian leaders have asked permission
from Poland to carry out an investigation of Holocaust claims in Poland.
The Polish government's immediate reaction was to say that the archives
and sites of the former camps in Poland would not be opened to independent
researchers from Iran, which says something, I guess.
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- It's a very dangerous thing when political
leaders presume to make pronouncements on history. I think that denouncing
the hypocrisy of other countries on the Holocaust issue and stressing the
way in which the Holocaust story and the Holocaust campaign are used to
support and bolster Jewish Zionist interests is a more effective thing
for the Iranian President to do. It's more effective, certainly, than making
statements that many people around the world will just dismiss as raving.
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- KAS: Was it adroit -- or a foolish provocation
-- to call for a cartoon contest on the subject of the Holocaust?
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- WEBER: An Iranian newspaper called for
the Holocaust cartoon contest. It's not a official government measure,
and just one Iranian newspaper suggested it. Of course, what Iranians are
upset about and what they want to highlight through the contest is the
double standard that says that cartoons that are insulting to Muslims or
even Christians are permissible, but images that Jews find objectionable
should be banned. That, I believe, is the point of the campaign, but it
should be remembered that very often statements made by individuals or
newspapers in a particular country will not necessarily reflect the policy
of that country's government.
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- ***
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- Be sure to join us again next week for
the third and final part of Thin Ice, as Mark Weber and I discuss the new
world we are entering. Is it the dawn of a post-Jewish supremacist age?
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