BBC soft soaps Holocaust denier

There's an extraordinary BBC News web site report about David Irving today.

It describes him as a "British academic".

David Irving has no academic qualifications of any kind, and has never held an academic post at any accredited academic institution.

It also refers to his "unpalatable historical views."

As was massively demonstrated at the libel trial he brought in London against Professor Deborah Lipstadt, author of a book which exposed him as a lying Holocaust denier, it is not a matter of "unpalatable historical views". Irving was shown not just to be a Holocaust denier, but to have repeatedly falsified and distorted historical evidence in pursuit of his project of Holocaust denial and his anti-semitic worldview.

Even though the BBC report acknowledges that the judge in his case found him to be anti-semitic and a Holocaust denier, it does not at any point acknowledge the extensive findings that he distorted and falsified evidence. It refers to him as illustrating "that he was capable of putting up an engaging fight."

A sidebar on the BBC News report with further links repeatedly uses the term "Holocaust denier" in inverted commas, as if to cast doubt on that this designation applies to him.

The report also gratuitously highlights this shout quote from Amr Mousa, the Secretary General of the Arab League

What about freedom of expression when anti-Semitism is involved? Then it is not freedom of expression. Then it is a crime. Yet when Islam is insulted, certain powers raise the issue of freedom of expression.

It takes that further with this astounding quote:

Either way, the risk remains that Mr Irving will appear a martyr to free speech and that his trial will fuel the anger of those who accuse Europe of double standards - apparently ready to cite freedom of expression when it comes to printing cartoons offensive to Muslims, while incarcerating those who insult Jews.

Since when has Holocaust denial become a question of insulting Jews?

Here is what Mr Justice Gray found about Irving and his methods:

I have already set out in section VIII above my conclusion that Irving displays all the characteristics of a Holocaust denier. He repeatedly makes assertions about the Holocaust which are offensive to Jews in their terms and unsupported by or contrary to the historical record. I have also given at section IX above the reasons for my findings that Irving is an anti-semite and a racist. As I have found in section X above, Irving associates regularly with extremist and neo-Nazi organisations and individuals. The conclusion which I draw from the evidence is that Irving is sympathetic towards and on occasion promotes the views held by those individuals and organisations.

13.162 It is not difficult to discern a pattern to the activities and attitudes to which I have alluded in the preceding paragraph. Over the past fifteen years or so, Irving appears to have become more active politically than was previously the case. He speaks regularly at political or quasi-political meetings in Germany, the United States, Canada and the New World. The content of his speeches and interviews often displays a distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish bias. He makes surprising and often unfounded assertions about the Nazi regime which tend to exonerate the Nazis for the appalling atrocities which they inflicted on the Jews. He is content to mix with neo-fascists and appears to share many of their racist and anti-semitic prejudices. The picture of Irving which emerges from the evidence of his extra-curricular activities reveals him to be a right-wing pro-Nazi polemicist. In my view the Defendants have established that Irving has a political agenda. It is one which, it is legitimate to infer, disposes him, where he deems it necessary, to manipulate the historical record in order to make it conform with his political beliefs.

Finding as to Irving’s motivation

13.163 Having reviewed what appear to me to be the relevant considerations, I return to the issue which I defined in paragraph 13.138 above. I find myself unable to accept Irving’s contention that his falsification of the historical record is the product of innocent error or misinterpretation or incompetence on his part. When account is taken of all the considerations set out in paragraphs 13.140 to 13.161 above, it appears to me that the correct and inevitable inference must be that for the most part the falsification of the historical record was deliberate and that Irving was motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence.

It seems the BBC is more interested in promoting the Islamist agenda of equating with Holocaust denial unintended offence against Muslim requirements about not portraying the prophet Mohammed than it is in telling the full truth about David Irving.

HAT TIP: MM

Comments

[Bob-B]

It is not clear to me why the Secretary General of the Arab League should think it is his job to defend Islam against perceived insults. Not all Arabs are Muslims. It seems a bit like the secretary general of the European Union defending Christianity against perceived insults.

[Yankev]

The BBC positioning David Irving as "a martyr to free speech" is particularly rich when one remembers that his lies were exposed at a libel trial that HE filed in against U.S. academic Deborah Lipstadt in an attempt to silence and intimidate her and to deter other critics from criticizing his methods and conclusions.

Irving brought his lawsuit in the UK, forcing Ms. Lipstadt to travel to the UK to defend herself, and to engage UK legal counsel.

Now, after trying and failing to abuse the British legal system to silence his own critics, Mr. Irving wants to position himself as a defender of free speech?

Has no one pointed out this irony to the BBC?

[Neal]

Judy,

Yours is a very interesting article. And also thank you for your link to the Irving legal decision.

As for the BBC article, I think the interesting thing is how Muslims and Europeans use Jews as the centerpiece through which to engage. There is, you will note, a long history of just that, going back centuries.

[Paulinus]

Usually an "academic" needs an academy to be attached to. Irving, as I understand it, is a freelance Holocaust denier.

The only accurate part of the "British academic" description is "British"

[Lynne]

What an egregious piece of "journalism"! Where is BBC Watch in all of this?

[Cynic]

"Not all Arabs are Muslims."

I suppose that for the Arab League the non-muslim arabs are of no consequence given the manner in which they have been trated by the muslims and the Christian churches.
Recent history is replete with the persecution of copts in Egypt, the bestial rampage of muslims over Lebanese Christians, the treatment of Christians in Saudi Arabia, not to mention the other states.
And to add insult to injury various Christian ministers, both Anglican and Vatican have gone cap in hand to Ramallah, the seat of the PLO which reduced Arab Christian occupancy of formerly Christian towns after Arafat gained control under the Oslo accords, to bargain away their flock's rights in their interests to hurt the Jews of Israel as much as possible.
Why,even after Arafat's men massacred more than 500 Christians of the town of Damour in 1976, and turned the church into a garage for their jeeps and a pistol range, Hilarion Cappucci (Vatican) went arms smuggling for the PLO.

[Sharon]

If this were an isolated article, I might agree with you. But it isn't. This is a short article reporting the debate about the upcoming trial. It is not an article about the last trial. And if any of you bothered to follow any of the BBC links on the page itself, you'd find that they've already reported that, at length, including quoting the judge. Try, for example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/709128.stm

(Calling him an 'academic', on the other hand, is an insult to all real academics.)

[Neal]

Sharon,

Your link to your BBC article does not function. I must add as an American who follows debate in Britain, the BBC is a terrible source if the goal is to non-ideological information. Among other things, it is terribly biased against Jews.

[John]

@Neal: [yawn] ... Yeah, we Europeans are American hating, anti-Jew, etc... And you Americans are all grass-chewing hill billies? I think not. We have the same debates and range of opinions as you guys, it's just that we frame them differently.

[Neal]

John,

It would help if you read what I wrote. Did I use the word "hate"? I said that the BBC is terribly biased. It is. Admit it.

[The Pedant-General]

Judy,

Looks like the page has been stealth editted - I can't see "Academic" anywhere. There are a number of rather awkward references to "The Briton" e.g.

"The Briton had brought the case against American academic Deborah Lipstadt"

which would suggest a hurried edit....

PG

[chevalier de st george]

What did Irving thinks he as doing?
a trip on the way to the holocaust deniers conference in teheran with a prelimanary stopover to celbrate the Fuhrer's birthday, with the old bunch of Waffen SS comrades in Linz? No wait that's not till April and these days is held in Belgium.
What would he have said to the piece of shit who runs Iran.
"Thank you for the generous cheque but i must tell you that I have now changed my views..Bla Bla"
The BBC appear to be mildly batting for Irving, but had Irving had the sense (like many of his holocaust denier friends), to Convert to ISLAM, the BBC would have been shouting for his immediate release.