A line must be drawn

A line must be drawn

It cannot possibly get worse than this. The dissemination of
literature from a racist, antisemitic, white-supremacist,
conspiracy-theorising website in the name of providing insight and/or
commentary on Zionism or the policies of the Israeli government is a
low point many refused to believe could be reached - though a few have
warned that this is where things were headed for some time.

But, having reached this low-point, we have to ask ourselves if it can
be allowed to sink any lower.

If those in British Unions who flirt with the far-right can weasel out
of this, then they can weasel out of anything. A line must be drawn
here. A line must be drawn now.

If this is acceptable and accepted - indeed, if this is even mere
tolerated - then a line is crossed. What could possibly still remain
unacceptable? What taboos remain? Violence against Jewish students
'explained' by left-wing academics? Desecration of Jewish graveyards
celebrated on Indymedia? Would that still shock? And if so, for how
long?

What can we imagine that is worse than someone on the anti-Israel Left
using neo-Nazi hate polemic as propaganda?

If they can 'teflon' it away, then there is nothing they can't and
won't do. Apologists for antisemitism are ludicrously inventive, but
if they can get away with using neo-Nazi material, there is no limit,
no boundaries, nothing beyond taste and decency.

The UCU describes itself as "the largest post-school union in the
world". It has thousands of members. Yet it has remained silent on the
issue of its email list being used to distribute a link to a Ku Klux
Klansman's website. A small band of Jewish members and the supporters
have been left to protest to largely deaf ears.

What signals does this send?

Does anyone doubt that if a racist white professor had expressed his
theories about innate racial differences and had backed these up by
suggesting UCU members read another article on the same website that
Jenna Delich linked to, and had endorsed it in a similar fashion, that
the response would have been markedly different?

If Delich had been, for argument's sake, an anti-immigration proponent
and had posted an article "America Will Turn Non-White During Our
Lifetime" (also published on davidduke.com) would we now be
experiencing this deafening silence from the UCU leadership?

Is it not quite simply the fact that Jews were the target of the
racist diatribe published on davidduke.com Delich linked to that made
all the difference? Is antisemitism now so unremarkable.

If we do not draw a line here, those on the Left slouching towards the
return of full-blown Nazi-style Jew-hatred will arrive at this
destination sooner than we think.

The first threat

From Mike Cushman:

I have complained about list members publishing to Hurry up harry beforebut no action has been taken and nobody who is praised by hurry up harryhas dissociated themselves from this scurrilous site or deplored theleaking of our postings to it.

In deleting, for good reasons, Jenna’s photo unfortunately Simon alsodeleted the caption. “Sheffield-based academic, Jenna Delich - links tofar right websites associated with the Klu Klux Klan”. This is apotentially libellous statement and I would urge Jenna to contacthurryupharry’s ISP

Details from http://whois.domaintools.com/
Tech Organization:Daily Internet Services Limited
Tech Street1:9 Regan Way
Tech Street2:Chetwynd Business Park
Tech Street3:Chilwell
Tech City:Nottingham
Tech State/Province:Nottinghamshire
Tech Postal Code:NG96RR
Tech Country:GB
Tech Phone:
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+44.1159725140
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email: domains@daily.co.uk

People who have had their names and details on this blog in the pasthave received threatening and obscene e-mails.

I would hope that UCU centrally or failing that Jenna’s branch willpursue this on her behalf.
Mike

Don’t panic if Harry's Place disappears briefly…

Harry's Place may be removed (or rather have it's DNS disabled) after a 'complaint' to the company that our domain name is registered with.

We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this 'complaint' originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.



This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

We would like to assure readers of Harry's Place that we are doing everything we can to prevent a disruption, but that - of course - we will not concede any ground. We have posted nothing defamatory, and we stand by the information we have supplied.

ISPs often run scared of UK libel law and malicious complaints are thus common. Sadly, it is a well known - and usually successful - way of censoring websites which publish truths that they'd rather not be generally known.

We ask our readers and supporters in the meantime to publish this information as widely as possible. The disgraceful tactic of dishonest and malicious complaining should not be allowed to succeed.

Those on the UCU list, please also make this know there.

Please spread the word.

If we go down, email us at harryblog at gee mail dot com for updates.

How They Got Here

In the past, far Left anti-Zionism was a mix of Stalinist anti-semitism and class analysis. You also got the identity crisis of Greenstein-types thrown in, for good measure.

It was very unlikely, until about 10-15 years ago, that Leftists would incorporate pure neo Nazi anti-semitism into their worldview, because they wouldn't have come across it, except in limited contexts, in which it was clearly marked with all the sorts of tell tale signs detailed by Modernity, in the preceeding post. Far Leftists who became neo Nazis, went the whole Hitler-worshipping hog. Most knew why racism was wrong: it a tool of the Capitalists, which divided the working classes, underpinned Imperialism, and so on. Faced with a Nazi, claiming that Israel controlled the United States, a Leftist would quickly sniff out a Nazi. His shibboleth, by contrast, was the notion that Israel is some sort of imperialist venture by the United States.

Nowadays, any web search for 'zionist' will bring up a range of articles: some clearly Left, some neo Nazi, some Islamist, some general conspiracist, and some in a sort of synthesised grey area between any of these.

You'll also get near-neo-Nazi stuff, like Atzmon's output, which is a mirror image of the Greenstein identity politics stuff, which has been presented as part of the argument on the Left by the Socialist Workers' Party. The SWP has similarly endorsed, and showcased, Islamist racists, and promoted solidarity with, and activists in, both Hamas and Hezbollah. When Chomsky whitewashed Faurisson - a man he knew to be a babbling racist - as a 'relatively apolitical liberal', it was a scandal. Now this sort of cross-pollenation is standard stuff.

Basically, the boundaries are hugely blurred nowadays. An Islamist might read screeds about Zionists by both a neo Nazi and a Trot, and agree with the general thrust of each essay.

Similarly, a woman who thinks of herself as an anti-racist can read a piece by an 'Israel dun 911' nutter, on a Nazi's website, and find nothing to fault in its content.

That this is so, is demonstrated by the case of Delich, or indeed, Jenny Tonge.

I would be amazed if any of the savvier Trots on the UCU are silly enough to say it: but I bet many of them are thinking:

"Yeah, but is anything Joe Quinn says actually WRONG?"

How To Avoid Re-posting from Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan or White Power Web Sites

This is a guest post by Modernity

Apparently some members of the UCU activist list are having problems discerning which material is fit for inclusion in civilised and academic debate; sadly one of them made the very egregious mistake of posting information from David Duke's web site.

In mitigation another UCU activist commented "This has made me crucially aware of how difficult it is to set out rules, even guidelines, for avoiding errors. "

I can't think why academics can't apply some critical thinking to material found on the Internet; however, for the benefit of Mr. Cushman and other UCU activists here's a very simple guide:

"For UCU Activists - How To Avoid Re-posting from Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan or White Power Web Sites."

A word of warning: modern day neo-Nazis, Holocaust revisionists, White Power freaks and certified Jew haters do not always advertise their loathings so conspicuously, they have learnt to dress up their hatreds and make them more acceptable, more palatable to the undiscerning reader.

So initially you won't necessarily see "we love Hitler" plastered all over their web sites, rather they will push a few dissident Jewish anti-Zionists in the hope that it fools the gullible, and make their diet of vile anti-Jewish racism somehow more palatable.

Don't be fooled.

Broadly speaking there are five stages:

Preliminary scan.
Checking the initial link.
Verifying the author.
Examining the article.
Watching out for telltale signs.

Scanning the Symbols.

The preliminary scan of any dodgy web site is fairly simple, just look out for the obvious neo-Nazi insignia or Celtic symbols, combined with some lurid stories or references to Jews.

The Link.

1. Find a link on the Internet.
2. Go to the home page of that particular link.
3. If it says "David Duke", "White Power", "Aryan Nation" "Hitler", "National Socialism is good" or "KKK"* then bin that link, it is from a neo-Nazi web site or one of their friends and go to step 1again.

The Author.

4. Having found a link, verify the author.
5. Throw their name into Google with the selection of the following key words:

9/11, New World Order, supremacy, revisionism, Serbia, truth, Illuminati, Israel, etc.

6. Read the results and if the links are predominately to places like Jewish Tribal Review, Jew Watch, Stormfront, National Vanguard, Ziopedia, Rense, or sites that talk about National Socialism a lot then bin that link and go to step 1 once more.

The Contents.

7. Having found an article, look up the author's previous works and ask the questions: does he/she essentialise different ethnic groupings? Does he/she appear to be paranoid? Or use conspiracy theories? Is there an overriding fixation?

8. Now read the article and look for discrepancies: is one work quoted a lot? Does the author entertain counter arguments? Does the article read like a screed? Try to cross reference any works cited and see if the article represent the arguments accurately?

9. Is the article consistently negative towards Jews, no matter how they are characterised, whatever euphemism or insult is used ("Cosmopolitan", "Hebrew", "Zionist" **,"Red Sea Pedestrian","Israeli, etc).

10. Does the author argue that the witless Goy/Goyim/Gentile has been fooled by the wily "Zionist" **? Or suggest that the media is controlled by manipulative "Zionists"?

If so, then you've probably hit jackpot, it is antisemitic filth and shouldn't be recycled or passed on to others, particularly on union-sanctioned email lists.

11. At this point, by using the above method and some common sense, you probably will have filtered out 95% of the neo-Nazi filth from the web.

That wasn't so hard was it?

Warning Signs.

Finally, watch out for lurid colours, multiple fonts, etc.-- that's a big of a give way of a crank web site.

If these web sites use words like "International Jewry" or have references to mind control, tentacles,etc., then watch out. Oh, and if they post stuff from David Duke that is really, really a no no!

Finally, it is best to avoid sites that promote or approve of thetruthseeker, zundelsite, natvan, conspiracyplanet, ihr, codoh, adelaideinstitute, vho, zionistswatch ***.

If in doubt, don't use the material. Email one of the many anti-racist/anti-fascist organisations and ask advice.

----
* Extending on to include any sites that rant about Jews, New World Order, 9/11 and dancing Jews, etc.

** Don't be fooled if some neo-Nazi site uses the transparent tactics of switching "Zionist" for the word "Jew", they really really mean "Jew!", but think they're being smart.

*** This is not a complete list, use own discretion.

PS: If you still don't know anything about David Duke, read this article:

"WunderkindDavid Duke's preoccupation with racist ideology dates back to his youth. At 17, he became active in right-wing extremist groups. While attending Louisiana State University in the early 1970s, he founded the White Youth Alliance, a group affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Socialist White People's Party in Arlington, Virginia. To protest a speech by attorney William Kunstler at Tulane University, Duke picketed wearing a Nazi brown shirt and a swastika armband and carried a placard that said "Kunstler is a Communist-Jew" and "Gas the Chicago 7" (referring to the well-known leftist activists). Duke now describes the event as a folly of youth.Shortly after graduating in 1974, Duke covered his swastika with a Klan robe and founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He first came to broad public attention during this time: the young Imperial Wizard successfully marketed himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman – well-groomed, engaged, professional: the Klan leader as a corporate manager. And as a progressive: for the first time in the group's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership."

UCU and the David Duke fan

The University and College Union maintains an email list for its activists, which is administered and monitored by the union. As Harry's Place readers know, the email list traffic is dominated by political extremists and almost entirely given over to their obsessive and nasty campaign to boycott Israeli academics.

The extremists are countered by a small number of Jews and anti-racists, many of them supporters of Engage. They are routinely defamed as racists, imperialists, Apartheid supporters, liars and conspirators. Quite a few of the Jews and anti-racists have been chucked off the list by the UCU administrators, arbitrarily, and usually for making public their complaints about the racism on the list.

There have been complaints to UCU about racism on its activist list. UCU has dismissed them all as baseless.

One of the formal complaints was made in relation to a series of particularly poisonous and nasty emails written by a Sheffield-based UCU activist called Jenna Delich. That complaint was also dismissed.

Yesterday Jenna Delich wrote the following message on the activist list in order to support a boycott of Israeli academics:

John,

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:

http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html

No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna

JENNA DELICH

The website which she links to is the website of David Duke, who is the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and perhaps the most notorious racist and anti-semite in the world. The article itself was originally posted on an extremist conspiracy nut website, but appears only on David Duke's website. It is therefore reasonable to infer that Jenna Delich reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.

So, in a nutshell, the position is this. The UCU refuses to take action against viciousness against Jews and anti-racists on its own activist list, and endorses their exclusion from that email list when they defend themselves. Meanwhile, the UCU is circulating links to David Duke's website on behalf of Delich.

What a wonderful institution UCU is.