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“The Irving
libel case is the nearest thing liberal
London society can get to a trial for
witchcraft or blasphemy.”
***
Having been out of the country when
the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial verdict
came down and for some time thereafter I
was not able to write anything about it.
I was in Jerusalem, where our tour guide
did not fail to mention the Holocaust
and the six million Jews. Politeness
being one of my weaknesses I did not
argue with him.
Some people are now asking what I
thought of the decision, in which, of
course, Mr. Irving was denounced as an
anti-Semite, a racist, and a Holocaust
denier. My answer, in short, was what I
had said while the trial was still on:
that he stood not a cat’s chance in
hell of winning. No judge, British or
otherwise, was about to take on the
world-wide Jewish Establishment. He
would himself have been branded an
anti-Semite, a racist, and a Holocaust
denier.
The victors are now dancing the Hora,
and may be forgiven for thinking that
the argument about the Holocaust and its
politics is now over. But they would be
wrong. In the first place, the trial
judge did not validate the six million
story even though he claimed, with
Deborah Lipstadt, that Irving had
distorted history. At the same time he,
the judge, confessed he was no
historian, which hardly strengthens his
decision.
All historians believe their own
theses, and as Professor Donald Cameron
Watt pointed out in London’s Evening
Standard, “Show me any historian who
has not broken into a cold sweat at the
thought of undergoing similar
treatment,” meaning that Irving had to
endure two months of being attacked by
hostile historians and top-ranking (and
ranting) Jewish lawyers.
One against twenty, and the judge
paid the star of this show the
compliment of stating that “Mr. Irving
knows his stuff ”. In the New York
Press, George Szamuely wrote that though
he lost the case, he held his own
against scholars of international
repute”.
In short, although Irving lost, and
will be ruined if his appeal is
unsuccessful (which, again, I expect it
to be) he has also won. Never before has
there been such an ocean of critical
publicity on this subject. It has
dominated the pages of the world’s
media and has already led to opinions
being expressed that would not have
been, pre-trial.
As David Cesarani, who I believe is
Jewish, reported in The Guardian,
“David Irving may be isolated in his
high court battle, but a growing number
of respectable academics are criticizing
what they have dubbed the ‘Holocaust
Industry’. |
“Serious
scholars on both sides of the Atlantic
who scorn [Irving’s] methods and
arguments are questioning the purposes
to which the Holocaust is being put.
They are asking if it deserves a special
protected place in the public
consciousness.”
Some, he went on, are asking whether
memorialization of the Holocaust, as
well as Holocaust studies in schools and
universities, are not being used
wrongly, or simply getting out of hand.
(Hello there, you government
lickspittles in Victoria, who have just
stepped into line with B.C.’s very own
Memorial Day!)
Even before the Lipstadt trial began,
an announcement that there were plans
for a “Shoah Centre” in Manchester
caused Brian Sewell of the Evening
Standard to write: “Can we not say to
the Jews of Manchester that enough has
been made of their Holocaust and that
they are too greedy for our memories?”
The case for Irving’s being a
“Holocaust denier” seems to rest on
his claim that there were no gas
chambers at Auschwitz and on his
rejection of the six million story. Here
the judge said in his ruling that Irving
was right to point out that
contemporaneous documents give... little
clear evidence of the existence of gas
chambers designed to kill human
beings.” To support his judgment, he
relied on witnesses for the defence.
Which raises the question what,
precisely, is a “denier”? Irving,
after all, had said that between one
million and four million Jews died.
Denial depends on who and what is
being denied. Historian Robert W.
Thurston is one of several who have
claimed that Stalin was not guilty of
mass murder from 1934 to 1941. For them,
too, the Gulag didn’t exist, except
for criminals who would have been in
jail in any country — the kind of
bilge that Eleanor Roosevelt swallowed.
No disgrace for them, though. They
are hardly noticed. Even if they were,
and faced a case against their critics,
there would be no millions of dollars
forthcoming for their defence from the
Spielbergs, the Bronfmans or the
American Jewish Committee, as they were
for Lipstadt.
To repeat: this trial marks the start
of a new look at the politics of the
Holocaust .And it will continue. Have I
ever lied to you?
To get the international media
comment on this case I recommend
Irving’s web page. It’s all there,
pro and con, at http://www.fpp.co.uk/online.html
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