[Clive]
David Irving’s nemesis, Deborah Lipstadt posts some observations on the latest twist in his career. She’s opposed to Holocaust denial laws, but with caveats:
1. Remember that David Irving went to Austria despite the fact that there was a warrant out for his arrest.
2. He announced that he was going. Seems to me he was "taunting" the Austrians or "asking for it."
3. In Austria, as the previous post notes, Holocaust denial has a different resonance than it does in the USA or other countries which are not directly linked to the Holocaust.
4. In a place such as Austria it is a political act that could be said to have incendiary implications and be close to incitement.Therefore:
1. While I am opposed to such laws
2. I can understand the Austrian perspective.
3. Imagine if Ahamdinejad had decided to hold his conference in Vienna to save having to pay for Duke, the ridiculous rabbis et. al to fly all the way to Iran. There would have been a world outcry of unbelievable proportions.
I paid a visit to the courtroom during the epic Lipstadt vs Irving case back in 2000. A shrewd self-publicist, Irving had gone some way to portraying himself in the media as the hapless victim. For an instant, as I sat in the gallery, I caught myself feeling sorry for him: there he was, one rumpled, middle-aged man with an untidy pile of books and papers, taking on a team of some of the best legal minds in town. Then I remembered what he stood for. It was only a split-second lapse, but it reminded me how clever he was at playing his game.
[Nb. In my original post, the last two sentences disappeared due to a problem with the formatting. Apologies.]
The Dish 