The facts behind the latest witch-hunt, of Jenna Delich, a Business Studies tutor at The Sheffield College are quite clear.
Ms Delich, quite inadvertently, posted a short message on the activist list of the University & College Union [UCU] which referred to an article written in 2006 by Joe Quinn The article ‘Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics was, as are many things that people on the Left write, purloined by ex-Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist, David Duke. It is an unfortunate fact that the far-right, having few ideas of their own, often steal articles of their opponents to bolster their own academic credentials.
Ms Delich is a refugee from Jugoslavia. Her explanation is quite simple, she hadn’t heard of David Duke, and quoted from the article without looking at the site. This is quite easy to do and many of us have gone to far right sites without at first realising their credentials. Indeed a number of such sites go out of their to hide their political allegiances. As Ms Delich explained:
“I didn’t realise who David Duke was nor did I hear of him. I just looked at the article not the website where it appeared. Apologies for picking up that website as I personallly am strongly against any racists, anti-semitists and the likes of them. I just found the article quite powerful, and none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist, and the article is quite interesting. So, perhaps we should focus on the article itself and not where it appeared (if we look at it in a broader sense, the website itself appeard on Google and so did the article)? Anyone can put anything on their website… Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it’s the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke (who, I most certainly agree, has no place in UCU but is the author of the website and not the article).”
As Ms Delich wrote in an e-mail to me:
‘I had no idea who David Duke was (being an Eastern European I didn’t study US history or culture, mention their far-right let alone the likes of David Duke).
Joe Quinn, in his new article also published my apology (in a blue box, bottom of the article) which is clearly my statement on acknowledging the error, explaining and apologising. It was my first apology but I also made several individual ones that were addressed to the Zionist members of the Forum who tried to attack me on the list (not for the first time though) but with the copies received by all the participating members of the Forum.’
But of course the Zionists went to town on this. Engage, an organisation dedicated to villifying supporters of the academic boycott as anti-semites could barely restrain itself.
The pro-war, racist blog Harry’s Place printed a number of disgusting attacks on Jenna Delich. One David T[aube] who used to be an anti-Zionist (!) wrote that ‘It is therefore reasonable to infer that Jenna Delich reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.’ In other words that Ms Delich is herself a neo-Nazi. Not surprisingly Ms Delich threatened HP’s ISP with a libel writ until it took action. This resulted in HP being taken down, Amidst the furore, even socialist sites like Socialist Unity managed to miss the plot entirely, by seeing it as an issue of ‘free speech’ rather than the witch-hunt of an anti-racist lecturer.
But, as everyone knows, the Zionists who are attacking Delich have no interest whatsoever in opposing anti-Semitism. On the contrary, without anti-Semitism there would be no Zionism, which is why the founder of Political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, could write that
‘the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. We want to emigrate as respected people.’ Diaries of Theodore Herzl, pp. 83/4.
This has always been the way. In World War 2, despite their ‘concern’ about anti-Semitism today, the role of the Zionist movement was to prioritise building their State over and above saving Jews which was at best, of secondary importance.
Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wexler were the first Jewish escapees from Auschwitz. In a letter in the Observer on 22.9.63., in a reply to Zionist professor, Jacob Talmon who had attacked Hanna Arendt for mentioning Zionist collaboration during the Nazi period, he stated:
‘In April 1944 we handed to a high representrative of the Zionist movement, Dr Oskar Neumann, a 60 page detailed report on the fact that extermination of 1,760,000 Jews had taken place in Auschwitz…. Did the Judenrat (or the Judenverrat) in Hungary tell their Jews what was awaiting them>? No, they remained silent and for this silence some of their leaders – for example Dr. R. Kasztner – bartered their own lives and the lives of 1684 other ‘prominent’ Jews directly from Eichmann…’.
The same Kasztner gave evidence in SUPPORT of at least 4 Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg – Waffen SS Col Becher, Kurt Wisliceny, responsible for the deportation of Slovakian Jewry who was hanged in Czechoslovakia after the war, Krumey, Eichmann’s henchman and SS Lt. General Hans Juttner.
Lest anyone think this is an aberration, lost in history, then let us note what Rabbi Yehudah Amital, Rosh Yeshiva of Har Etzion described in the Jewish Chronicle of 15. 4. 1983:
‘…some elements, especially the Religious Zionists, expressed satisfaction at the clear and open display of anti-Semitism which took shape during and after ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ [the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – TG]…It is felt that the more overt anti-Semitism becomes, the more beneficial it will prove for the Jews, because through anti-Semitism, the Jews of the Diaspora will come to the realisation that they must move to Eretz Yisrael. The Red Lights are Flashing’,
And on April 10th 2008 the Guardian carried a news story which, for some of us at least, was no revelation. ‘BNP seeks to bury antisemitism and gain Jewish votes in Islamophobic campaign’.· We were told by one Ruth Smeed of the Board of Deputies of British Jews that ‘The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web – it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’.
But there is an even more interesting example, not least because it involves Engage, the organisation which has spearheaded attacks on supporters of the Boycott of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’: One of its guest posters, one Michael Ezra, is good friends with Gilad Atzmon. On Harry’s Place, before being taken down, we had this delightful post from solicitor David Taube, who is happy to front the attack on Jenna Delich:
‘Gilad Atzmon and Jewishness
Last week, Mikey invited me for a drink with Gilad Atzmon.
Mikey’s thoughts on Gilad and his worldview follow, below.
Gilad was, I have to say, utterly charming and a delightful drinking companion. He arrived with a copy of his album “Exile” and his new work, Artie Fishel and the Promised Band. On the way home in the taxi, we played the first of the two albums. My taxi driver thought it excellent, and so did I.’ March 19 2007.
Such good friends have Mikey and Atzmon become, (Atzmon is an ex-Israeli and a Zionist who is also a holocaust denier and a believer in the bona fides of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) that he has become Atzmon’s errand boy undertaking ‘research’ into anti-Zionist Jews like Roland Rance & myself. ’
Repeatedly I have asked David Hirsh, who runs the Engage site, to stop using Mikey as a guest poster given his record of consorting with anti-Semites. To date there has been no response, so again – David Hirsh – are you going to stop working with Mikey rather than going with him to meetings like the Independent Jewish Voices one on the Boycott earlier this year?
But maybe this is why even Hirsh has now admitted that ‘Not knowing who Duke was is a fair enough excuse.’
The attack on Jenna Delich is nothing but pure hypocrisy. It is motivated by nothing other than the success that the Boycott and Disinvestment campaign is having. Jenna made a mistake, for which she is being pilloried. However it was quite an easy mistake to make. David Duke is hardly a household name and it is quite easy to be wise in hindsight.
What we do know is that if Jenna Delich were not a supporter of the Palestinians and Boycott then she could have become David Irving’s wife and she would have received no attention from the hypocrites of Harry’s Place.
Tony Greenstein
