Nick Cohen + Nicholas Kollerstrom.

[blackbear]

Nick Cohen, Zionazi?

When academics lose their power of reason

Dr Nicholas Kollerstrom is convinced that academics have punished him for a 'thought crime'. The distinguished astronomer exercised his right as an intellectual in a free society to speak his mind. His university responded by stripping him of his research fellowship and declared that it wishes to have 'absolutely no association' with him.

To make matters worse, Kollerstrom was denounced by University College, London, one of Europe's greatest bastions of academic integrity, whose founder, Jeremy Bentham, defended intellectual freedom with the stirring words: 'As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends.'

Admittedly, if the philosopher had lived long enough to hear the conspiracy theories of the 21st century, even his defence of free speech might have weakened. Once he was away from his scientific studies, Kollerstrom embraced them all. 'Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors are properly taught about the elegant swimming pool at Auschwitz, built by the inmates, who would sunbathe there on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while watching the water polo matches,' he said of the Nazi genocide. 'Let's hope they are shown postcards written from Auschwitz, where the postman would collect the mail twice weekly.'

Denying the crimes of the clerical fascists of today comes easily to a man who can deny the crimes of the secular fascists of the 1940s. Kollerstrom has opined at length on how the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the 7/7 London bombings were not the work of the actual bombers, but of Western security forces acting on the orders of - you'll never guess - their 'Zionist masters'.

As it happens, Hasib Hussain, the 7/7 suicide bomber on the number 30 bus, detonated his explosives in Tavistock Square, just round the corner from University College's main campus in central London. The Islamist didn't kill research fellows, but cut short the blameless life of Gladys Wundowa, a Ghanaian who worked as a cleaner at the college.

I can understand how the attempts of one of its fellows to exonerate her murderer repelled the college's managers. Equally obviously, they must have thought they could safely dismiss him as a member of a loathsome group of extremists. Rachel North, a victim of the bombings, would not contradict them on that point. She described how respect for the dead and injured didn't figure in his tormented mind. He harried survivors, she said, tracking them down and harangued them with 'his barking "theories" that the bombers were innocent "patsies" executed by the state'.

A creep from the fringe, then, and a pestilential one at that. But the clearest trend in intellectual life is the fringe developing trends in the mainstream and magnifying them into grotesque shapes. To put it another way, Kollerstrom is not as far away from respectable academics as University College assumes. His faults are theirs too.

If a bomb were to explode outside University College today, mainstream voices would fill the airwaves and say that responsibility for the carnage lay with the British, American or Israeli governments. Their arguments would be passionate and convincing, but I don't need to tell you every one of them would avoid mentioning the Islamist ideology that motivated Hasib Hussain and men like him. To divert attention from a criminal is not the same as pretending that the criminal is innocent. But it isn't so far away from it either.

Media London is currently muttering about commissioning editors being intellectually crippled by a thoughtless version of multiculturalism that can't take account of the differences between liberals and reactionaries, secularists and fanatics, within communities. The BBC caused the resentment by shelving a drama documentary on the 7/7 bombings after its researchers, several of them British Muslims, supplied a detailed picture of young men caught up by the theocratic justifications for slaughter.

The researchers are bitter, not least because the bombers' families read the script and vouched for its authenticity. BBC people tell me that the grounds for postponing the documentary were artistic and it may yet be made for the fifth anniversary of the atrocities. I'm sure they're telling the truth, but am equally sure that if they do come to film it, they will face internal opposition from colleagues who, in a vague and ill-thought- out manner, think it not quite proper to discuss such matters in public.

As for conspiracy theory, though Holocaust denial is not acceptable in the West, in academia, the scheming Jew is back as a cosmic force able to pull the strings of his dupes and order the world to his desires. American academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argued to widespread acclaim that a conspiracy of powerful Jews decided to serve the interests of Israel by persuading America to invade Iraq in 2003.

Why the Elders of Zion didn't direct the US administration to invade Iran, which wants to wipe Israel off the map, rather than Saddam's Iraq, which was crippled by sanctions, they don't say and, more interestingly, are rarely asked. Liberals would once have dismissed their thesis as far-right ramblings. Now the London Review of Books, house journal of liberal academia, repeats it.

Indeed, although he perpetuates Nazi doctrine, Kollerstrom presents himself as a man of the left rather than the far right. He says that he is not a member of a neo-Nazi organisation, but an active supporter of the Green party, Respect and CND. Given the political gyrations of our times, he may well be telling the truth.

Before Bentham died, he asked that his body be preserved so that it could be exhibited at the college he founded. The authorities agreed and Bentham sits in a wooden box in South Cloisters as if to remind academics and students to uphold his commitment to reason.

Rather than seeking to restrict Kollerstrom's academic freedom, their successors would have done better to have agreed to preserve his body and place it next to Bentham's as a reminder to liberal intellectuals of the state they may come to if they abandon liberal principles.

Comment:

The chutzpah of a Zionazi cheerleader for the holocaust against muslims.......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/04/highereducation

[kbo234]

Some of the comments posted at the end of this article are pretty good......and written in defense of Nick.

What a creep Cohen is.

[simplesimon]

The comment facility is currently disabled (for the last 90 mins at least):

The comment link at
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.html
links to the slimeball's article itself.

Manually forming the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/04/highereducation
and variations of, leads to an error page:

"Sorry...We haven't been able to serve the page you asked for."

And yet the comment count has gone from 60 to 64 in the last 5 mins.

Presumably they are getting too many comments supportive of Nick Kollerstrom and won't open the comments again until they have drafted in additional censors.

With an eye to the thought police here, I won't comment on the article itself except to say that it is the writer's typical loathsome bullsh*t.

[simplesimon]

Comments now back at 60 ?!?!

LMFAO

[simplesimon]

Hi kbo...

kbo234 wrote

[Justin]

I have just posted this on http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/04/highereducation

May 4, 2008 5:04 PM

I have known Nick Kollerstrom for twenty plus years and I am certain there is not a pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic bone in his body. I think that UCL have behaved disgracefully and should reconsider their knee-jerk, ill thought through decision.

I challenge any Observer/Guardian reader to feed 'Jews against Zionists' into a search engine and see what they find. There are many Orthodox Jews who are opposed to the creation of the State of Israel - a fact that is covered up by the mainstream, some would say controlled, media. Where this information does get out, those Jews who are deeply unhappy with Zionism are accused by Zionists of being 'self-hating Jews'.

I, myself, have absolutely no doubt that the Nazis killed an appalling number of Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies and political opponents during their hideous time in power, but I'm not opposed to the conducting of rational, level headed research to see if the official account of the Nazi death camps stands up to a close scrutiny of the facts. It is quite appalling that such research could land you in prison in countries like Austria and Germany. You must always go where the Truth takes you, however unpalatable it may be.

Justin Walker

[simplesimon]

If you go to:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.html

You will see (see bottom left of your browser as you move your mouse over it) that the hyperlink at each story title and at the associated Comments link is in the form:

http://<www.guardian.co.uk[/theobserver]>/commentisfree/year/month/day  /slug

for all stories EXCEPT the one in question, for which the links are in the form:

http://<www.guardian.co.uk[/theobserver]>/year/month/day/slug


... i.e. the link to the story itself.

At least at my IP since well before 3pm today.

Would kbo234, Justin and others please report?

[karlos]

this whole episode should prove to regular posters on this site that this site can be hazardous to your livelihood
today it is Nick whose life is being destroyed tommorow it could be someone else

[kbo234]

[Dogsmilk]

[paul wright]

Nick's stuck in his Ivory Tower. Well, maybe ejected. He's a conniving twot. Believe me, I know it
Mostly I'd want to leap to the defense of a comrade
This one - no

[kbo234]

[TonyGosling]

Glad to hear that

It has no relevance to debunking 9/11.

If you want to prove a Zionist hand in the War on Terror do it using contemporary evidence.

Not from sixty years before - circumstantial at most, it proves nothing given the situation we are in today.

[TonyGosling]

To think he was such a good writer back in the early 1990s

What happened to him to make him turn into such a warmonger.

I even got a call from him back in about 2000 about a possible new govt. giving people on the dole land instead of money, he was okay then. He just flipped. Or was he a sleeper?

But Nick has walked onto this punch with some offensively slack research IMHO. His article does sound far too much like a defence of the indefencible.

[Dogsmilk]

[kbo234]

[Dogsmilk]

Read the letter. The 4 million did indeed "never make sense statistically". Which is why in the West it was seldom used. Though bear in mind 4 million refers to people not Jews specifically. I personally know jack about how where exactly God knows how many Poles died has been revised.

[kbo234]

[kbo234]

Here's an article that addresses the kind of issues we are talking about.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml

A pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia
The Electronic Intifada – 21 April 2008


A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.

A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia.

A 13 March action alert signed by Gilead Ini, a "Senior Research Analyst" at CAMERA, calls for "volunteers who can work as 'editors' to ensure" that Israel-related articles on Wikipedia are "free of bias and error, and include necessary facts and context." However, subsequent communications indicate that the group not only wanted to keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and Wikipedia administrators, but that the material they intended to introduce included discredited claims that could smear Palestinians and Muslims and conceal Israel's true history.

With over two million articles in English on every topic imaginable, Wikipedia has become a primary reference source for Internet users around the world and a model for collaboratively produced projects. Openness and good faith are among Wikipedia's core principles. Any person in the world can write or edit articles, but Wikipedia has strict guidelines and procedures for accountability intended to ensure quality control and prevent vandalism, plagiarism or distortion. It is because of these safeguards that articles on key elements of the Palestine-Israel conflict have generally remained well-referenced, useful and objective. The CAMERA plan detailed in the e-mails obtained by EI appears intended to circumvent these controls.

In the past, CAMERA has gained notoriety for its tactic of accusing virtually anyone who does not toe a right-wing pro-Israel line of bias. The group has even accused editors and reporters of the Israeli daily Haaretz of being "extreme" and participating in "radical anti-Israel activity." Jeffrey Dvorkin, the former ombudsman of National Public Radio (NPR), frequently criticized by CAMERA for an alleged pro-Palestinian bias, wrote on the web publication Salon in February 2008 that "as a consequence of its campaign against NPR, CAMERA acted as the enabler for some seriously disturbed people," citing persistent telephone threats he received in the wake of CAMERA campaigns.

Need for stealth and secrecy

Throughout the documents EI obtained, CAMERA operatives stress the need for stealth and secrecy. In his initial action alert, Ini requests that recipients "not forward it to members of the news media." In a 17 March follow-up email sent to volunteers, Ini explains that he wants to make the orchestrated effort appear to be the work of unaffiliated individuals. Thus he advises that "There is no need to advertise the fact that we have these group discussions."

Anticipating possible objections to CAMERA's scheme, Ini conjectures that "Anti-Israel editors will seize on anything to try to discredit people who attempt to challenge their problematic assertions, and will be all too happy to pretend, and announce, that a 'Zionist' cabal (the same one that controls the banks and Hollywood?) is trying to hijack Wikipedia."

But stealth and misrepresentation are presented as the keys to success. Ini suggests that after volunteers sign up as editors for Wikipedia they should "avoid editing Israel-related articles for a short period of time." This strategy is intended to "avoid the appearance of being one-topic editors," thus attracting unwanted attention.

Ini counsels that volunteers "might also want to avoid, for obvious reasons, picking a user name that marks you as pro-Israel, or that lets people know your real name." To further conceal the identity of CAMERA-organized editors, Ini warns, "don't forget to always log in before making [edits]. If you make changes while not logged in, Wikipedia will record your computer's IP address" -- a number that allows identification of the location of a computer connected to the Internet.

A veteran Wikipedia editor, known as "Zeq," who according to the emails is colluding with CAMERA, also provided advice to CAMERA volunteers on how they could disguise their agenda. In a 20 March email often in misspelled English, Zeq writes, "You don't want to be precived [sic] as a 'CAMERA' defender' on wikipedia [sic] that is for sure." One strategy to avoid that is to "edit articles at random, make friends not enemies -- we will need them later on. This is a marathon not a sprint."

Zeq also identifies, in a 25 March email, another Wikipedia editor, "Jayjg," whom he views as an effective and independent pro-Israel advocate. Zeq instructs CAMERA operatives to work with and learn from Jayjg, but not to reveal the existence of their group even to him fearing "it would place him in a bind" since "[h]e is very loyal to the wikipedia [sic] system" and might object to CAMERA's underhanded tactics.

"Uninvolved administrators"

The emphasis on secrecy is apparently not only to aid the undetected editing of articles, but also to facilitate CAMERA's takeover of key administrator positions in Wikipedia.

For Zeq a key goal is to have CAMERA operatives elected as administrators -- senior editors who can override the decisions of others when controversies arise. When disputes arise about hotly contested topics, such as Israel and Palestine, often only an "uninvolved administrator" -- one who is considered neutral because he or she has not edited or written articles on the topic -- can arbitrate.

Hence, Zeq advises in a 21 March email that "One or more of you who want to take this route should stay away from any Israel realted [sic] articles for one month until they [sic] interact in a positive way with 100 wikipedia [sic] editors who would be used later to vote you as an administrator."

Once these CAMERA operatives have successfully infiltrated as "neutral" editors, they could then exercise their privileges to assert their own political agenda.

In addition, Zeq suggests making deliberately provocative edits to Palestine-related articles. He hopes that editors he assumes are Palestinian will delete these changes, and then CAMERA operatives could report them to administrators so they could be sanctioned and have their editing privileges suspended.

Passing propaganda as fact

Gilead Ini's 17 March email provides specific advice on how to pass off pro-Israel propaganda or opinion as fact meeting Wikipedia's strict guidelines:

"So, for example, imagine that you get rid of or modify a problematic sentence in an article alleging that 'Palestinian [sic] become suicide bombers to respond to Israel's oppressive policies.' You should, in parallel leave a comment on that article's discussion page (either after or before making the change). Avoid defending the edit by arguing that 'Israel's policies aren't 'oppression,' they are defensive. And anyway Palestinians obviously become suicide bombers for other reasons for example hate education!' Instead, describe how this sentence violates Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. One of the core principles is that assertions should adhere to a Neutral Point of View, usually abbreviated NPOV. (The opposite of NPOV is POV, or Point of View, which is basically another way of saying subjective statement, or opinion.) So it would be best to note on the discussion page that 'This sentence violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy, since the description of Israel's policies as 'oppressive' is an opinion. In addition, it is often noted by Middle East experts that one of the reasons Palestinians decide to become suicide bombers is hate education and glorification of martyrdom in Palestinian society ...'"

In fact, there have been numerous studies debunking claims about Palestinian "hate education," or "glorification of martyrdom" causing suicide bombings (such as Dying to Win by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape) though this claim remains a favorite canard of pro-Israel activists seeking to distract attention from the effects of Israel's occupation and other well-documented and systematic human rights abuses in fueling violence.

Zeq specifically names articles targeted for this kind of treatment including those on the 1948 Palestinian Exodus, Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, Hamas, Hizballah, Arab citizens of Israel, anti-Zionism, al-Nakba, the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian right of return.

Interestingly the CAMERA editors also target the article on the early Islamic period concept of Dhimmi, a protected status for non-Muslims which historically allowed Jews to thrive in Muslim-ruled lands while other Jews were being persecuted in Christian Europe. Pro-Israel activists have often tried to portray the concept of Dhimmi as akin to the Nuremberg laws in order to denigrate Muslim culture and justify ahistorical Zionist claims that Jews could never live safely in majority Muslim countries.

Also among the emails is a discussion about how to alter the article on the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the village of Deir Yassin by Zionist militiamen on 9 April 1948. Unable to debunk the facts of the massacre outright, the CAMERA activists hunt for quotes from "reputable historians" who can cast doubt on it. Their strategy is not dissimilar from those who attempt to present evolution, or global climate change as "controversial" regardless of the weight of the scientific evidence, simply because the facts do not accord with their belief system.

Zeq has already made extensive edits to the Wikipedia article on Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist murdered by an Israeli soldier in the occupied Gaza Strip on 16 March 2003. As a result of these and other edits Zeq has himself been a controversial figure among Wikipedia editors, suggesting his own stealth tactics may not be working.

"We will go to war"

Zeq, however, counsels CAMERA operatives to be patient and lie low until they build up their strength. "We will go to war after we have build our army, equiped it trained [sic]," he wrote on 9 April. "So please if you want to win this war help us build ou[r] army. let's not just rush in and achieve nothing, or abit more than nothing [sic]."

Update 22 April 2008

A plan by the pro-Israel pressure group CAMERA to skew the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in a pro-Israel direction appears to have collapsed after it was exposed by EI.

On 21 April, EI published emails and action alerts posted by CAMERA staff and collaborators on a closed listserv instructing would-be editors how to game the Wikipedia system so they could impose their hard-line pro-Israel agenda undetected.

Following EI's report, Gilead Ini a CAMERA staffer and Wikipedia editor informed members of the group that, "Because member of this group [sic] affiliated with the anti-Israel propaganda cite [sic] Electronic Intifada decided to share the content of our discussions, I will be temporarily or permanently closing access to the group, in hopes that members' personal contact information will not be made public."

Meanwhile, Wikipedia administrators issued a ban on Zeq, the editor who was helping CAMERA to groom new editors to subvert Wikipedia's quality control process. Zeq has been prohibited from editing Israel-Palestine related articles and administrators were debating further action. Based on the evidence in the emails released by EI, Wikipedia administrators accused Zeq of violating fundamental Wikipedia principles and guidelines. In response, Zeq alleged that the accusations were merely the result of a "conspiracy" which he termed "The (e-mail) protocols of the elder of CAMERA [sic]." Zeq even alleged that The EI itself "may have created the story or created the group or spoofed e-mails."

Today EI publishes additional emails that further expose the CAMERA plan. These emails also reveal that while Zeq is willing to accuse others of prejudice he may hold some himself. In one email he commends an editor whom he considers to be "anti-Islamic." And, in an echo of the kind of anti-Semitic thinking that CAMERA sees everywhere, Zeq alleges that "the other side" -- an apparent reference to Palestinians and Muslims -- "is orgenized well, they control wkipedia [sic]."

Information obtained by EI indicates that while Gilead Ini claimed that more than 50 volunteers had come forward to participate in CAMERA's plan, and the group had set its sights on creating dozens of new editors and administrators over a long period of time, fewer than a dozen were active at the time EI exposed the scheme. Because the effort was apparently in its early stages, only a handful had become active as Wikipedia editors.

[Dogsmilk]

[Alexander]

You do a lot of yawning and groaning i've noticed. You should get more sleep and fresh air.

Page 49 and 50 of Juergen Graf's book, Hoax or Holocaust, details the many different totals of dead at Auschwitz...I select a few, there are many more...


7 million according to former Jewish inmate Raphael Feigelsohn

6 million people according to Jewish publisher Tibere Kremer

5 million people, including 4.5 million Jews, according to Le Monde, 1978

4 miilion people according to the Nuremberg Tribunal

3.5 million gassings(95% of whom were Jews) according to film director Claude Lanzmann.

3 million victims according to the "confession" of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess

2.5 million people according to Jewish inmate/escapee Rudolf Vrba

2 to 3 million murdered Jews according to the confession of SS man Pery Broad

1.5 to 3.5 million gassed Jews according to "holocaust expert" Yehuda Bauer, 1982

2 million gassed Jews according to Lucy Dawidowitz

1,358,920 murdered Jews according to Yehuda Bauer(again), 1989


I could go on....it's a moveable feast. But no matter the number of reduced dead at Auschwitz(Pressac says a max of 550,000 Jewish victims,1994) the overall total remains constant.

[kbo234]

[TonyGosling]

Off you go again - lets have more references/fact/kindness and less innuendo/baggage/anger

Moved to controversies

[Dogsmilk]

LOL, as ever Alexander wades in and proves the point.

I'm not seeing historians coming out with a 4 million figure there dude.

And you are surely aware the 4 million was not ratified by Nuremburg...? IIRC the Soviets put it forward (after all, this number originally comes from them) but it was not ratified by the tribunal. Jurgen Graf won't tell you that of course (it's Faurrison's list but he'll know that). I can't speak for the accuracy of all his claimed estimates and his mendacity here shows he's (unsurprisingly) willing to lie, but let's assume he's being reasonably accurate elsewhere. Though hang on...Hoess didn't give just one estimate did he...?

If that list is the best your crack denial team can do, then it's pretty feeble isn't it? There aren't actually that many more on the list (you quote 11 out of 19. That list is obviously not exhaustive) and the ones you choose to omit (apart from some film) are - for some reason - lower ones. Fancy that!

Estimates from witnesses are, of course, to be scrutinised. I can name you other inmates that gave high estimates. Witnesses tend not to analyse the data and write the history books.

The only thing remotely relevant is Bauer allegedly giving a big margin.
Not one historian on that list saying four million. You'd think Mr Graf would have found some...?

[TonyGosling]

[conspiracy analyst]

Why was Dr. Nicks face published in the Observer-Cohens piece?

If as it has been reported on this site by others at the last anti-war demo Americans confronted 9/11 Truthers as Holocaust Deniers then it implies this whole episode was engineered to cause maximum effect create dissaray and promote the world view that 9/11 deniers are in reality ...nazis.

Now where have we heard that one before?

Cohen branded the left which was anti-war as being ...islamo-fascist.
Cohen branded Saddam as the greatest enemy since ...Hitler.

Being an office boy most of his life the only actual struggle he was probably ever involved in was trying to write garbage after going out on a piss up.

For after all if being a neo-con makes you a premier anti-fascist then being an anti-neo-con must make you a premier... fascist.

But as Cohens tongue is so far down the American boots one wonders what he has actually done and why is he defending them so vehemently? At this rate it will come unstuck and no amount of froth from his pen will save him. Has he not realised that it is sinking faster than anyone imagined and they will soon run out of the $$$ he craves.

[andyb]

Nick Cohen likes a drink or three.

[conspiracy analyst]

What is ironic is that there is a Nobel Prize Dr James Watson winner who argues racial geneticism of the ilk that 'white brains' are bigger than 'black ones'

An article detailing his racialist views...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2677098.ece

Taking into account that the middle passage of the slave trade is considered as a Holocaust much in the same manner as the extinction of American Indians and Australian Aboriginees are its amazing that Nick Cohen hasn't asked for this Nobel Prize winner to be stripped of his Nobel prize.

After all there is only one Holocaust that is above and beyond all others isn't there?

We also have our own version of the above who still teaches

[rodin]

[paul wright]