KAMM’S IDEA OF FREE SPEECH

Kamm has just boasted again on his blog that he is for free speech. Our memories are different.

by Felix Quigley

Well big deal! Oliver Kamm has decided to allow comments on his boring and self-absorbed blog. As they say in impolite circles, who gives a shit! That is not the issue here. What is the issue though is that in announcing this amazing feat Kamm plumbs the very depths of hypocrisy. Like this: 

“I’m a near-absolutist on the issue of free speech, and I strongly defend the right to express (for example) racist opinions and Holocaust denial, and indeed to be a racist and an antisemite. But I see no libertarian requirement whatever for me to be the publisher of such opinions. I do not have a monopoly of the communications media or of the means of law enforcement. You don’t have a right to say anything you like on my site, any more than you have at my dinner table.”

(Comments Policy, February 2, 2008) 

I am not sure if you the reader would wish to sit around Kamm’s table anyway but you really do get a sense of the insufferable smugness of the British middle classes with that remark. But it is on his love for “free speech” that is most amazing for those who know something of his past. The issue centred on Kamm’s support for the Islamofascist and Nazi supporting Izetbegovic and when a young lad from Australia, Nathan Pearlstein, referred to this support for a Nazi coming from Kamm in his writing on many occasions, then Kamm without a moment of hesitation blasted off this insulting email to Ted Belman, good Jewish man and editor of the wonderful Jewish website, Israpundit: 

“From: Oliver Kamm
To: Ted
Cc: m.hoare@kingston.ac.uk
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: From Oliver KammHaving read your commendation of the work of the “Srebrenica Research Group” on the victims of the Srebrenica massacre, I agree that you know next to nothing about the Balkans. When you make or publish grave accusations against someone – and there could be no more grave charge against a political commentator than that he supports “Nazi mass murderers” and defends genocide and ethnic cleansing – then the onus is on you to demonstrate your case rather than engage in the casuistry of demanding from the victim of those libels that he prove a negative. To make your task easier, I am providing you with the sole comment I have ever put in the public domain on the subject of the late Alia Izetbegovic. It is to report the judgement – which I solicited directly – of the Cambridgehistorian Marko Attila Hoare, a specialist in Balkan history, on the allegation concerning Izetbegovic’s war record: “Marko could find no direct source [substantiating the claim]. The closest he could get to it was a claimthat the Serbian historian Milan Bulajic – a genuine if not entirely objective authority on the Croatian Ustashe – wrote to the journalist David Binder, claiming he had found a transcript of Izetbegovic’s 1946 trial, in which the prosecution alleged that Izetbegovic had recruited for the SS during WW2, and Izetbegovic made no attempt to deny it, but merely excused himself on the grounds of his extreme youth. Marko is careful not to rule out the possibility that this is true, and Bulajic is a credible source, but as things stand, this is merely third-hand hearsay.”
I would ask that you now either substantiate your contributors’ allegations against me or publish a proper retraction within 24 hours. I am taking the liberty of forwarding this exchange to Dr Hoare. If I have heard nothing from you by this time tomorrow, I shall in addition forward it to my legal representatives, Charles Russell LLP of London.
Oliver Kamm 

https://4international.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/kamm-and-the-law/#more-19

As we remarked before here you are facing a different side of Kamm that he does not usually show to his readers. There is none of the urbanity and controlled contempt that he keeps in reserve for everybody around him on his boring blog. Here Kamm has exploded in hatred against Jewish site Israpundit. 

Nor was there any of his claimed tolerance of free speech either! All Kamm had to do was ask Nathan Pearlstein for further elaboration on the issue of Izetbegovic.

For example, he could have asked did Nathan have any evidence that Izetbegovic was a Jew Hating Islamofascist and a racist, one who especially hated Serbs. In fact Nathan had a bucket full of evidence and perhaps that is the key to the strange and intemperate behaviour to Nathan and Ted Belman on that infamous day

 Because what we now think is likely is that Kamm, knowing that in this case the evidence was there and Kamm simply went into bullying mode. The research had been done by wonderful scholars such as Jared Israel and Francisco Gil White, so that Kamm would actually be on a loser in open debate. So Kamm, who is a Merchant Banker I am told, had resource to the iniquitous to journalism British Libel laws. He did not have any case but knowing the vulnerability of writers in the face of these discriminatory laws went into this all too common in his case “bullying mode”. It is thus with some irony, and a fair amount of contempt, that we saw a few days ago Kamm claiming to be a great practitioner of “free speech”! Telling his readers that he is a “near absolutist” on free speech! Those who know the score must be livid with rage!       Neil I had warm feeling from the last time when you told me that rather than being any stalinist you were a libertarian I think you said. I am confident we can work out in time our disagreements on the palestine Israel issue. But in any case for any of us to go forward we have to create a situation of free speech and open debate. I am convinced that this needs a bitter struggle with Kamm, Hoare, and the Venichas etc on Harrys Place, as well as most of the rotting British and Irish Media Have you seen the site myself and a few friends have launched, it is www.4international.wordpress.com. You know I think Peter and Nathan. As I expected kamm and friends are trying silence. But I do not think that can work. There are too many people who hate what he stands for. Please read my site and see if you would like to give exposure to some of the things I and we raise. Not everything at once, but a bit now, a bit later etc. and that really is how I am tackling this problem myself. Expose Kamm by a thousand cuts. Kamm and friends go for the weak and usually insignificant point in a debate. Remember that ISSA bullshit! They are like buzzards. But we have heaps to expose them politically. Having read my site  will you consider helping. Silence will be hard for these people if you carry material on your excellent and well established site, and in fact it would be explosive for Kamm.I think he senses this may happen because he is saying now that you need a break! He is nothing but cunning, I will give him that, but that is all!All the best Neil  Felix  I was reading an article of yours on Dragodan cenetary in Kosovo, a reply from McShane to Ian Duncan. That was interesting in itself in that there is some principle in some old time conservatives re the serbs and their role in the war against Hitler. I thought your analysis was very sharp. I am sure you will allow me to quote you etc. I am working on all this stuff as part of my effort to expose Kamm.