by Felix Quigley
July 11, 2008
The issue of Libel has arisen again in the British Blogosphere. This time it is the Islamofascists of Hamas who are preventing open discussion of their policies and programme in front of the British working class and British people in general.
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/07/10/were-being-sued-by-hamas-uk/#comments
Of course we on 4international without reservation defend the right of total free expression in the Media and on the Internet and we will fight to the death against Islamofascists who try to deny this freedom.
Hence without reservation and without conditions we defend David Taub and the Harry’s Place organization in the face of Islamofascist attack.
In the interest of truth, however, we point out that David Taub and Harry’s Place have been a supporter of the Islamofascist Izetbegovic in the Balkans.
Furthermore Taub and Harry’s Place were in support of Kamm, and were silent on Kamm, when he threatened legal action using the very same British reactionary libel Laws back a year or so ago, against the Jewish Canadian website Israpundit.
I recall this series of emails between the editor of Israpundit Ted Belman, who was being threatened by Kamm, and Kamm himself.
It is good to bring this up at this time because it reminds us what a political low life is Kamm and what political low lifes and political nonentities are on Harry’s Place.
[start exchange of emails here]
Original Message —–
From: “Oliver Kamm” <oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk>
To: <israpundit@sympatico.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:44 AM
Subject: From Oliver Kamm
Dear Mr Belman,
My attention has been drawn to comments left on your site, “IsraPundit”,in the last few days by what appear to be regular contributors. The comments are attached to a piece by the British journalist Melanie Phillips, who mentionsme in passing. The context of the comments (irrelevantly to Melanie’s article) is the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which I was a supporter of Western militaryintervention against the aggression of Slobodan Milosevic.
Your contributors, instead of stating factually my position on this issue,call me an “Islamist wolf” who “pretends to be pro-Israel” but is an “enemyof the Jewish people”. Beyond these characteristics – which according toyour contributors I share with the Canadian Liberal politician and writeron human rights Michael Ignatieff, so I am at least in distinguished company- I am supposedly a supporter of “Nazi mass murderers of Jews and Serbs inBosnia and Kosovo” and defend “genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
There are numerous ludicrous and abusive accusations against me in obscurecorners on the Internet, and my unvarying practice is to ignore them evenin cases of obvious defamation. But these vile remarks on your site, whichyour contributors will be completely unable to substantiate with reference to anything I have said or written, go far beyond anything I am prepared to let pass without protest. I do not believe in censorship of your contributors’political opinions, but I certainly request that you make it clear on yoursite that you deprecate such libels, and that there will be no repetitionof them. This should be done in your own words and not by reproducing thisemail, otherwise it will not be the statement of editorial position thatit needs to be.The article and comments are here: http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=3845
Sincerely.
Oliver Kamm
Original Message —–
From: Ted
To: oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 11:14 PM
Subject: Re: From Oliver Kamm
Allow me to clarify some facts first. I myself know very little regarding the Balkans.
Their comments allege,
“Beware of the Islamist wolf, Oliver Kamm. Anyone who can support the Bosnian Islamofascist mass murderer, Alija Izetbegovic, is no real friend of the Jews or Israel despite the abundant layers of sheeps clothing.
Kamm, as a supposed friend of the Jews, even has the brazen audacity to defend Izetbegovic’s genocide against the Christian Serbs during the 90’s and even denies Izetbegovic’s WW2 SS Nazi Muslim “Handzar” division background as an SS auxiliary member of this notorious division, via his recruiting activities in the Islamist Nazi Bosnian “Young Muslims” organization, in early 1943!
Izetbegovic acted as an SS auxiliary by volunteering as a prime recruiter for the 20,000 plus strong Himmler-created Waffen SS “Handzar” division during WW2 in Bosnia.Kamm denies this irrefutable fact of history.
50 years later, in early 1993, Izetbegovic even named his 6,000 plus strong personal praetorian body guards the “Handzar” division in honor of the WW2 Handzar Muslim SS division which was notorious for its heinous atrocities against Serbs, Jews and Roma!!
Kamm of course either denies or tries to whitewash all of this by giving it his own personal “spin” on history.
If Kamm can support Islamofascism in Bosnia over a period of 15 years, he cannot be trusted not to support it in the Middle East, despite outward appearances.”
Belman continued:
Are you taking the position that Izetbegovic isn’t an islamofascist or that when you supported him that you didn’t know about him.
Did you in fact defend Izetbegovic as alleged in the second paragraph ?
Or are you saying that though you supported Izetbegovic who you knew to be an Islamofascist that doesn’t make you an “enemy of the Jews”
Do you deny his background as alleged. If so was it because you didn’t know? If so do you accept it now and have you acknowleged it?
It is also alleged that you deny that there is a Jihad against the Serbs? Do you?
It is further alleged that
“both Kamm & Ignatieff have defended the Ceku/Haradinaj/Thaci KLA Islamofascists in Kosovo and the Izetbegovic SDA Islamofascists in Bosnia in their genocide and ethnic cleansing of 350,000 people –
including the brutal expulsion of the entire Jewish community in Pristina – since EU/NATO troops & UN officials took over the province of Kosovo in June ‘99).
Is this allegation false? If so, on what basis? Is it because you didn’t do it or because they are not Islamofascists?
In any event, I will ask them “to substantiate with reference to anything I have said or written, ”
Please answer my questions while they attempt to substantiate the case against you if they can.
Depending on what they substantiate and what you articulate with respect to my questions I will be happy to set the record straight.
Ted Belman.
From: Oliver Kamm
To: Ted
Cc: m.hoare@kingston.ac.uk
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: From Oliver Kamm
Having 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 Cambridge historian 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 claim that 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
The British Libel Laws are an abomination. They are used continually to stifle that most precious commodity for the British working class, freedom of thought and expression.
Now it is the Islamofascists in Britain and Canada who are using these laws in that way.
But remember THEN it was the ITN who were using the same laws to close down Living Marxism, an action which Harry’s Place and I presume Taub also, certainly Kamm and Hoare, applauded with all their venemous support. The best you can say about Taub is that he said nothing when these Libel actions by ITN and Kamm were underway and threatened.
And in the above Emails is not Kamm also using these laws against a Jewish website.
Kamm may or may not agree with Israpundit’s Zionism but he could have answered with words. He was in a strong position to do so. But no, as servant of US and British Imperialism, it really was more natural for Kamm to reach for the Law Courts, vital part of the British capitalist state dictatorship.
4international 