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into Forward’s “Top Fifty”: write a book, throw in
a few lies, then sit in a London courtroom for
three months, refuse to testify, and say NOT ONE
WORD
[Picture added by this website]
http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.12.29/forwardfifty.html
The Forward
Fifty
1. Joseph Liebermann [… ]
2. Deborah Lipstadt
Many consider her a heroine worth of her biblical namesake, after she successfully defended herself this year in a libel suit against Holocaust denier David
Irving in Britain’s High Court.
The
10-week trial culminated in a scathing decision against Mr. Irving, and marginalized the so-called historian for his suspect research. Mr. Irving brought suit against Ms. Lipstadt and her British publisher, Penguin Books, alleging that she damaged his academic reputation in her 1994 book, “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and
Memory.”
A professor of history at Emory University in
Atlanta, she had called Mr. Irving “one of the most dangerous spokesmen in the service of Holocaust denial” because he challenged the scope of the
Holocaust and disputed the number and manner of
Jewish concentration camp deaths.
In the trial, watched by millions worldwide, Ms.
Lipstadt and her legal team refused to countenance a hearing on whether the Holocaust happened.
Instead they took the offensive, attacking Mr.
Irving. In his April ruling, the judge labeled Mr.
Irving an anti-Semite and a racist.
As Holocaust denial stands to gain a vast new audience on the World Wide Web, the decision sets an important legal and historic precedent. Ms.
Lipstadt said she saw the victory not merely as personal, but also as a blow “for all those who speak out against hate and prejudice.”
3. [ … etc.]
New York
Website fact: The stamina of the defence team in the Lipstadt libel action was aided by a six million dollar slushfund provided by Steven Spielberg, Edgar
J Bronfman, and the American Jewish Committee, which enabled them to pay 21 lawyers and “experts”. A million pound lollipop was figuratively brandished from the defence lawyers’ table throughout the trial, and all those who behaved got a lick at it; their experts like the “scholars”
Prof. Evans, Prof.
Longerich and others were paid up to
£125,000 each (on top of the academic salaries they continued to draw) to testify as they did. Nobody was paying for Mr Irving. His witnesses testified without payment, from conviction. [Help!]
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