Harry's Place

Having brought up this matter with Mr Wallis himself this is the reply he sent to me:

“Dear Patrick

If this refers to a statement on Harry’s Place by an anonymous blogger then it is a pathetic lie.

I note that you also do not indicate who you are in real life.

Please note that it is libelous to impute ideas to people that they do not hold.

Sean”

I’m very confused. Is he now saying that he actually said what was reported on Harry’s place ? If so I fail to see how I could possibly have libeled him (aside from private email correspondence being not applicable) given that he now seems to have admitted that he did indeed make the comments in question. I somewhat suspect that he is as barking as his brother.

but spreading antisemitic theories makes you a nazi.

Well….No it doesn’t. It makes you an anti-semite, a racist, a fool, an idiot, even an illiterate, but it is a non-sequitor to suggest that merely being an anti-semite makes you a NAZI.

No-one would call Stalin a NAZI.

Otherwise a good post.

It’s what John Wight said.

What a vile little man he is.

He’d have been much wiser not trying to defend himself. His astonishingly poor attempts to wriggle out of what he’s done only make him seem worse than he already did.

I repeat what I said earlier: the real tragedy is that they let this nasty bigot anywhere near the education system.

If so I fail to see how I could possibly have libeled him (aside from private email correspondence being not applicable)

Unfortunately anything in writing could be considered libel.

I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet.

Pythonesque!

What is his answer to the simple question: to what then were you alluding?

“A theory isn’t antisemitic just because it’s spread by Nazis – but spreading antisemitic theories makes you a nazi.”

‘have to say, Joe has a point.

What Sean said speaks for itself, there is no need to embellish.

What? He appears to be saying that a thesis about Jews, Lehman Brothers, and missing money – that he himself described earlier as “a racist right-wing US conspiracy theory regarding the Lehman Brothers” – was arrived at by himself – quite independently! What a strange mind he has!

Erm, no, he appears to be saying he wasn’t alluding to that theory. The question then becomes, what was he alluding to? I’m afraid this post constitutes a Fisk Fail.

‘have to say, Joe has a point.
zkharya 3 June 2009, 7:02 am

Please try not to sound so incredulous about it. :-)

Erm, no, he appears to be saying he wasn’t alluding to that theory.
Red Deathy 3 June 2009, 7:04 am

Well Red. It is semantically true that Wallis denies that he was referring to any theory circulating on the internet. It is also semantically true that Wallis came up entirely on his own (by his own testimony) that money missing from Lehman Brothers accounts was funding some conspiracy to silence UCU critics of Israel.

As Lucy Lips points out, it is irrelevant whether Wallis is paraphrasing some website, or if he was able to concoct the conspiracy in his own tiny head, it still amounts to the same thing …

this post is another very poor attempt to imply he is guilty of antisemitism using very shady imputations and ‘evidence’ which relies on misreading and insinuation.

The statement he’s made isn’t ‘pythonesque’, he’s categorically saying that when he spoke he wasn’t referring to a conspiracy theory – a theory which he later found out about, beceause peopel were accusing him of believing in it. what’s so hard to understand about that?

This is just an upmarket version of trolling and it’s very tedious.

…he’s categorically saying that when he spoke he wasn’t referring to a conspiracy theory – a theory which he later found out about,…

Correct, he came up with the conspiracy all on his own. It is still a conspiracy theory!

Awefully fishy, I might say, that he just happens to paraphrase some nutter on the internet when he does it. Some academics might be concerned about plagiarism.

Joe,

Well Red. It is semantically true that Wallis denies that he was referring to any theory circulating on the internet.

Again, no, he denies he was alluding to “a theory”, the article is singular.

How about a few examples from this “long track record” of “defending Jews”? On what occasion were Jews in British universities under attack (and from whom) and how did Sean Wallis defend them?

Considering UCL has a substantial Jewish Studies department, I supose defending Jewish members of staff from management may well have occurred repeatedly…

“It would have been better to invoke the famous ‘Delich defence’ and to claim you didn’t knowthey were nazis.”

Which might be a bit tough for a senior lecturer to pull off, even in Britain’s devalued education system….

Look – he hasn’t denied that he said it. Perhaps someone even has a recording. And there will certainly have been several people at that meeting. So he can’t take back the words.

The words themselves are a reworking of classic tropes associating Jews with money, power and secret control.

So, either he took the words from somewhere else or he came up with them himself.

I think he got it from somewhere else, but you can’t prove it. And he knows it. But that doesn’t change anything. It’s the words themselves that incriminate him. Simple as that.

demonstrative – to what then was he referring?
His own theory?
Great.

He either repeated an antisemitic conspiracy theory, or he made his own one up. Both options are hideous, but the second one is worse if anything.

Red, I am no English professor, but read what he wrote on his profile page carefully

At the time of speaking I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet.

The “singular article” refers clearly, in this sentence, to the conspiracy theory on the internet.

Joe,

you said “any” he said “a” (any includes all, whereas he was discussing a specific one).

Sorry, but if you’re to proceed by picking apart people’s words, you need to be careful yourself.

Red

What is your point? Sean Wallis denies plucking a conspiracy theory from the internet. OK, so it wasn’t theory A he plucked, rather it was another theory B?

That somehow makes it better?

Me thinks you clutch at straws rather than admit error.

OK Red, this should make you happier

Well Red. It is semantically true that Wallis denies that he was referring to A theory circulating on the internet. (Perhaps he was referring to another theory?) It is also semantically true that Wallis came up entirely on his own (by his own testimony) that money missing from Lehman Brothers accounts was funding some conspiracy to silence UCU critics of Israel.

Sheesh!

“There is a conspriracy theory circulating on the internet. Wallis was not alluding to it, because, he says, at the time he was not aware of its existence.”

See, all very perfectly singular and gramatical, and singularly gramatical.

Can I be the first to suggest someone asks the gentleman:

“Wat you talkin’ ’bout Wallis?”?

Everybody! I’m not anti-semitic!

You see I came up with the theory that Jews had squirrelled money away from Lehman Brothers, and that this money was then used to attempt to silence criticism of Israel!

All by myself!

It was me, not racists!

Frequent confrontations with John Game on this site have shown that it is futile to expect an honest, straightforward answer from a Swuppie.

If we take Wallis at his word when he claims he was not aware of any conspiracy theory about Lehman Brothers and Jewish bankers when he made his comments, then bizarrely the only explanation is that he must have arrived at this theory all by himself.

Which presents the question… How?!?

And the further question… Can Wallis manage to dig himself into an even deeper hole?

Who’s his brother?

Is it just me or does Wallis look like a German tank commander, circa August 1944, Falaise Pocket?

Hmmm, perhaps not, that would imply a certain amount of military skill and even bravery. How about Einsatzgruppen private, September 1941, Babi Yar?

Yes. That fits nicely.

“Who’s his brother?”

Grommit?

Red Deathy:

“Considering UCL has a substantial Jewish Studies department, I supose defending Jewish members of staff from management may well have occurred repeatedly…”

In fact, it is probably among the chief reasons why UCL UCU have turned down a boycott, as Wallis voted on their behalf.

I suspect this is rather embarassing for him.

In the event of such a boycott, Anglo-Jewish studies departments will be among the hardest hit.

I found out, his brother designs computer games (sometimes with the assistence of Sean). Very colourful site. The thought has just occurred to me, if this fellow researches into English Usage, shoukdn’t he be more aware of how he phrases sentences to remove any room for ambiguity.

“Sometimes a girl can’t resist”
Hope you are wracking your brain, desperately trying to come up with a non-sexist reason for this remark

I find this article sexist.

I’d like to see some evidence that he actually said it. As far as I can see all we have as a source is some anonymous blogger, and Wallis appears to deny having said it. Where’s the evidence?

Hope you are wracking your brain, desperately trying to come up with a non-sexist reason for this remark

Christ. If that’s the where you’re setting the bar for sexism, what’s next for the chopping block?

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”?

Better get cracking on your campaign to eradicate all popular music from the airwaves!

“Wallis appears to deny having said it.”

Where?

What he says is: “At the time of speaking I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet.”

To me that appears like an admission that he said it, but a denial that he was merely repeating a similar comment made by someone else.

If he denies having said it, then what was he “not alluding to”?

He would surely have simply said “I said no such thing” and NOT “I was not alluding to that theory”.

Don’t be dense Irie.

At the time of speaking I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet.

Excuse me, what was objectionable about my last comment? I’m beginning to feel persecuted.

For a scientist, Irie, you show a baffling willingness to stretch logic to breaking point.

Exactly if he never said it the simplest defense would be “I have never nor would ever make such a remark”. He doesn’t and instead says:

I am concerned to be accused of anti-Semitism following remarks I made at the UCU Congress last week. At the time of speaking I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet. I categorically deny all allegations of anti-Semitism.

So the point remains he accepts making the comment but didn’t mean what Lucy Lips thinks he meant. Which begs the question what was he alluding too?

I take it that the Irie at 9.05 is a false one having a laugh. If not, then I can only surmise that the real Irie is absolutely shit thick. As well as being a murderous anti-semite of course.

I’d like to read what he actually said in full, rather than the version of some anonymous blogger. It is a partial quote that is given, and from that half sentence this whole story hangs.

I am thinking of opening a shop selling straws, seeing as there seems to be so much clutching of them here by apologists of anti-Jewish racism.

He hasn’t denied saying it, TheIrie: he has denied that he was influenced by an Internet conspiracy theory, and suggested that he came up with the antisemtic lie independently. So that’s all right then.

I am going to report Wallis to the relevant educational bodies. I urge others to do the same.

Well you must ask him

He won’t tell anybody what he meant by it, as you can see.

The only hint he will give is that, although he accepts that he did talk about legal actions being funded by people with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down”, this was not a reference to the conspiracy theory about Jews siphoning off $400 billion from Lehmans and hiding it in Israel.

What it does refer to, he refuses to tell us.

My guess is that either:

(a) he has an explanation but won’t share it as it is still a racist explanation; or

(b) he hasn’t come up with an explanation yet.

Were you at the conference Lucy Lips?

have you ever met an anti-semite you didn’t like, ire?

TheIrie: is there any context in which Wallis could have said it that you would disapprove of?

TheIrie

“It is a partial quote that is given, and from that half sentence this whole story hangs.”

Ah – the “out of context” defence. It’s bollocks. If the story hangs on it being out-of-context, the obvious action for mr Wallis is to quote the full context – job done.

Such as “I have heard others say that there are threats from lawyers with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down.” but this is a scandalous anti-semitic trope and I will do everything in my power to refute such allegations as and where I encounter them”.

He hasn’t done so. Ergo it is vanishingly unlikely that the remark is indeed sufficiently out of context to provide a credible defence.

“Were you at the conference Lucy Lips?”

Just for future reference: is it your position that somebody can only comment on a statement that has been made if they were physically present when it was made?

What I’m saying is that a half sentence “quote” from an anonymous source, from an unscripted comment at a conference that wasn’t recorded is not sufficient evidence to plaster “Sean Wallis is an anti-Semite” all over the internet. I’d like to know if Lucy is the anonymous source, or if this is also second hand.

TheIrie: If there is an innocent explanation then it’s odd that Wallis refuses to share it.

Is there any context in which Wallis could have said it that you would disapprove of?

TheIrie –

Ariel Kovler was at the fringe meeting.

Here is his report of what was said –

http://www.fairplaycg.org.uk/2009/05/ucu-whatever-did-he-mean-by-that/

Sean Wallis responds in the comments.

Notice he does not deny making the statement in question.

Give it a rest.

Danny – everything you and others here are saying is speculative. I’m not going to speculate – I want to see evidence, and if there is none then this is a non-story.

You got your evidence, now off you go to have drinks and laughs with Wallis, seems like you two would do great together.

“I’d like to know if Lucy is the anonymous source, or if this is also second hand.”

It’s irrelevant, since Wallis has not denied making the statement. What’s more, it’s not as if he’s maintaining a dignified silence – he’s made several statements of clarification on the issue, and in all he appears to accept having made the statement and merely disputes the provenance of the idea.

As someone noted earlier, teh reasonable person would simply have said ‘That’s not what I said!’ Wallis has taken the strange tack of ‘That is not what I meant! – but without giving any clues as to what he might have meant instead.

Mark T seems to have just provided the evidence.

Mark – I’ve seen that. He describes it as a “slur” and a “slander”.

“Mark – I’ve seen that. He describes it as a “slur” and a “slander”.”

No, he describes the interpretation given to his remarks as the ’slur’ and the ’slander’. He does not deny having made the remarks.

Only one person can clear all this up.

“Only one person can clear all this up.”

Yup. And he’s had several stabs at it and yet we’re none the wiser.

Wriggle, TheIrie, wriggle.

Speaking of slurs, whether the “Lehman brothers” joke was antisemitic or not, it was a open-and-shut slur on the Lehman brothers.

Wa-haha, Brett!

Let’s simply ignore TheWhiney.

“This is my theory-my theory that I have- it belongs to me”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAYDiPizDIs

Someone comments there:The sad part is I have a prof who lectures like that.

Could this commenter be referring to Mr Wallis?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089457.html

I don’t think Wallis denies having said this, rather that it was “taken out of context” i.e. he didn’t acquire it from a stormfront website, rather somewhere else, or himself.

It seems to me the “slur” consists in someone’s having heard, and reported, what he said when he would rather they had not.

“I am concerned to be accused”

Is that idiomatic English? Surely it should be “I am concerned at being accused of”.

What’s this man’s job again? But then he’s under a lot of pressure. From those-people-you-know-what-I-mean.

I prefer his Bez-like brother.

TheIrie:

“Danny – everything you and others here are saying is speculative. I’m not going to speculate – I want to see evidence, and if there is none then this is a non-story.”

A witness whom Wallis does not refute says he or she heard Wallis saying anti-boycott lawyers were funded by “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down”.

Wallis makes no attempt to explain what he meant. Which rather suggests he would rather the remark forgotten because it is inexcusable or indefensible since it does allude to an idea, his own or others’, that when Lehrman brothers went bankrupt their monies went somewhere whence anti-boycott lawyers could draw.

Where? Surely not all to anti-boycott British. A common “pot” then. Somewhere “untraceable”, yet connected with Israel, somehow. Where again Wallis does not specify. But, given his associating British lawyers’ contesting a boycott of Israel with Lehrman brothers’ allegedly salted away, untraceable monies, Wallis himself implicitly suggests israel, where an existential theory does so locate Lerhman Brothers’ allegedly lost money.

Wallis can protest this is an unfair or unreasonable interpretation of an elliptical and allusive remark. But he offers no other.

He might be innocent. I can’t think how.

As an addendum to a longer earlier post that may have been moderated first, hence below, Wallis either implies anti-boycott lawyers draw from stolen Lehrman funds in banks of the Israeli state, or in some kind of international Israeli state (something not altogether unlike the “international Jewry” of Classical antisemites, before the state of Israel existed).

Yes, it is amazing that this guy is an SWP-UCU representative at UCL.

’sorry, should be “leHman” throughout.

He is pathetic. But I think he may be just a little ashamed. Probably not enough to actually change though.

I just read his personal statement, and I take it back. This guy is absolutely clueless. La-La Land clueless.

May I add that I think Lucy Lips is doing a very good thing.

British academics guilty of actual racism should be ostracized in exactly the same way they would have Israeli academics ostracized for imaginary racism.

Let’s keep sight of what all this reveals about the wider Israeli boycott movement. Wallis has shone a light on what we already knew.

Chas N-B et al: unfortunately there are no ethical standards within the education system which will keep such racist bigots out. The power differential between students and lecturers is too great and if the latter were to complain about being subjected to political diatribes it would be a pyrrhic victory.

Elsewhere on Harry’s Place, I read of Israelinurse’s son’s experience at university with an anti-Israel lecturer who ranted at him.

I am particularly teased by Wallis’ persistent and insistent denial of what he is witnessed to have said or written. He is vainglorious enough to expect to be believed just because he says something rather than because what he says is true, and yet expects to be excused the consequences of having said what he did just because it is ill-received. He goes further along this road of twisted self-perception when he consequently denies that he said it!

I agree with zkharya:

“..It seems to me the “slur” consists in someone’s having heard, and reported, what he said when he would rather they had not…

In this, Wallis shows himself to be possessed of the same immature morality as many in this government – that things are wrong only if they are caught doing or saying them, and even then they believe that they are entitled to present whatever devious defence they can of their undeveloped sense of morality and to have that believed without question.

TheIrie,

I echo the above statements.

It is plain enough that Wallis does not deny saying something, rather the interpretation that people put on it and that he got it from a neo-Nazi web site, as if that would make it better.

Wallis, I suspect, is NOT a hard core antisemite, he just echoes anti-Jewish racism reflexively, without much thought or knowing its sources, which is probably worse in the case of a senior academic, who’s job is connected to the study of language.

I hope you’ll make a real effort to understand these points, and not be a contrarian just for the sake of it.

Some hope, modernity (re TheIrie not being contrarian just for the sake of it).

Are you saying that Wallis is not a hard core antisemite, he only thinks like an antisemite and speaks like an antisemite and behaves like an antisemite? I believe the phrase is “a distinction without a difference”.

I wrote to Wallis. As expected, he didn’t deny saying those things. Instead, he went on and on and on in circles about the wicked people who are besmirching the reputation of a courageous anti-racist, whose actions speak for themselves. He failed to give even one example. At the end of the day, the only “action” I know about him is that he believes in an anti-Jewish conspiracy theory. Good enough for me. Well, not “good”, but you know what I mean.

modernity: you are being like Charlie Brown and the football, hoping against all experience that TheIrie will change his stance, just this once. But this will not happen with someone who is stalling with “were you there” and “everything you and others here are saying is speculative. I’m not going to speculate – I want to see evidence” in the face of what is uncontested. If you say you were there, he will counter, Ah but where were you sitting. You must have been sitting too far back to have heard him clearly.

Hey,

Where did Red and Irie go?

“If you say you were there, he will counter, Ah but where were you sitting. You must have been sitting too far back to have heard him clearly.”

And TheIrie refuses to answer whether there could ever be a context in which the statement in question would be unacceptable to him/her.

Amie, I am sure the Irie would argue that for millenia, it was not contested that the universe revolved around the earth. Only when that presumption was contested, was the discovery made that infact the Earth is a planet revolving around the Sun, etc.

Of course he would be wrong about that since the presumption was only contested after evidence to the contrary was discovered.

Amie,

OK, I’ll give up being Charlie Brown, but I seriously do hope that even TheIrie would see the issue, granted that’s not likely :)

I think this, from another thread, sums it up nicely:

“Shmuel 2 June 2009, 4:29 pm

“However, this is the point, isn’t it? None of these guys on the extreme Left can recognise antisemitism…This is not “antisemitism without antisemites”. It is that the antisemites don’t know that they’re antisemites.”

Yup, that is the point. These people think that they can *use* antisemitic arguments, and even hold antisemitic *beliefs* without actually *being* antisemites themselves.

Its like riding a bike to work everyday, because you believe its a superior form of transportation, good for the environment etc. but refusing to think of yourself as a cyclist.”

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/06/02/denyrefute/#comment-349398

Wallis, I suspect, is NOT a hard core antisemite, he just echoes anti-Jewish racism reflexively, without much thought or knowing its sources, which is probably worse in the case of a senior academic, who’s job is connected to the study of language.

modernity 3 June 2009, 2:28 pm

Modernity,

These people, who are not hard-core anti-Semite but merely, and unthinkingly think anti-Semitic tropes as true still lined up by their thousands to murder and pillage Jews in Eastern Europe. And even if they did not, by their millions they facilitated their neighbours in murder by not thinking it significant enough to intervene.

The distinction between hard-core anti-Semite and a “lemming” anti-Semite is at best marginal, at worst insignificant to their final behavior.

Well said Shmuel

Is The Irie the only person here who has the courage of his convictions?

Vorwärts, TheIrie!

“Is The Irie the only person here who has the courage of his convictions?”

What was he convicted of?

verdammt!
I meant “beliefs”.

I’m here, whaddayawant?

I remember Lady Diana Mosley being interviewed, a number of years ago.

She was at pains to stress that:

“Oswald and I were accused of being antisemitic, but that was untrue. It is just that the Jews wanted war, and we were against it”.

Nobody ever thinks that they’re antisemitic. They always have a “justifiable” reason for socking it to the Jews.

Too much political power… control over papers… control of banking… to many of them in the professions… they want war… they killed the baby Jesus…

More crude, politically motivated smear mongering. Find me one statement by anyone on the left which talks about “the Jews”, and I’ll conceed your point.

By the way Gert who used to post erm interesting comments here has vowed never to return.

Yesterday, when a Chabad man was confirmed among the dead of the Air France plane tragedy, Gert chose to publish a wicked smear against the Chabad community. http://developing-your-web-presence.blogspot.com/2009/06/chabad-rabbi-destroy-their-holy-sites.html

Presumably that’s not antisemitism either?

Find me one statement by anyone on the left which talks about “the Jews”, and I’ll conceed your point.

Err… The one by Sean Wallis?

FFS!

Irie is not a hardcore Jew hater. When he was round at dad’s last week he soiled himself when dad showed him his Treblinka footage. Then he was sick on the landing.

When he left dad said: ‘that one will be no good come the time’. I had to clean up the mess.

Where Mark? Where has he talked about “the Jews”? I don’t mean where has he used words that you all imagine to mean “the Jews” – i.e. whenever anyone says anything you find uncomfortable.

Joe,

Self evidently there is a difference between the hardcore antisemite and, as you put it, the lemming antisemite.

The hardcore is the one that is utterly consumed by a hatred of Jews. When anything terrible in the world happens the hardcore automatically assumes that Jews are to blame.

Whereas the lemming goes along with a prevailing climate of antagonism towards Jews that exists amongst much of the British intelligentsia.

A bit like the difference between David Copeland and the idiot in the Pub that makes stupid racist jokes, and doesn’t understand why they are offensive.

It is interesting to note that, when accusations of antisemitism are made, TheIrie requires an extraordinary burden of proof, but when there’s any suggestion of Israeli malevolence, the merest scintilla of hearsay is sufficient for a conviction in his court. Since TheIrie will not be convinced of anything else, he might at least mull on that: if there were an article about some Israeli ambassador’s making an anti-Arab comment, can you imagine TheIrie’s popping up to say “Hold on chaps! Let’s not jump to conclusions! It could be slander! Or taken out of context! Or mistranslated. Or..”? Of course not.

Rubbish. If there is proof there is proof. If there isn’t there isn’t. Ahmadenejad is anti-Semitic. Avigdor Lieberman is equally racist. So is Lady Mosley, as in David’s quote. So is Rush Limbaugh, so is Michael Savage, so is Morgoth, and so on. In all cases the evidence is clear. In this case, the evidence is a half quote from an anonymous source.

And is that silence the sound of Mark T backing down?

What group of people would Wallis think squirrelled money away from Lehman’s, TheIrie?

Turks?

Exactly David T,

Even David Duke, grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, one time neo-Nazi and Hitler lover says he ain’t an antisemite, but in truth someone would have to be as gullible as TheIrie to believe it.

An example:

[David Duke]:

“I don’t know how many times I have been described by the media as “anti-Semitic.” I am not an anti-Semite.

http://tinyurl.com/qr38rh [linked to a cached article, not Duke’s site directly.

PS: for those SWPers, academics, etc incapable of looking up David Duke on their own, this will explain his background:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/orgs/american/kkk/ftp.py?orgs/american/kkk//usenet/david-duke-kkk.0692

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/02/09/collecting-david-duke-such-a-deal/

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=21

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/default.asp

HP admin, please can you check the moderation queue? thanks

RE: (to the Irie) I hope you’ll make a real effort to understand these points, and not be a contrarian just for the sake of it.

If there was a prize for most vain hope, this one would win it.

Wow, TheIrie is still here wriggling like a fish on a hook trying desperately to shake himself loose. He requires proof damnit not the kind where the person alledged to have said something doesn’t question the words he is alleged to have said but instead seeks to excuse the words. He wants video, sworn testimony, perhaps some interrogation of the parties involved to prove that the words were spoken.

Perhaps he could for a second put to one side his ridiculous demands for proof and tell us what he thinks someone would mean if they uttered the alledged sentence?

Ahmadenejad is anti-Semitic. Avigdor Lieberman is equally racist.

You mean, when Lieberman vowed to wipe Iran off the face of the earth? Yes, that was equally racist, sure.

“In this case, the evidence is a half quote from an anonymous source” which Wallis seems to acknowledge was accurate.

Taking Wallis out of the discussion for a moment, is there any context in which the promotion of an antisemitic conspiracy theory would be unacceptable to you?

HP admin, please can you check the moderation queue? thanks

Seconded.

The above was addressed to TheIrie.

So one shouldn’t note, record or publish what one has heard unless corroborated by other witnesses? Even if they are likely to be silent, with a vested interest in not corroborating what one has heard?

Are there any other accounts of what Wallis said regarding the Lehman brothers?

RE: Yesterday, when a Chabad man was confirmed among the dead of the Air France plane tragedy, Gert chose to publish a wicked smear against the Chabad community. http://developing-your-web-presence.blogspot.com/2009/06/chabad-rabbi-destroy-their-holy-sites.html.

I have had run-ins with Gert (who i like to call Dert) on this and other blogs, and think he is a revolting pseudo-leftie barely concealing his obvious anti-semitism, and that’s probably why he felt the need to share the article above. That being said, I receive the JTA mailing list daily, that article did appear, and the mainstream Chabad rabbi did make those remarks. So although Dert may have meant it as a “wicked smear,” it also happens to be true. The rabbi did make those statements, which, if you change Torah to Koran, could easily have come from the mouth of a committed jihadi/Taliban whatever etc. It’s all there in the link above, unfortunately. I can’t say i’m surprised; i never had time for Chabadniks, their prosletyzing, and their twisted devotion to their dead rebbe who used to hand out $1 bills.

“The person who posted the accusation anonymously did not ask me what the remarks she alleges I made meant.”

That is not a denial that Wallis said what Lucy Lips recorded. That is a denial that she has “interpreted” it correctly.

How would you interpret it, TheIrie?

Modernity’s links are superfluous. If you want to read David Duke, just wait for some stalwart and forward-thinking anti-Zionist to post it to the UCU Activists list.

vildechaye, anyone who has visited Gert’s blog knows that he makes no effort to conceal it.

Gert was implying that one statement made by one rabbi was representative of the whole Chabad movement. It is not. They do amazing work round the world. Not only did he slander the whole movement he also did so in response to one of their number dying in a plane crash. His gullible copy-and-paste blog is bad enough normally but that was sick.

goodwin sands,

no disagreement from me :)

but this is handy too

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/background.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=2&item=david_duke

Based on my read of Dert’s blog entry, I find no “implication” of any kind. Look, I know Dert is a nasty piece of anti-zionist anti-semitic work, and you may very well be right that he was implying that, but there is no evidence to support that. From what I can see, you are inferring that he “slander[ed] the whole [Chabad] movement [and that] he also did so in response to one of their number dying in a plane crash,” but he wrote nothing to indicate he was implying that.

Also, I would have hoped you might have said something about the revolting nature of the “rabbi’s” remarks, rather than focusing on the motivations of tired old dert, who long ago outed himself as a racist prick.

“More crude, politically motivated smear mongering. Find me one statement by anyone on the left which talks about “the Jews”, and I’ll conceed your point.”

They’re not so fucking stupid as to do it in print! That is why it is in these unguarded moments that the truth slips out.

Ah, so Gert knows not what he does, just like Wallis? They are both just guided by some extraterrestrial force? Or was it just spectacular coincidence – ala Wallis’ ‘defence’ – that Gert published that after news broke that a Chabad man had died in the plane tragedy?

I’ve looked at Sean Wallis’s reply on the Fair Play blog, and I don’t he is saying quite what some who posted above thought / said.

The “slur” he refers to is the conspiracy theory circulating online (or, if you prefer, it’s what that conspiracy theory says about Jews transferring money, etc.). He writes:

One minute’s reading of the source blog above shows that it is the original reporter who introduces the very anti-semitic slur that I am accused of.

Without that slur, it is a non-story.

In other words, he thinks that it’s only the online conspiracy theory introduced in the blog that makes what he said a story. Without that, ie just looking at what he said himself, it’s a non-story.

At the start of his reply, her refers to what’s said in the blog as “a professional slander as well as one that impugns my integrity as a trade unionist.”

However, the “slander” he refers to towards the end of his reply is again the conspiracy theory circulating online (or, if you prefer, what it says, etc, as above).

Moreover, I defend and support union members on a daily basis. Many of my union members are Jewish. If I held racist views I would not be fit to represent them. How would I be able to advise members who are being bullied, for instance, if I were not sensitive to any potential racist aspect of the case?

The very nature of the slander and its target undermines the credibility of the story in the eyes of those who know me.

“Its target” being Jews, whereas he defends and supports union members every day, many of them Jewish, etc.

In order words, he thinks his union work etc shows he is not the sort of person who would make the sort of claim that’s in the conspiracy theory.

Has anyone put it to him clearly that what he said is questionable in itself, regardless of any online conspiracy theory?

Why are we talking about Chabad and Jewish Rabbis here? Dear G/Dert has succeed in diverting our attention.

However, since vildechaye has brought it up, I will note that the revolting nature of the Rabbi’s comment is plain to see. But here context does come into play. Not to exonerate the moron who made those comments, but rather because it chooses a select opinion from an article that gives a range of Rabbinic opinions in order to present “Chabad” and “Orthodox” Judaism in the worst possible light.

However, this Chabad Rabbi’s rant is illustrative to me, an Orthodox Jew, of the problem with Rabbinic educations that teaches future Rabbis to “disregard modern sensibilities and moralities” and to sneer, without knowledge, at the modern world. In this sense it is cautionary to the (Orthodox) Jewish community about the nature of our secular and religious instruction.

It has to be said, of course, that the amount of time that academics have to piss around at being revolutionaries, and the amount of time at their conferences have spare to worry about foreign affairs rather than the terms and conditions of their members, merely shows that university academics are overpaid, underworked and far too comfortable in their jobs. Perhaps if they did a day’s work for a day’s pay, there might be some issues for their union to deal with, rather than the UCU’s current status as a place for people too stupid to cut it in DebSoc as undergraduates to relive their youth.

Still, it makes a change for a stupid UCU activist to be employed by an institution whose degrees are worth something. I think I’m right in saying that he’s the first UCU activists list member to cross these hallowed pages who isn’t from some jumped up college of further education.

vildechaye,

Reading further into What Rabbi Fieidman is quoted as saying, Friedman has issued a statement stating

1) His views are his own and not reflective of a Chabad policy/decision/position.

2) The Quote that he made was in response to a different question than the one that leads the article. The Article heads with “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?”. Friedman maintains that he was addressing the question “…how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields?”

http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/

Although this is a nuance that may not change our attitude to what he writes, it does significantly alter our interpretation of what he is saying by this statement.

Gert is one fucked up person, best ignored, he’s a small man with a big complex, and a distraction from the main topic:

Wallis’s unconscious racism.

First of all, i do not for a moment (no pun intended) believe that Moment magazine pulled this switcheroo on the Chabad rabbi; in his “clarifying” statement, he never says that is the question he was asked, but rather, that is the question he was answering — a truly rabbinic way of wriggling out of what was clearly a racist, meanspirited nasty answer to a straightforward question; second, his fundamentalist approach — ie do it like they did it in the torah — would apply to the real question (how should arabs in israel be treated) as it would to the question he says he answered, though he was never asked it, given how the Torah reports how the Israelites behaved when they invaded Canaan. Now don’t get me wrong, i’m not passing judgment on the Israelites who were operating under 3,000 year old ethical guidelines. But as i recall, canaanite men women and children often were not spared, so his distinction is irrelevant.

And come on, is it so hard to simply admit he’s a jihadi of Jewish persuasion?
His statement: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places!

xyzzy, I don’t know where you get your information about lazy, overpaid academics, unless it’s from Inspector Morse, but it has nothing to do with any academics I know, including myself. How many hours a week do you work? I shouldn’t even be on this site because I have so much to do, but with my 7-days-a-week, 18-hours-a-day schedule, and the huge amount of marking I have to do by Monday, I thought I’d take a 2-minute break. Too bad, as now I have to waste time answering you.

Academics don’t come home from work. Work is all the time. Teaching, preparation, and marking are only half the job. We also write books, and strangely enough, that’s not so hard to fit in when one is trying to do a good job for the students.

The whole point about UCU is that it is run by people who are mostly not actually academics, but generally administrators, with a smattering of people who teach at non-HE institutions and who often have no research profile to keep up. People like Sue Blackwell do very little teaching and virtually no research — Birmingham protects her when otherwise this would get her fired (I understand) because she has too much clout in the union for them to challenge her. UCU activists are mostly UCU activists *instead* of being academics; that’s why they have the time for it. The rest of us don’t have the time to get involved, or — like me — somehow don’t want to be associated with an openly antisemitic union (especially when, like me, they are Jews).

Try and find out something about the real world and about what you’re supposed to be talking about instead of spewing stereotypes.

Now it’s back to reading dissertations. Bye all.

Danny: It was also the day after the Rabbi’s statements were published in JTA. So no, no nefarious plot there. And as i’m mentioned, i am hardly a fan of Dert’s.

Goodwin & Mod…

What you really need to understand about David Duke was that his job was to make the KKK (and its “theories”) more palatable to the mainstream and less of the peckerwood in a sheet.

And as we all know… he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

I don’t believe Gert’s timing was a coincidence I don’t believe Mr Wallis’s joke was a coincidence. Good that Gert is not coming back here. Gives him more time to spread hate against Jews and never anyone else I have noticed on his copy-and-paste blog.

i guessed you missed my point danny. here it is again: the jewish telegraphic agency published the Chabad rabbi story yesterday. not last week, not last month. yesterday. so anybody, whether Dert or anyone else, could only have published that story yesterday.

Or they could have waited until a less inappropriate time but Gert didn’t wait

At the time of speaking I was not alluding to a conspiracy theory which I have since discovered to be in circulation on the internet.

Maybe Wallis read it in an old-fashioned newspaper for antisemites. Maybe one of David Duke’s friends wrote him a letter or phoned him to tell him about the Lehman brothers. Wallis just wasn’t aware it was on the internet.

danny i’m sorry but you’re an idiot: JTA didn’t wait, and Dert just reprinted what they said. By your logic, i guess JTA is just as bad as Dert.

Bang on the money quisquis.

It certainly makes this rabbi sound like a pretty vicious religious nut. To the extent that he’s making political suggestions – and he is – there’s no context that makes that acceptable, really, is there?

“danny i’m sorry but you’re an idiot: JTA didn’t wait, and Dert just reprinted what they said. By your logic, i guess JTA is just as bad as Dert.”

Thanks You are sounding like Gert yourself now. No they are not the same. Gert has a history of Jew-bashing JTA does not

I shouldn’t even be on this site because I have so much to do, but with my 7-days-a-week, 18-hours-a-day schedule, and the huge amount of marking I have to do by Monday, I thought I’d take a 2-minute break

Did they press-gang you into being an academic, quisquis? You have my sympathy.

Gert is dead to us. Let us talk of him no more.

RE: you are sounding like Gert now.

Really!!!! well unlike you, apparently, i judge Gert — and anyone else — by what they do and say, not who they are. In this case, Gert did exactly what JTA did, and although i think Gert is a foul pseudo-leftie anti-semite, I don’t think he should be vilified for this particular action, seeing as he simply reported what he read as soon as he read it. I feel that way particularly because i did the same thing: I emailed harry’s place with the same story, hoping they would run it. apparently the powers that be here decided not to, which is cool, but if they had, they would be in the same company as Gert and me i guess.

You, however, seem to act on the premise that “Gert did/said it, therefore it must anti-semitic.” There’s no other way to put it: That’s dumb. Well maybe there’s another way to put it, namely, ideologically blinkered, in which case, you have more in common with Gert than I ever will.
Have a nice day.

By the way, what happened to the thread (and my comment) about the Baskin debate with the revolting Ms. Glick.

Sorry to have come so late to this discussion: some of us academics are so idle that we mark exam scripts well into the night – now is my 15 mins break…

If TheIrie is still online, can I have please a reaction to the following?

1. There is no dispute that Sean Wallis said at an UCU fringe meeting that “the campaign to boycott Israeli academics had been threatened by lawyers backed by those with bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down”. He doesn’t dispute this, nobody disputes this. Now, let us suppose that, in spirit of universal charity, we accept that he didn’t lift it from a neo-Nazi blog. Can you, please, TheIrie, explain what he has meant and whether there exists an interpretation, any interpretation, which makes it a benign statement?

2. I understand, TheIrie, that you apply very high evidential standards to accusations of anti-Semitism originating in self-professed “Left wingers”, that you will not accept anything unless the accuser was there, presumably recorded everything, subjected it to voice analysis and has at least ten witnesses, all of them over 18 and of sound mind, to verify the accusation. Now, honestly, TheIrie, are you applying the same standards of evidence to other alleged statements of racism? Are you expressing equal worry that perchance Nick Griffin or Pat Buchanan or Geert Wielders or Avigdor Lieberman might be misquoted?

3. Given that Sean Wallis said in public something that, in its obvious interpretation, appears to be anti-Semitic, would you agree that the burden of proof is on him to explain what he has meant and why it wasn’t anti-Semitic? Rolling the eyes innocently and self-proclaiming his immaculate anti-racist credentials is neither here nor there. If he really claim that there is an innocent interpretation, why didn’t he provide it? After all, it isn’t as if he never responded to the accusation!

4. And finally, TheIrie… Would you agree (or perhaps not) that the only possible reaction to racism, no matter what its origin and its target, is zero tolerance?

I doubt anything will happen. What Wallis said was utterly racist, redolent of some of the nastiest anti-Jewish conspiracy theory: perhaps even responsibility for the credit crunch, no less, since conspiracy theories are by nature open ended. And from a lecturer, an academic. What if he had even let slip his opinions to his students?

Very, very nasty. Had it been of any other minority, he’d be out on his ear. As it is, I’m not surprised he wants it forgotten.

This is a prime example of far left meets far right.

“did they press-gang you”

No… I love the profession, but it’s a hell of a lot of work. That’s why I hate it when people suggest that academics lie around all day drinking sherry. Would that it were so (except that I don’t like sherry).

At a general meeting of UCL UCU yesterday, at which over 60 members were present, we unanimously passed the resolution below.

Vanessa Freedman
Hebrew & Jewish Studies Librarian
UCL

RESOLUTION: DEFEND UCU BRANCH SECRETARY SEAN WALLIS
UCL UCU notes
1. That a report has appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz alleging anti-semitism in comments made by UCL UCU branch secretary, Sean Wallis, in a personal capacity, at a fringe meeting at UCU Congress 2009.

2. That UCU delegates voted en bloc in line with branch policy at UCU Congress, including in relation to our position on any putative Academic Boycott of Israeli Institutions.

3. That unfounded allegations have the potential to intimidate and damage this union and its members.

UCL UCU believes
1. That anti-semitism, clearly defined as racism against Jews, must be opposed in exactly the same terms as any other racist ideology, namely, on the basis that an injury to one is an injury to all.

2. That trade union and academic freedom entails the right of members to adopt contrary positions, and to debate international issues on their merits, free from threat of legal action or libel.

3. That this particular allegation of anti-semitism is without foundation.

UCL UCU affirms that Sean Wallis has an impeccable reputation not just as a trade union activist and democrat but also as a consistent opponent of racism in all of its forms, including opposition to anti-semitism.

UCL UCU resolves
1. To stand by our branch secretary and against any witch-hunt of him.

2. To call on the National Executive Committee of UCU publicly to register its support for this union officer in all relevant publications, and to condemn the unfounded campaign being waged against him.

Just curious. Can anyone come up with a substantive difference between the BNP and the UCU?

Regards,

Inna

This is for Inna Tyscoe.The BNP is a democratically elected party in the UK.The only reason they have Euro MP’s is because people in Northern England were too bone idle to vote.