Holocaust education from THE NIZKOR PROJECT

The Zündelsite's Lie About Nizkor's Position

Overview

Nizkor has not committed to, nor been asked to commit to, anything other than cross-linking where appropriate. The Zündelsite obscures this through lies and a blurring of the distinction between debate and cross-linking.

Nizkor has referred to the linking as linking, from the beginning (September 1st, 1995) to the present. We have expressly rejected the term "debate" several times. For our reasons why, see Nizkor's Position on Debate.

Details

The Zündelsite's first response to us made it clear that they understood exactly what we were asking for (September 2nd) and they made no mention of our request being a "debate":

...we were discussing the very offer you have made to us yesterday with some of our leading revisionists and scholars just recently - how we could cross-link with you and get you to agree to cross-link with us so that both sides could be heard equally. ("strong" emphasis added, as it is throughout this document)

Our next response referred only to "cross-linking." (September 11th) Again, we made no mention of "debate." In fact, when Zündel mentioned the lack of "debate" in the past, we responded by using other terms: an "open exchange," "cross-linked material," "hyperlinked information," and "links."

The Zündelsite's next response (September 13th) made it clear that they had decided to blow the cross-linking out of proportion. From that point on, they would refer to it as "debate," specifically "The Great Electronic Holocaust Debate." In January, it was inflated still further, to the preposterous title of "First Electronic Debate in the History of Mankind"!

In any case, the leap of logic from a single cross-link to "the great debate" was never explained:

Nizkor, the Holocaust Promotion Lobby Website, has asked for a link with the Zundelsite - which means the great electronic Holocaust debate is here....

"A link means debate." Why? There was no "great debate," any more than we were the Holocaust Promotion Lobby Website. Ken McVay's open letter three days later made that perfectly clear:

Mr. Zündel raises the issue of "the great electronic Holocaust debate"... This is a separate issue from cross-linking our Web sites....

One does not "debate" on Web sites - the medium is inappropriate; it would be like duelling glaciers. Usenet, however, is perfectly designed for free and open debate.

This open letter has been sent to Mr. Zündel by email on no fewer than two separate occasions, and posted to several UseNet newsgroups as well. This alone is sufficient to demonstrate that the Zündelsite is dishonest in its deliberate substitution of "debate" for "cross-linking." It is interesting to note that, although Mr. Zündel claims to have accepted a "debate" with Mr. McVay, he has never either responded to Mr. McVay's letter or even acknowledged receiving it.

But we also went on to clarify our position numerous other times:

Note that Nizkor refuses to make much of that correspondence public, as it consists of private email from Ingrid Rimland or responses to her private email. She has requested that most of what she has written remain "between us." Given that she accuses us of lying based on one public piece of our correspondence, taken out of its context, we find a quote from Pierre Vidal-Naquet to be apropos:

Kindly publish - I give you my authorization - the entirety of that correspondence. It will then be possible to judge whether you are qualified to give me lessons in intellectual honesty.

Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory

Now, it is true that we occasionally referred to the process as "debate" -- often in quote marks and usually with an indication that we were unhappy with the term.

The important thing to note is that Nizkor has not committed to, nor been asked to commit to, anything other than cross-linking where appropriate.

Throughout all this, the Zündelsite continued to refer to the cross-linking as "debate." They pretend to have overlooked every single instance where we made the distinction between the two.

On January 15th and 16th, we stated exactly what we had been stating throughout the previous months:

As the reader can see, our reminder and suggestion were phrased with extreme courtesy. Nevertheless, the Zündelsite's response was to go ballistic. In their next "Zündelsite-gram," on the morning of the 18th, they wrote:

Yesterday was quite a day. If you looked out of the window and saw somebody backpedalling furiously, that was the Nizkor crowd. We didn't even have a chance to let the air out of their tires with our counterposts, which was our fervent hope.

Here is what happened, in a nutshell. "...Debate? What debate? Did you say debate? I didn't say debate! Did anybody say debate? We merely talked of linking, and even that is boring..."

I am not kidding you. I hope Ernst has a chance to write an editorial to put it all into perspective.

To tell the truth, I also feel sad and a little defeated, although like anybody else, I like to have been right. When first this Nizkor thing came up, way back in September or so, I said to Ernst: "It's just a bunch of kids that want to earn their brownie points. They'll learn. There isn't going to be a debate. The head honchos will never let them." And I thought so right up to the end. If fact, I am amazed we came that far before the trap door fell on their own eager fingers.

So what is it going to be now? Back to the UFOs and character assassinations? To tell the truth, I feel for Jamie McCarthy. I was rather fond of his freelancing ways - a sentiment I kept mostly if not always to myself, since neither Ernst nor Jamie appreciated it. This is going to be hard on Jamie's young pride. What can he do except head back to alt.revisionism announcing that he never meant debating in the first place? All he ever talked about was "linking"!?

As many of you know, I used to be a kiddie shrink before I turned into a full time writer, and I saw brilliant kids like Jamie go into the monstrous entities we call our public schools and come out the other end so morally distorted they do not even recognize themselves.

Mr. McCarthy had even written, three days earlier:

So don't quote my words above out of context and hint that Nizkor refuses to debate on your terms. Don't you dare take our request that you reciprocate a simple cross-link, and turn that into some sort of backing-down from this 'Great Electronic Holocaust Debate' that you've invented out of thin air!

Our admonishment, of course, did no good, because the staff of the Zündelsite is dishonest. It served their propagandistic purposes to announce that Nizkor was backing down, so that is the lie that they chose to promote. And still promote -- they continue to advertise the "Nizkor-Zündelsite debate" on these web pages to date: sm_pic [Zundelsite has removed this link], alert.swcletter [Zundelsite has removed this link], debate [Zundelsite has removed this link], a.attent [Zundelsite has removed this link], and their home page.

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