The Zündelsite's Lie About Nizkor's Position
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.
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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