In Part IV of "The Importance of the Zundel Hearing in Toronto", Mark Weber exposes the arrogance with which these so-called "Human Rights Tribunal" hearings were conducted:
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Crossing Swords with Rosen
A high point of my testimony was the cross-examination on Friday, the 6th, by Wiesenthal Center attorney John Rosen, who was every bit as belligerent and arrogant toward me as he had been in December 1998 when I was being qualified as a witness. He repeatedly interrupted my answers to his own questions, rudely demanding that I respond with a one-word "Yes"or "No" answer. At one point he even interrupted me as I was speaking to Tribunal Chairman Pensa. (On at least one occasion Rosen put a question to me in a form that, in keeping with the Tribunal's restrictions, was not permitted to Doug Christie.)
Rosen sought to keep me from testifying as the Tribunal had directed, and as I had sworn to do, giving "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." His outrageous behavior was not merely an insult to me, but to the Tribunal Commissioners who had qualified me as an expert witness to assist them in their deliberations. Nevertheless, Pensa and Devins repeatedly indulged Rosen's rude and insulting behavior, thereby manifesting what seems to be an underlying bias in favor of the anti-Zundel side.
One exchange in particular pointed up Rosen's arrogance, and the Commissioners indulgence of his bigotry.
» Rosen: "You say, as a revisionist, that there was no Final Solution?"
Weber: "No, I don't say that..."
Rosen: "Was there a Final Solution?"
Weber: "Excuse me, Mr. Rosen. If I could not be interrupted again..."
Rosen: "The answer just called for a "yes" or a "no"’ sir, not a speech, but go ahead."
Weber: "Mr. Pensa...?"
Rosen: "Mr. Pensa, I asked a question that called for a "yes" or "no" answer."
Weber: "I would just like it if he would not interrupt me."
Chairperson Pensa: "Do you understand the question?"
Weber: "Yes, and I would like to give my answer, and I don't like to be interrupted."
Pensa: "You should answer the question as responsively and as succinctly as possible."
Weber: "Yes, and I would like it if he would not interrupt me.
In fact, Mr. Rosen [I went on], to the contrary, there was a German policy called "the Final Solution." I have written extensively about it, [including] in the very document [No. 31] that is in the "complained of" documents. There is an essay by me which tries to explain the Final Solution policy. It refers to an official German document from the Second World War, a memorandum of the Foreign Office which goes into detail about what the Final Solution policy was. I don't dispute that there was a Final Solution policy. I don't know any revisionist who does... «
The essay I referred to has been published by the IHR for years as a leaflet, "The Holocaust: Let's Hear Both Sides." It was downloaded by Canadian Human Rights Commission officials from the Zundelsite, who cited as document ("Tab") No. 31 in the official compilation. If Rosen had carefully read through the documents that are at the heart of this dispute, he would have known that I not only describe Germany's wartime "final solution" policy, but to explain it I quote a confidential German Foreign Office memorandum of August 21, 1942 (Nuremberg document NG-2586-J). Rosen's arrogant display of ignorance about the documents at issue in this case suggests that the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which presumably pays him well to represent its interests in these proceedings, is not getting its money's worth from him.
"The Germans"
In another question put to me, Rosen said that "the Nazis -- that is, the Germans -- during the Second World War executed a plan that was designed to exterminate Jews who fell under their control..." With some emotion, I responded by saying that the form of this question is itself outrageous, implying as it does that "the Germans" are collectively guilty of mass extermination:
» First of all, the way you put the question in its original form is outrageous. You referred to a plan carried out by "the Germans." This is typical language used by people who are defaming or castigating others, to talk about "the Germans." "The Germans" didn't carry out any execution plan of any kind, Mr. Rosen, and it is wrong to refer to a nationality or a group of people in that way, just as it is wrong to refer to "the Jews" killing people in Palestine, or "the Jews" doing this or that. To put a question in that way is already outrageous. «
Seemingly taken aback, Rosen responded by claiming that I had "misquoted" him. "I did not say "the Germans"; I said "Germans"," he protested. This was simply not true, as the official transcript proves. Indeed, I had been so struck by Rosen's slanderous reference to "the Germans" that I jotted down his precise words immediately after he uttered them.
The Tribunal, typically, was unperturbed by Rosen's hateful characterization of Germans. (Such anti-German bigotry is so widespread in our society that it routinely passes without objection, or even comment.) Especially given that, as the Tribunal has held, truth and motive may not be considered in determining if a statement is "likely" to promote "hatred or contempt," these words by the Wiesenthal Center attorney violate the spirit of the very law under which the Human Rights Commission was prosecuting Zundel. Rosen's statement, made in this public and official forum, is at least as "likely" to promote "hatred or contempt" for Germans as any Zundelsite statement is to promote "hatred or contempt"for Jews.
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Tomorrow: "Big Tent" Revisionism
Comments: -- Mark Weber / weber@ihr.org
Thought for the Day:
"The institutionalized intolerance of the Prime Minister and his insiders is what is most dangerous in Canada."
(The National Post, November 18, 2000)