December 13, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

On October 16, 1997 the Toronto Mayor's Office sent out the following press release:

"Mayor Hall to testify against Zundel.

Mayor Barbara Hall will take time out from her mayoralty campaign to lend her support to a hate crime complaint against Zundel by the City of Toronto's Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations.

Mayor Hall will testify before the Canadian Human Rights Commission hearing into allegations that Zundel is spreading anti-Semitic information via the World Wide Web. (...)

"Racism and hatemongering must be confronted where ever (sic) they appear. Whether it's on the street or in cyberspace, I will do everything in my power to silence the Zundels of this world," Mayor Hall said."

As it turned out, Hall was pre-empted by none other than Irene Zundel that day, October 17, 1997. Toronto's lame duck mayor had to wait a few weeks to make her politically correct appearance at the Zundel Human Rights Tribunal Kangaroo hearings and lend her hand in helping Canada tighten its censorship.

She did so finally yesterday, December 12, 1997, at 10 A.M..

She was buttonholed in the hallway of the 4th floor of the courthouse by Sabina Citron, since no reporters took any interest in the soon-to-be-history bureaucrat, former social worker, one-time waitress, parolee officer and pro-lesbian/gay community activist. (Hall was the first Toronto mayor to march bravely in a gay-lesbian Pride Parade.)

Afterwards, the reporters who were in the court, representing the two major papers, delivered themselves of the expected headlines: "Zundel inviting violence" (Toronto Sun) and "Zundel's Web site hateful", mayor says" (Toronto Star).

As a courtroom observer commented afterwards, reading these so-called news reports, one might conclude that these lapdog scribblers witnessed a different event from what was actually taking place and will be in the transcripts for all the world to see, thanks to the Zundelsite.

Observed and transcribed in minute detail were the following telling vignettes, here recounted anecdotally:

Put to cross-examination, Toronto's foremost bureaucrat had a difficult time with the questions by Doug Christie, Zundel attorney, to put it euphemistically. Her Worship was fumbling for words, slow in giving answers - convoluted, meaningless answers - sometimes taking two to three minutes trying to find "hate" in texts where there was no hate.

Not that she didn't try.

Christie asked her to be more specific.

Her Worship, Mayor Hall, as she must be addressed when in office, zeroed in on Question 21 and 22 of the "66 Question and Answers" which were supposed to be two of the "hateful" items on a list of three - the other two being the formerly embattled "Did Six Million Really Die?" and the utterly discredited "Jewish Soap" story, the three documents which led to her complaint.

These questions were: (21) "How does the Holocaust story benefit the Jews today" and (22) "How does it benefit the state of Israel?" (Zundelsite answers can be found at
http://www.webcom.com/ezundel/english/debate/021_jam.html
and http://www.webcom.com/ezundel/english/debate/022_jam.html)

Where was the hate? prodded Christie?

Hall admitted she could not find any hate or point to it, but she insisted it was out there. On that Zundelsite. She had seen it somewhere!

She referred to the material of the Zundelsite repeatedly as "dense stuff." (I betcha she must have read Nizkor!)

She admitted she did not read all of the "66 Question and Answers" - not even the "Did Six Million Really Die" booklet - even though, at the outset, she had stridently declared that she had told her staff she would not sign the complaint form unless she had "seen (read?) it all". (Since there were no photos or pictures in the three items the Mayor found "hateful", she could only have meant that she read it all, which subsequently turned out not to be true, if we want to split hairs in this matter. . .)

When Christie raised his eyebrows, stating: "You could not possibly have read even the 'Did Six Million Really Die?' in the time you looked at the Zundelsite. . . " the good lady had to be dragged and prodded into finally admitting that she only glanced at some of the "Did Six Million Really Die?" stuff.

During cross examination it became clear to courtroom observers in the audience, and must have become clear to the members of the CHRC, that, at most, the mayor was shown by her staff or Committee members what to be upset about.

It was clearly preselected material others had found offensive.

She did not know much at all about anything historical or political and even less pertaining to the state of Israel, it was furthermore revealed. She did not even know the population of Israel. She did not know how much American aid Israel got, even though that was the very item where she felt that "hate" could be found on the Zundelsite.

She insisted at first she did not know if there was even a Jewish Lobby in the US, but eventually, under patient prodding, she half-heartedly surmised there might be a Lobby taking care of Israel's interests.

She seemed really taken aback when Doug Christie showed her the oath she signed as a Councillor of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto which states:

"I, Barbara Hall, do solemnly promise and declare that I will truly, faithfully and impartially, to the best of my knowledge and ability, execute the office of Member of Council of The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, that I have not received and will not receive any payment or reward, or promise thereof, for the exercise of any partiality or malversation or other undue execution of such office, and that I will disclose any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect as required by and in accordance with The Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, and I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing it to be true and knowing that it is of the same force and effect as if made under oath."

When she was asked by Christie what "malversation" meant, she admitted that she did not know the word - and thus admitted publicly that she did not understand what she had sworn to uphold.

She admitted she - or the Mayor's Committee, for that matter - never consulted a historian, political scientist or any other expert to check if what was on the Zundelsite (or, more specifically, what formed the basis of her complaint) was truly "hateful", or might conceivably be true, factual, and historically rather than politically correct.

No expert input was obtained in understanding, much less fact-checking, on a document she admitted she had not read in its entirety.

Talk about pre-judging something! Wow!

Doug Christie was thorough in updating the mayor.

Hall was read the trail-blazing Supreme Court judgment of August 27, 1992, which gave Ernst his freedom from persecution for a while in words that were given to Canada, courtesy of the two Great Holocaust Trials of Ernst Zundel, to wit:

"Section 2(b) of the Charter protects the right of a minority to express its view, however unpopular it may be. All communication which convey or attempt to convey meaning are protected by s. 2(b), unless the physical form by which the communication is made (for example, a violent act) excludes protection. The content of the communication is irrelevant. The purpose of the guarantee is to permit free expression to the end of promoting truth, political or social participation, and self-fulfillment. That purpose extends to the protection of minority beliefs which the majority regards as wrong or false. Section 181, which may subject a person to criminal conviction and potential imprisonment because of words he published, has undeniably the effect of restricting freedom of expression and, therefore, imposes a limit on s. 2(b).

Her Worship, a trained lawyer, said that she was not familiar with that judgment that gave Canada more freedom of speech than it had had before.

She also revealed that she had not consulted the German community organizations, of which there are many in the Toronto area.

She admitted that Ernst Zundel had not been asked before the Committee on Community and Race Relations to explain himself why things on a California-based website pertaining to Israel appeared to be "hateful" to the mayor in Toronto, Canada.

This former social worker, who has to pass the Zundel-Haus on her way to work, and who, according to news reports, regularly stops to talk to drug pushers and street people, never stopped and asked Ernst Zundel why he thinks the way he thinks.

Asked about ***any*** German input whatsoever, she volunteered after another one of her lengthy pauses that, ahem, come to think of it, there were no consultations and also no German Canadian members on her Committee.

There was, of course, Marvin Kurz.

Kurz is the man who put the whole matter of the complaint against Zundel on the agenda in the first place.

The mayor said she was only aware that Mr. Kurz ***might*** have been with B'nai Brith. No organizations, she insisted, were represented on the Committee. Only the individual, Mr. Marvin Kurz.

Her nose must have grown when she said that.

Asked about the criteria of appointment to the Committee, she was not sure what they were.

Under more prodding she admitted that she did recommend members, and since she was chairman of the Committee, she must have recommended Mr. Kurz. Words to that effect.

She was not troubled that copies of Committee decisions were sent to B'nai Brith member Sigmund Reiser within the Federal Canadian Human Rights Commission.

(A little side bar here for the initiated: This is the very Commission whose Policy and Planning Director, Harvey Goldberg, had shopped around as early as 1995 for people unhappy enough to be upset by what criticisms he, Goldberg, found of the Jewish agenda on the Internet, specifically the Zundelsite. (He would later imperiously decide it ***was*** "Holocaust Denial" material! Right there I feel another ZGram coming on!)

Mr. Goldberg at that time lamented loudly that the Commission could only act if somebody complained. Well, Mr. Kurz obliged and did exactly that - in short order, and to no surprise to those who can still think for themselves.

Read on: In those days, Ken McVay of Nizkor was still critical of Goldberg's attempt at censoring the Net. That was before his Jewish sponsors helped him to upgrade himself with a new haircut, a new pin-striped suit, a new hearing aid, and a faster computer. These days, McVay no longer restocks the shelves of the local variety store with pop or milk bottles. He struts about the Internet as Ken McVay, OBC, which stands for the Order of British Columbia, a queenly designation, no doubt to the immense embarrassment of Her Royal Highness, the Queen of England, as Matt Giwer has gleefully pointed out to all and sundry on numerous occasions.

The moral of this sidebar is that it evidently doesn't hurt some folks to be politically correct.)

Barbara Hall will be back to be further cross-examined on the witness stand on Monday, December 15, 1997, 10:30 AM. In the afternoon, she will then yield the hot seat to "Frau Z".

===

Thoughts for the Day:

(Definitions culled from Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed., compiled by Irene Helen Zundel in her politically incorrect days and left behind in a folder marked "Barbara Hall")

Malversation: In French law, this word is applied to all grave and punishable faults committed in the exercise of a charge or commission (office) such as corruption, exaction, concussion, larceny.

Impartial: Favoring neither; disinterested; treating alike; unbiased; equitable, fair and just.

Corruption: An act done with an intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. The act of an official fiduciary person who unlawfully and wrongfully uses his station or character to procure some benefit for himself or for another person contrary to duty and the rights of others.

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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