Coming on the heels of the largest Swedish newspaper printed a blood libel accusing Israeli Jews of an impossible organ harvesting scheme (Excuse for anti-Semitism: 'No evidence, but it's possible...'), the second largest newspaper in Spain, El Mundo, today published an interview with Holocaust-denying 'historian' David Irving as one of six with "expert[s]" on World War II coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the war's beginning.
As you can imagine, much of the Jewish community is horrified:
AJC protested the decision of El Mundo, one of Spain's leading newspapers, to publish an interview with the notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving this weekend, as part of its coverage of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.
"David Irving has made a career out of lying," said [American Jewish Committee] Executive Director David Harris. "For El Mundo to bill a Holocaust denier as an 'expert' and 'innovative thinker' heaps shame upon that newspaper."
The Anti-Defamation League had this to say:
"There is no reason to believe that the editors of El Mundo were deceived by David Irving, whose bona fides as Holocaust denier are well-known around the world," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. "Irving is the propagandists' poster boy, and yet El Mundo presented him as a so-called 'expert,' as if his abhorrent views were credible. This sends a terrible message, legitimizes Holocaust denial, and is an embarrassment for Spain."
"This is not a question of freedom of the press, but of the abject failure by El Mundo's editors to understand Holocaust denial for what it is, which is anti-Semitism," said Mr. Foxman. "Given Europe's history one would have thought that the editors of a major European newspaper would have known better than to give a platform to one of the world's leading purveyors of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism."
Israel's ambassador to Spain, Rafi Shotz, asked the newspaper to rethink it's decision to publish the Irving interview, but the El Mundo defended itself thusly:
El Mundo stated that they are printing the interview with Irving because it will contribute relevant information to the public and will not incite criminal acts.
"We don't agree with the majority of what he says, but we defend his right to say it," the newspaper wrote in an editorial on Saturday.
Well, I'd venture to suggest that a majority of people would disagree with the bolded arguments. And as far as the paper's self-righteous "defense" of Irving's right to deny the Holocaust, to the point of giving him a widely-read avenue to spew his hatred, I ask: Isn't there another way? Perhaps simply an editorial defending the right of anyone and everyone to speak their minds?
To the credit of the Spanish government, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos condemned El Mundo's decision:
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos "regrets" that a Spanish newspaper on Saturday published an interview with a British historian who denies the Holocaust, a spokeswoman said.
"The foreign minister, while maintaining the most absolute respect for freedom of expression, regrets that space was given to a historian who denies one of the biggest tragedies for humanity in modern history," she told reporters in Stockholm where EU foreign ministers were meeting.
"These types of statements deeply hurt the Jewish people," she added.