Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on June 26, 2017

More than 2,100 people have signed a petition to keep conspiracy theorist and alleged Holocaust denier Kevin Barret from speaking at a rally in Toronto.

Jewish advocacy group Bnai Brith launched the petition after Barrett was invited to speak at the al-Quds march that will start at Queens Park on Saturday. Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of Bnai Brith Canada called the event an absolute hate fest.

This is both outrageous and unacceptable, Mostyn said in a press release. Inviting a notorious Holocaust denier to this event demonstrates once and for all that al-Quds Day is not a mere anti-Israel event, but rather a hate rally designed to demonize and denigrate Canadas Jewish population.

Barretts teaching career at the University of Wisconsin ended in 2006 after he stirred controversy over his support of a 9/11 conspiracy theory.

In an email to the National Post, he said that since then he has been blacklisted and unable to find another teaching job.

I have been politically blacklisted from working in the US academy, and robbed of $2 million in projected lifetime earnings, due to my beliefs about 9/11, he said.

He unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Congress in 2008 and is now an editor at Veterans Today, where he hosts a radio show called Truth Jihad. He also writes columns promoting conspiracy theories about everything from the 9/11 attacks to the recent shooting at a Republican baseball practice, which, he said, seemed designed to be iconic and memorable.

Barrett also casts doubt on the generally accepted history of the Holocaust he wrote that millions of people seem to have vanished without a trace andcalled the story of Anne Frank a sub-myth of the larger myth of the Holocaust.

Barrett denies being a Holocaust denier. He said he has never questioned the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust, and only said that he does not know the total. He says his quotes have been taken out of context to falsely frame him as a Holocaust denier.

The millions of people vanished remark concerned the downgrading of officially listed Auschwitz victims by more than two million, which happened in the 1990s. Ripped out of that context, the quote is likely to be misunderstood. When I use the term myth to describe the Holocaust, it is clear I am using it in the scholarly sense of sacred foundational narrative not in the popular, non-academic sense of untrue story, Barrett said.

Even if I learn that seven million died, I will continue to denounce this idolatrous cult that serves to excuse the Allied war crimes during and after World War II (which killed far more than six million innocents) and legitimizes the slaughter of 55 million innocents by US CIA and military interventions since World War II, by brainwashing Americans and Westerners to see themselves as the good guys and World War II as the good war, he wrote on Veterans Today.

This is a regular tactic by Holocaust deniers, to say, Well, you know what, the Jewish side says certain things, but its an open question, lets just have a scientific debate about this, Mostyn said in an interview with the Post.

Everybody should have the right to all of their opinions, but it doesnt change the fact that there are facts, he said.

The Canadian government defines Holocaust denial as discourse and propaganda that deny the historical reality and the extent of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II, or blaming the Jews for either exaggerating or creating the Shoah (Holocaust) for political or financial gain.

Al-Quds Day is an anti-Zionist demonstration, described by the Toronto chapters Facebook page as a protest against the Israeli regimes apartheid occupation of the land of Palestine. Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

The rally is often controversial. Last year, the Jewish Defence League organized a counter-demonstration, and pro-Israel groups, including Bnai Brith, have condemned the event.

In the past there have been calls for Israelis to be shot, and we dont want that to happen again. Its so beyond inappropriate, and all Canadians need to be protected from this sort of extremist speech, Mostyn said.

It is not something that should be taking place in a decent, civilized society like in Canada.

The walk is scheduled to start in Queens Park and make its way to the U.S. Consulate, though Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne told Canadian Jewish News that the rally will not take place on park grounds.

The sergeant-at-arms, who reports to the legislative assembly, has advised that there is no Al-Quds event scheduled to take place at Queens Park,Wynne told CJN.

Either way, the JDL is planning another protest this year, according to their website. Bnai Brith will not be attending as the event takes place on the Jewish Sabbath, but Mostyn said they will be documenting it.

An earlier version of this article inaccurately suggested that Barrett chose to leave academia. In an email to the Post, he clarified that he has continued to apply for jobs at universities.

Continued here:

Jewish advocacy group launches petition to keep alleged 'Holocaust denier' out of Canada - National Post

Category: Holocaust Denial
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