Waltham Forest PSC and Holocaust Denial

Back in 2007 some Jewish members of the PSC proposed a motion for their AGM, part of which stated:

8. Conference also rejects any attempt by any individuals or group, in particular those around the Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR) Group, to introduce anti-Semitic ideas and discourse into the Palestine solidarity movement. This can only be of benefit to the Zionist enterprise and cannot help but undermine the Palestine solidarity movement. We note that the British Director of DYR has published articles on "Jewish Power" and the "Holocaust Wars" in support of one of the most infamous Holocaust deniers, Ernst Zundel; that Dan McGowan, founder of DYR, has recently visited Zundel in prison, describing him as "a man with strong convictions and the courage to express them"; and that Holocaust denial material by Paul Eisen is available on the DYR website.

In response to this Paul Eisen wrote an article, available on the DYR website, in which he says:

Although I stopped short of coming out in definite agreement with revisionists, I did (and do) find their case compelling.

The motion was effectively rejected, replaced with an amendment proposed by the Executive Committee. A statement from "Jews Against Zionism" says that:

Before the debate on the amendment, moreover, the Executive issued a statement confirming that PSC has never had nor does it now have links with "Deir Yassin Remembered" (DYR), nor has it offered any facilities to DYR.

The Executive Committee might want to speak to the Waltham Forest branch. They link to Deir Yassin Remembered in their list of "Interesting Links".

Gill Kaffash of Camden PSC

Gill Kaffash is the Secretary of the Camden branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Here are her comments to Iranian news agency IRNA about the Holocaust:

There is no doubt that a great number of Jews along with other victims of the Nazi army were killed by Hitler. However, historical phenomena need to be further examined to uncover the truth. Therefore banning opposition to the theses termed as `invariable reality` is irrational.

If that looks like she might support Holocaust denial or revisionism then that is because she has done. Here is an article written by Paul Eisen entitled "The Holocaust Wars" which discusses Holocaust deniers and their "work" and concludes:

Although they will never say so, Palestinians must know that they are not just facing the might of the Israeli state but also the power of organized world Jewry and its primary arm, the Holocaust. Perhaps Palestinians should consider lobbing a few stones in that direction. Perhaps we all should.

As a result of his denying the Holocaust the PSC considered expelling him (he resigned before they reached a decision). But, in this article entitled "My Life as a Holocaust Denier", he tells us that (see note 5):

there were some who openly and repeatedly demonstrated their solidarity e.g. ...Gill Kaffash.

Holocaust Denial at Norwich PSC

Last week, Harry's Place revealed that the former Chair of the West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign runs a website that publishes Holocaust denial. It turned out that he had been expelled as Chair because of it. Now it's the turn of Norwich Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

An article reprinted on the site is taken from the "Israel's stooges" section of the redress.cc website. It was published in 2009 and refers to the appointment of Ivan Lewis as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The article states:

Mr Lewis is also a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a body founded in 1988 by British pro-Israel lobbyists Greville Janner and Merlyn Rees with the aim of maintaining a culture of gentile guilt and Jewish victimhood in British schools.

More worrying, though, is a video posted on the site entitled "Israeli Apartheid and the Nakba". It was created by Holocaust denier Anthony Lawson. Lawson said in an interview that:

it seems that there is no solid evidence that Germany put in train a plan to systematically murder Jews using gas chambers. I have no doubt that some Germans were as cruel as some of those bombing-raid planners, and that a lot of unnecessary deaths resulted from that cruel streak, which seems to show itself in so many humans, but I do not think that the facts support the planned systematic- extermination scenario that the ever-growing number of Holocaust museums claim was perpetrated by the Germans.

In the video, Lawson states:

All over the world Zionists build museums and memorials to their Holocaust and strive to put people in gaol for what is more properly described as historical research but which they call Holocaust denial or revisionism; an attempt to prohibit enquiry into even the more questionable aspects of the alleged events which took place in forced labour camps during the Nazi era.

While he is narrating these lines, the video shows photos of well-known Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Sylvia Stolz and Gerald Toben.

The webmaster of the Norwich PSC site is Khaled Sa'aran. He also works for Norfolk County Council (Childrens Services). As the webmatser, he must surely take responsibility for what is published on the site.