11 Winter 2015-2016 appears to know, this does not necessarily constitute a form of hate. The content of the speech and the intention of the speaker should always be taken into account. Disputing certain historical facts is not a form of hate either, and I doubt whether it can be considered Holocaust denial. If one argues that five million, not six million, were murdered during 1938-1945, based on a study of sorts done on Jewish demography in Europe, this is an issue that can and should be discussed in the open in order to discover a possible new facet of the truth.6 If one brings evidence showing that an alleged massacre did not happen, or happened on a different date, or more people were killed than we know, or that an alleged war criminal was not at an alleged place at the alleged time, then these are all issues that should be probed and discussed. All this does not constitute Holocaust denial or a form of hate. Moreover, generally speaking, people are entitled to hold and express vilifying and outrageous views, to voice their dislike of other people and to use derogatory words and discriminatory adjectives against others. While we do not enjoy such expressions, we feel it is wrong, and we feel outraged confronting such statements, some liberals believe that such speech is protected under the free speech principle. The way to fight against such discriminating and damaging opinions is through more speech, not by silencing or censoring. This, indeed, is the essence of tolerance. Nevertheless, Holocaust denial constitutes a special category of speech that does not necessarily merit protection, certainly not in all places. Consideration needs to be given to the historical context and circumstances of the utterance. Holocaust denial is far from being innocent. It is a propaganda movement that seeks to deny the reality of the Holocaust, the systematic mass murder of six million Jews and millions of others deemed "inferior" by the Nazi regime. Misrepresenting their propaganda as” historical revisionism,” Holocaust deniers attempt to disseminate their extremist ideas by offering unsupported arguments against the well-established historical facts of the Holocaust. Their beliefs include accusations that Jews have falsified and exaggerated the tragic events of the Holocaust in order to exploit non-Jewish guilt. Holocaust denial groups have uploaded thousands of web pages, filled with distortions and fabrications, designed to reinforce negative stereotypes.7 Among the most visited sites promoting Holocaust denial are the Institute for Historical Review, originally and intentionally established for this purpose,8 Bradley Smith and his Committee for Open Debate of the Holocaust (focusing largely on U.S. college campuses),9 and sites sponsored by David Irving,10 Ahmed Rami,11 and Ernst Zundel.12 All portray themselves as hubs, even paradigms, of unbiased, unorthodox, gutsy historical research. Holocaust denial is a form of hate speech because it willfully promotes enmity against an identifiable group based on ethnicity and religion. It is designed to belittle the tragedies of the Holocaust while providing a justification for murder, genocide, xenophobia and evil. Holocaust denial assumes a form of legitimacy for racism in its most evil manifestation to date, under the guise of a pursuit of "truth." It speaks of an international Jewish conspiracy to blackmail Germany and other nations, and to exploit others in order to create Israel. It depicts a scenario in which Jews conspired to create the greatest hoax of all time. Specifically, deniers claim that Adolf Hitler did not plan genocide for the Jews but wished instead to move them out of Europe. They claim that no gas chambers ever existed as if they were an invention of the Jews to dramatize the mere "fact" that in every war there are casualties, and World War II was no different. People from many countries were killed, many of them Germans. And yes, Jews were killed. But so were people from other religions.13 6. For discussion of J.S. Mill’s Truth Principle and its importance in generating a tolerant atmosphere for unconventional expressions, see R. Cohen-Almagor, Why Tolerate? Reflections on the Millian Truth Principle, 25 PHILOSOPHIA, Nos. 1-4, at 131-152 (1997); Eric Barendt, FREEDOM OF SPEECH 8-14 (2005); R. Cohen-Almagor, John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, in ETHICAL COMMUNICATION: MORAL STANCES IN HUMAN DIALOGUE, 25-32 (C. G. Christians and J. C. Merrill eds., 2009). 7. Anti-Defamation League, Hate on the Internet (2003), at 14. 8. www.ihr.org/(last visited Oct. 19, 2015). 9. www.codoh.com/(last visited Oct. 19, 2015). 10. www.fpp.co.uk/(last visited Oct. 19, 2015); www.fpp. co.uk/online/index.html (last visited Oct. 19, 2015); Andrew Walker, Profile: David Irving, BBC, Feb. 20, 2006, available at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4449948.stm (last visited Oct. 19, 2015).For further discussion, see Ruth Wodak, Saying the unsayable: Denying the Holocaust in media debates in Austria and the UK, 3(1) JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AGGRESSION AND CONFLICT 13-40 (2015). 11. Jews and the Black Holocaust, available at radioislam.org/ islam/english/toread/jewslave.htm (last visited Oct. 19, 2015); Statement of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Before the US Senate Committee of the Judiciary, Sept, 14, 1999, available at radioislam.org/adl/net.htm (last visited Oct. 19, 2015); Ahmed Rami, Holocaust Denial, ADL, available at adl.org/poisoning_web/rami.asp (last visited Oct. 19, 2015). 12. www.zundelsite.org/(last visited Oct. 19, 2015). 13. www.hdot.org/en/learning/myth-fact (last visited Oct. 19, 2015).
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