Israel Shamir
Encyclopedia
Israel Shamir (born 1947) is a writer and journalist. He is a commentator on Arab
- Israeli relations and Jewish culture. Originally from Novosibirsk
, Siberia
, Shamir says he moved to Israel
in 1969, serving in the 1973 war, after which he took up journalism and writing. Originally Jewish, he converted to Orthodox Christianity in 2004.
Shamir writes about Israel, Palestine, and the Jewish people, and has published or self-published a number of books which have been translated into a range of languages; the French edition of Flowers of Galilee (2004) was banned for a time in France over allegations of antisemitism. Shamir has been accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial
, charges Shamir has rejected.
, Siberia
in 1947, to Jewish parents. According to Shamir, he read mathematics and law at Novosibirsk University. He states that he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper
in the Israel Defense Forces
, and fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the war he returned to his study of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, but then abandoned this in favour of a career in journalism.
Norman Finkelstein
is quoted in Tablet Magazine saying about Shamir "He has invented his entire personal history. Nothing he says about himself is true".
According to Searchlight
, Shamir was registered in Sweden in 1984 and later gained Swedish citizenship, in 1992. He left Sweden for Russia and then Israel in 1993, before returning in 1998, having remarried in Israel in July 1994. He was known as Jöran Jermas from 2001 to 2005, before changing his name to Adam Ermash, although continuing to use "Israel Shamir" as a penname. According to Shamir, these name changes were necessary "in order to safeguard my private life and to manage to travel without harassments from political adversaries."
In 2004 Shamir was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem by Archbishop Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna of Sabastia and given the name Adam.
According to his website, Shamir "lives in Jaffa and spends much time in Moscow and Stockholm". He has three sons.
some time after the Yom Kippur War, Shamir took up journalism and writing. He was initially a journalist for Israel Radio, before becoming a freelance journalist, and covered the latter stages of the war in South East Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). He joined the BBC
in 1975, moving to London, before moving to Japan (1977-79), writing for Maariv
and others. In 1980 he returned to Israel, writing for Haaretz
.
After a career in journalism, Shamir later focussed on other writing, particularly translation. Shamir translated various works of Shmuel Yosef Agnon
(Nobel Prize for Literature, 1966) from Hebrew into Russian (1981 - 2004), as well as Chaim Herzog
's The Arab-Israeli Wars (1986). Other works include a 2006 annotated translation of Abraham Zacuto
's 15th century history of the Jews, Sefer Hayuhasin (The Book of Lineage). With the outbreak of the First Intifada
in 1987 Shamir went to Russia and wrote about the political changes until 1993, for newspapers including Pravda
and the extreme nationalist Zavtra, before returning to Israel.
Shamir writes about Israel, Palestine, and the Jewish people. Several of his books have been translated into a range of languages. Shamir did not publish in English until January 2001, after the beginning of the Palestinian Second Intifada in September 2000. As he put it, "Israeli attacks on Palestinians forced him to give up literature and turn to politics." An article in the Russian-language Israeli newspaper Vesti
was cited by Christopher Hitchens
in 2001 as "a brilliant reply to [Elie] Wiesel
".
The French edition of Shamir's Flowers of Galilee was initially co-published in October 2003 by Éditions Blanche and Éditions Balland, and was prominently displayed in large bookshops. It was withdrawn from sale at the end of October after Balland's director had his attention drawn to the content of the book, which he considered anti-semitic. The book was republished in 2004 by Éditions Al-Qalam
, which led to a court case (a civil case brought by the Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme (LICRA),) with the publisher sentenced to three months in prison (suspended) and a 10,000 euro
fine, and the banning of the book.
and Judaism, and is a supporter of the proposed one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
. Shamir has argued that there is organized Jewish control of the media and public discourse: "The rich Jews buy media so it will cover up their (and their brethren's) misdeeds. The Jews in the media are giving protection to the rich Jews. ... In the US, even in Western Europe, no view can be proposed to the general public unless approved (after being vetted and corrected) by a Jewish group." He is critical of what he considers a Jewish quest for world hegemony, having written, "Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; the world is. Palestine is just the place for world state headquarters; necessary, for otherwise the people of Europe wouldn't be magnetised like a rabbit in the headlights of a car."
In 2001, Ali Abunimah
and Hussein Ibish
circulated an email in which they said that "from early on, some of Shamir's writings struck us as straying beyond criticism of Israel and Zionism, and crossing into the territory of implicit anti-Semitism". They urged "all our friends in the movement for Palestinian rights" to consider the effects of Shamir's writing, which includes "elements of traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric", on their cause.
He has been accused of being an antisemite and Holocaust denier, with Searchlight
in 2004 accusing him of connections to antisemitic publications and groups, and its campaign Hope not Hate
at one time listing Shamir as a "notable Holocaust denier," citing the "rabid Holocaust denial material" on his website. Essays supporting the tenets of Holocaust denial, such as the alleged non-existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, are posted on Shamir's personal website. In February 2005 Labour
life peer
Nazir Ahmed
held a book launch for Shamir in the House of Lords
. Commenting on the event, Stephen Pollard
in The Times
, called him a "rabid anti-Semite." Shamir rejected the accusations, and Gilad Atzmon
wrote to The Times in his defence.
In an essay published on his website discussing Holocaust denier David Irving
, Shamir wrote that "the Jews" now "rule over the minds and souls of Europeans":
In 2006, discussing the upcoming Iranian International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
, Deutsche Welle
wrote that the Iranian government "said it intended to invite academics such as German neo-Nazi [lawyer] Horst Mahler and the Israeli journalist and Christian convert Israel Shamir, both of whom are Holocaust deniers." Shamir denied receiving an invitation to the conference, and said he did not attend. Shamir wrote of his interest in the conference, concluding that "Nobody – and I do mean nobody, including British, French, American, German, Russian leaders – really cares about the victims of a war long past, Jewish or otherwise; they pay tribute to the Holocaust as nations pay tribute to their vanquisher." The widespread acceptance of the Holocaust narrative "as a justification of [rich and powerful] minority rights over [oppressed] majority needs", Shamir argued, showed "that the mass media machine is well integrated and concentrated in philosemitic, mostly Jewish hands. The occupation of Palestine by Jews is painful, but it is not more harmful than this captivity of free discourse."
In December 2010 Shamir's connection with WikiLeaks
brought him new public attention. Andrew Brown of The Guardian
repeated the accusations of antisemitism, relying on Magnus Ljunggren's piece that month in Expressen
. Shamir responded to Ljunggren, saying "the stories he tells are all lies. And these lies are old and well known and refuted years ago." Katha Pollitt
, writing in The Nation in December 2010, described a visit to Shamir's web site:
In early 2011 The Guardian
described Shamir as "notorious for Holocaust denial and publishing a string of antisemitic articles." Defending himself, Shamir wrote in early 2011, "As for the accusation of 'Holocaust denial', my family lost too many of its sons and daughters for me to deny the facts of Jewish tragedy, but I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols." Shamir claims his concern with the Holocaust is with the use of the narrative of the Holocaust by Jews to promote Jewish "superiority and exclusivity":
In a May 2011 interview Tablet Magazine
described Shamir as a "Holocaust doubter".. The article includes a transcript of an interview in which Shamir repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the mass annihilation at Auschwitz. In a followup piece, the Tablet author justified the term "Holocaust doubter," for "people with deeply problematic yet disparate views of the Holocaust who do not go so far as to argue it never occurred". He applied it also to Norman Finkelstein
, a child of Holocaust survivors, saying "it seems entirely fair to lump Finkelstein in with Shamir and others who prefer to understand the Holocaust primarily as a narrative ploy to extend Jewish influence in the world."
organization. In a Sveriges Radio
interview with WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson
, Hrafnsson stated that Israel Shamir "is associated with" WikiLeaks, as are "a lot of journalists that are working with us all around the world" who "have different roles in working on [the] project". Russian Reporter claims that it has "privileged access" to the 2010 United States diplomatic cables leak
via Shamir. Shamir described his relation with WikiLeaks as being 'a freelancer who was "accredited" to WikiLeaks'.
Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg
noted Wikileaks' ties to Shamir among the reasons he quit the organization. Domscheit-Berg described Shamir as a "famous Holocaust denier and anti-Semite."
Yulia Latynina
, writing in the Moscow Times alleged that Shamir concocted a cable which allegedly quoted European Union diplomats' plans to walk out of the Durban II speech by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for publication in the pro-Putin Russian Reporter in December 2010, an accusation which was rejected by Shamir.
Shamir has also been accused of passing "sensitive cables" to the president of Belarus
, Alexander Lukashenko
. Index on Censorship
has expressed concern that such an event could physically endanger Lukashenko's political opponents; Wikileaks has refused to reply to Index on the issue, although one Wikileaks representative called Shamir's alleged leaks "obviously unapproved."
Shamir's son, a journalist named Johannes Wahlström, is a spokesperson for WikiLeaks in Sweden.
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
- Israeli relations and Jewish culture. Originally from Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Shamir says he moved to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1969, serving in the 1973 war, after which he took up journalism and writing. Originally Jewish, he converted to Orthodox Christianity in 2004.
Shamir writes about Israel, Palestine, and the Jewish people, and has published or self-published a number of books which have been translated into a range of languages; the French edition of Flowers of Galilee (2004) was banned for a time in France over allegations of antisemitism. Shamir has been accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
, charges Shamir has rejected.
Background and personal life
Shamir was born Izrail Schmerler in NovosibirskNovosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
in 1947, to Jewish parents. According to Shamir, he read mathematics and law at Novosibirsk University. He states that he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
in the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
, and fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the war he returned to his study of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, but then abandoned this in favour of a career in journalism.
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
is quoted in Tablet Magazine saying about Shamir "He has invented his entire personal history. Nothing he says about himself is true".
According to Searchlight
Searchlight (magazine)
Searchlight is a British anti-fascist magazine, founded in 1975 by Gerry Gable, which publishes exposés about racism, antisemitism, and fascism in the UK....
, Shamir was registered in Sweden in 1984 and later gained Swedish citizenship, in 1992. He left Sweden for Russia and then Israel in 1993, before returning in 1998, having remarried in Israel in July 1994. He was known as Jöran Jermas from 2001 to 2005, before changing his name to Adam Ermash, although continuing to use "Israel Shamir" as a penname. According to Shamir, these name changes were necessary "in order to safeguard my private life and to manage to travel without harassments from political adversaries."
In 2004 Shamir was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem by Archbishop Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna of Sabastia and given the name Adam.
According to his website, Shamir "lives in Jaffa and spends much time in Moscow and Stockholm". He has three sons.
Career
After dropping out of law studies at the Hebrew University of JerusalemHebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
some time after the Yom Kippur War, Shamir took up journalism and writing. He was initially a journalist for Israel Radio, before becoming a freelance journalist, and covered the latter stages of the war in South East Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). He joined the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1975, moving to London, before moving to Japan (1977-79), writing for Maariv
Maariv
Maariv is a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel. It is second in sales after Yedioth Ahronoth and third in readership after Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel HaYom. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Maariv saw its market share fall slightly...
and others. In 1980 he returned to Israel, writing for Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
.
After a career in journalism, Shamir later focussed on other writing, particularly translation. Shamir translated various works of Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon , was a Nobel Prize laureate writer and was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon . In English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon.Agnon was born in Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire...
(Nobel Prize for Literature, 1966) from Hebrew into Russian (1981 - 2004), as well as Chaim Herzog
Chaim Herzog
Chaim Herzog served as the sixth President of Israel , following a distinguished career in both the British Army and the Israel Defense Forces .-Early life:...
's The Arab-Israeli Wars (1986). Other works include a 2006 annotated translation of Abraham Zacuto
Abraham Zacuto
Abraham Zacuto was a Sephardi Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and historian who served as Royal Astronomer in the 15th century to King John II of Portugal. The crater Zagut on the Moon is named after him....
's 15th century history of the Jews, Sefer Hayuhasin (The Book of Lineage). With the outbreak of the First Intifada
First Intifada
The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
in 1987 Shamir went to Russia and wrote about the political changes until 1993, for newspapers including Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
and the extreme nationalist Zavtra, before returning to Israel.
Shamir writes about Israel, Palestine, and the Jewish people. Several of his books have been translated into a range of languages. Shamir did not publish in English until January 2001, after the beginning of the Palestinian Second Intifada in September 2000. As he put it, "Israeli attacks on Palestinians forced him to give up literature and turn to politics." An article in the Russian-language Israeli newspaper Vesti
Vesti (newspaper)
Vesti is an Israeli Russian-language daily newspaper. Based in Tel Aviv, the paper is Israel's most widely read Russian-language paper and its only remaining daily paper in Russian. The paper was started in 1992 by Yedioth Ahronoth Group, which remains its owner. It was very widely read in the...
was cited by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
in 2001 as "a brilliant reply to [Elie] Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
".
The French edition of Shamir's Flowers of Galilee was initially co-published in October 2003 by Éditions Blanche and Éditions Balland, and was prominently displayed in large bookshops. It was withdrawn from sale at the end of October after Balland's director had his attention drawn to the content of the book, which he considered anti-semitic. The book was republished in 2004 by Éditions Al-Qalam
Éditions Al-Qalam
Éditions Al-Qalam is a French publishing house established in 1991. It aims to be a source of knowledge about Islam, and about Muslim history, culture, society and politics....
, which led to a court case (a civil case brought by the Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme (LICRA),) with the publisher sentenced to three months in prison (suspended) and a 10,000 euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
fine, and the banning of the book.
Views
Shamir has made statements opposing both ZionismZionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and Judaism, and is a supporter of the proposed one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
. Shamir has argued that there is organized Jewish control of the media and public discourse: "The rich Jews buy media so it will cover up their (and their brethren's) misdeeds. The Jews in the media are giving protection to the rich Jews. ... In the US, even in Western Europe, no view can be proposed to the general public unless approved (after being vetted and corrected) by a Jewish group." He is critical of what he considers a Jewish quest for world hegemony, having written, "Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; the world is. Palestine is just the place for world state headquarters; necessary, for otherwise the people of Europe wouldn't be magnetised like a rabbit in the headlights of a car."
In 2001, Ali Abunimah
Ali Abunimah
Ali Hasan Abunimah is a Palestinian American journalist and co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a not-for-profit, independent online publication about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Born in Washington D.C., he spent his early years in the United Kingdom and Belgium before returning to the...
and Hussein Ibish
Hussein Ibish
Hussein Yusuf Kamal Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1963. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is active in advocacy for Arab causes in the United States...
circulated an email in which they said that "from early on, some of Shamir's writings struck us as straying beyond criticism of Israel and Zionism, and crossing into the territory of implicit anti-Semitism". They urged "all our friends in the movement for Palestinian rights" to consider the effects of Shamir's writing, which includes "elements of traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric", on their cause.
He has been accused of being an antisemite and Holocaust denier, with Searchlight
Searchlight (magazine)
Searchlight is a British anti-fascist magazine, founded in 1975 by Gerry Gable, which publishes exposés about racism, antisemitism, and fascism in the UK....
in 2004 accusing him of connections to antisemitic publications and groups, and its campaign Hope not Hate
Hope not Hate
Hope not Hate is an anti-fascism and anti-racism campaign in the United Kingdom organised by Searchlight. It has campaigned against the nationalist and far-right British National Party. and have presented a 90,000 person petition to the European Parliament protesting against the election of Nick...
at one time listing Shamir as a "notable Holocaust denier," citing the "rabid Holocaust denial material" on his website. Essays supporting the tenets of Holocaust denial, such as the alleged non-existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, are posted on Shamir's personal website. In February 2005 Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
Nazir Ahmed
Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed
Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed is a member of the House of Lords, having become the United Kingdom's first Muslim life peer in 1998. Many of his political activities relate to the Islamic community both in the UK and abroad, and he has often attracted controversy...
held a book launch for Shamir in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. Commenting on the event, Stephen Pollard
Stephen Pollard
Stephen Pollard is a British author and journalist, currently editor of The Jewish Chronicle. He is a former Chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and a former president of the Centre for the New Europe, a free-market think tank based in Brussels...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, called him a "rabid anti-Semite." Shamir rejected the accusations, and Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer.Atzmon's album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. Playing over 100 dates a year, he has been called "surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz." His albums, of which he has recorded...
wrote to The Times in his defence.
In an essay published on his website discussing Holocaust denier David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, Shamir wrote that "the Jews" now "rule over the minds and souls of Europeans":
David Irving was sentenced for denial of Jewish superiority. His doom seals the reign of (albeit limited) freedom that began with the fall of Bastille. European history went full circle: from rejecting the rule of Church and embracing free thought, to the new Jewish mind-control on a world scale. Not only is Western Christian civilisation dead, but even its successor, secular European civilisation, has met its demise only a few days after its proud and last celebration by the Danish scribes. It was short-lived: about two hundred years from beginning to the end, the Europeans may once have had the illusion that they can live without an ideological supremacy. Now this illusion is over; and the Jews came in the stead of the old and tired See of St Peter to rule over the minds and souls of Europeans.
In 2006, discussing the upcoming Iranian International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference that opened on December 11, 2006, in Tehran, Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the conference sought "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust.....
, Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle or DW, is Germany's international broadcaster. The service is aimed at the overseas market. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio on 98.7 DZFE in 30 languages . It has a satellite television service , that is available in four languages, and...
wrote that the Iranian government "said it intended to invite academics such as German neo-Nazi [lawyer] Horst Mahler and the Israeli journalist and Christian convert Israel Shamir, both of whom are Holocaust deniers." Shamir denied receiving an invitation to the conference, and said he did not attend. Shamir wrote of his interest in the conference, concluding that "Nobody – and I do mean nobody, including British, French, American, German, Russian leaders – really cares about the victims of a war long past, Jewish or otherwise; they pay tribute to the Holocaust as nations pay tribute to their vanquisher." The widespread acceptance of the Holocaust narrative "as a justification of [rich and powerful] minority rights over [oppressed] majority needs", Shamir argued, showed "that the mass media machine is well integrated and concentrated in philosemitic, mostly Jewish hands. The occupation of Palestine by Jews is painful, but it is not more harmful than this captivity of free discourse."
In December 2010 Shamir's connection with WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
brought him new public attention. Andrew Brown of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
repeated the accusations of antisemitism, relying on Magnus Ljunggren's piece that month in Expressen
Expressen
Expressen is one of two nationwide evening tabloid newspapers in Sweden, the other being Aftonbladet. Expressen was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and slogans "it stings" or "Expressen to your rescue", always on the reader's side....
. Shamir responded to Ljunggren, saying "the stories he tells are all lies. And these lies are old and well known and refuted years ago." Katha Pollitt
Katha Pollitt
Katha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry...
, writing in The Nation in December 2010, described a visit to Shamir's web site:
I spent a few hours on www.israelshamir.net and learned that: "the Jews" foisted capitalism, advertising and consumerism on harmonious and modest Christian Europe; were behind Stalin's famine in Ukraine; control the banks, the media and many governments; and that "Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; the world is." There are numerous guest articles by Holocaust deniers, aka "historical revisionists."
In early 2011 The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described Shamir as "notorious for Holocaust denial and publishing a string of antisemitic articles." Defending himself, Shamir wrote in early 2011, "As for the accusation of 'Holocaust denial', my family lost too many of its sons and daughters for me to deny the facts of Jewish tragedy, but I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols." Shamir claims his concern with the Holocaust is with the use of the narrative of the Holocaust by Jews to promote Jewish "superiority and exclusivity":
It has everything to do with the Jewish claim of superiority and exclusivity. There is a Jewish prayer saying: “Bless you, Lord, that you created me a Jew, that you separated between Jews and the earth folks, like you separated between the Holy and Profane, that our fate is not like their fate”. The Holocaust concept is just another form of this prayer. They say that even their death is not like the death of anybody else.
In a May 2011 interview Tablet Magazine
Tablet Magazine
Tablet Magazine is a two-time National Magazine Award-winning online publication of Jewish life, arts, and ideas. Sponsored by Nextbook, it was launched in June 2009. Its Editor in Chief is Alana Newhouse....
described Shamir as a "Holocaust doubter".. The article includes a transcript of an interview in which Shamir repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the mass annihilation at Auschwitz. In a followup piece, the Tablet author justified the term "Holocaust doubter," for "people with deeply problematic yet disparate views of the Holocaust who do not go so far as to argue it never occurred". He applied it also to Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
, a child of Holocaust survivors, saying "it seems entirely fair to lump Finkelstein in with Shamir and others who prefer to understand the Holocaust primarily as a narrative ploy to extend Jewish influence in the world."
Association with WikiLeaks
Shamir is a vocal backer of the WikiLeaksWikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
organization. In a Sveriges Radio
Sveriges Radio
Sveriges Radio AB – Swedish Radio Ltd – is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. The Swedish public-broadcasting system is in many respects modelled after the one used in the United Kingdom, and Sveriges Radio - like Sveriges Television - shares many characteristics with...
interview with WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson
Kristinn Hrafnsson
Kristinn Hrafnsson is an Icelandic investigative journalist and frontman for the WikiLeaks organisation.He has worked at various newspapers in Iceland and had a popular TV programme on Stöð 2 , Kompás, where he and his team often exposed criminal activity and/or shocking corruption in high places...
, Hrafnsson stated that Israel Shamir "is associated with" WikiLeaks, as are "a lot of journalists that are working with us all around the world" who "have different roles in working on [the] project". Russian Reporter claims that it has "privileged access" to the 2010 United States diplomatic cables leak
United States diplomatic cables leak
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
via Shamir. Shamir described his relation with WikiLeaks as being 'a freelancer who was "accredited" to WikiLeaks'.
Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Daniel Domscheit-Berg
-External links:*, the whistleblower website started by Domscheit-Berg* collected news and commentary at Der Spiegel...
noted Wikileaks' ties to Shamir among the reasons he quit the organization. Domscheit-Berg described Shamir as a "famous Holocaust denier and anti-Semite."
Yulia Latynina
Yulia Latynina
Yulia Leonidovna Latynina is a Russian journalist, writer and radio host. She works at the radio station Echo of Moscow. She also writes for Novaya Gazeta and The Moscow Times.-Writer, journalist and radio host:...
, writing in the Moscow Times alleged that Shamir concocted a cable which allegedly quoted European Union diplomats' plans to walk out of the Durban II speech by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for publication in the pro-Putin Russian Reporter in December 2010, an accusation which was rejected by Shamir.
Shamir has also been accused of passing "sensitive cables" to the president of Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, Alexander Lukashenko
Alexander Lukashenko
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has been serving as the President of Belarus since 20 July 1994. Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm. Under Lukashenko's rule, Belarus has come to be viewed as a state whose conduct is out of line...
. Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
has expressed concern that such an event could physically endanger Lukashenko's political opponents; Wikileaks has refused to reply to Index on the issue, although one Wikileaks representative called Shamir's alleged leaks "obviously unapproved."
Shamir's son, a journalist named Johannes Wahlström, is a spokesperson for WikiLeaks in Sweden.
Books
- Путешествие в Египет, Тель-Авив (A Travel to Egypt, in Russian) Tel-Aviv, 1981.
- Сосна и Олива, (Pine and Olive, in Russian), Wahlstrom Publications, Jerusalem – Stockholm 1987
- Rasszista Allam? (Racist State, in Hungarian) Kairosz, Budapest 2004 ISBN 963-9484-90-3.
- Flowers of Galilee (in English), Dandelion Books 2004, ISBN 1-893302-78-4;
- L’autre Visage d’Israël: Fleurs de Galilée, Éditions Al-QalamÉditions Al-QalamÉditions Al-Qalam is a French publishing house established in 1991. It aims to be a source of knowledge about Islam, and about Muslim history, culture, society and politics....
, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-909469-43-3 - Galilee Flowers (in English) BookSurge US 2005 ISBN 978-1419613517
- Galilee Flowers (in English, UK edition) Four O'Clock Press 2007 ISBN 978-1906146436
- Blommor i Galiléen: collected essays (in Swedish), translated by Ingvar Rydberg, Alhambra PublishingAlhambra PublishingAlhambra Publishing is a Swedish publishing house established in 1986 which was established to publish Swedish translations of Arabic classic and contemporary literature. Examples include translations of Ibn Khaldun's 14th-century Prolegomena, and of novels by Naguib Mahfouz...
. ISBN 9789188992529 - Blumen aus Galiläa, (in German), Promedia VerlagPromedia VerlagPromedia Verlag is an Austrian publishing house established in 1983. Founded to publish "books against the grain", particularly in the field of cultural history, it has since expanded to cover politics, history and travel books...
, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85371-231-2.
- L’autre Visage d’Israël: Fleurs de Galilée, Éditions Al-Qalam
- Our Lady of Sorrows, BookSurge US 2005 ISBN 1-4196-0835-5.}}
- Проклятие избранного народа (The Curse of Chosen People, in Russian) Algoritm, Moscow 2006 ISBN 5-9265-0259-4
- Cabbala of Power, Four O'Clock Press UK 2007, ISBN 978-1906146580
- Masters of Discourse, BookSurge 2008 ISBN 978-1419692437
- La Bataille Du Discours, (in French) BookSurge 2008 ISBN 978-1439211434
- Сорвать заговор сионских мудрецов (Elders of Zion's conspiracy derailed, in Russian) EksmoEksmoEksmo is one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. Eksmo and its rival AST together publish approximately 30% of all Russian books.Established in 1991 as a small book-selling company, they gradually developed into a major player on the Russian market, discovering and developing detective...
and Algoritm, Moscow 2010 ISBN 978-5-699-39520-0
Translations
- S.Y.Agnon, Collected Stories, GesharimGesharimGesharim / Bridging Cultures is a Russian publishing house established in the 1990s which publishes books on Jewish topics in [Russian language|Russian]]...
, Jerusalem 2004 ISBN 5-93273-148-6. - James Joyce “Sirens”, “Cyclops” (chapters from Ulysses), “Raduga”, Moscow, 2000 ISBN 5-05-005113-4. republished Moscow 2004 ISBN 978-5-699-29953-9
- Abraham Zacuto, The Book of Lineage, 608 pages, Zacuto Foundation 2006; ISBN 1-4196-1893-8 English annotated translation of medieval Hebrew chronicles.
External links
- israelshamir.net The writings of Israel Shamir.
- Israel Shamir articles at ExpertExpert (magazine)Expert or Ekspert magazine is Russia's leading business weekly magazine, established in 1995 in Moscow by a group of editors and journalists who departed from Kommersant publishing house. It covers economics and finance, Russian business, international business, politics, science and technology,...
(Russian)