Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day014.19
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   Well, who is the "we"?
   A.   Well, I frequently find out what the Jewish organizations

.          P-166

        are planning against me because it is announced in the
        Jewish Chronicle.  They say, "Meet outside Mr Irving's
        flat, 81 Duke Street, 12.00 midday".  That is how I know
        when these demonstrations are going to happen.
   Q.   It is not the Royal "we", Mr Irving.  "I read the Jewish
        Chronicle to find out what we are doing".  Who are the "we"?
   A.   I have no idea.
   Q.   "There is an article here only a couple of weeks ago
        called 'Anti-Semites ask for cash in latest sophisticated
        forgery'" -- not, by any chance, the united anti-Semites
        then, the "we"?
   A.   I have got no idea what the article is about.
   Q.   Well, you must have done because you mentioned it.
   A.   Well, it certainly was not me so I cannot see what the
        reference is.
   Q.   "This is, of course, an unusual twist as it is not usually
        anti-Semites who are asking for cash in sophisticated
        forgeries.  A man called Mr Mike Whine, the director of
        the board of deputies of British Jews", Mike W-H-I-N- E,
        you spell it ----
   A.   You will appreciate the reason why I do not like Mike
        Whine because I discovered that he is the person who has
        dedicated much of his life to destroying my career and
        livelihood by now, and that those documents are also in
        the bundle.

.          P-167

   Q.    I might not like the black man who is my enemy, but I am
        not likely to use the fact that he is black in order to
        defend myself, am I, Mr Irving?
   A.   I do not criticise anybody because of their colour,
        Mr Rampton.
   Q.   Then why do you make such again with Mr Whine's name?
   A.   Because I am defensive about the man.  The man has spent
        many years trying to destroy me.  He has maintained a
        dossier full of the most evil and defamatory and lying
        facts about me which he puts to foreign governments with
        the intention of destroying my career, as we now know.
   Q.   You do not like Mr Whine.  I understand that.
   A.   With good reason, and because he is Jewish does not make
        him immune from my criticism.
   Q.   Precisely.  But the fact that he is Jewish has nothing to
        do with your criticism either?
   A.   I am perfectly entitled to make fun of his name among
        other ways of getting back at him.
   Q.   "I am bothered by their names".  That is more people than
        just poor Mr Mike Wine, is it not?
   A.   We had this in another speech too and I have listed a
        whole bunch of names, Wieseltier and so on.
   Q.   I am going to read on.  Please be quiet.  "I love them
        dearly, I really do, believe me.  I love them very dearly,
        yet around the world they have these extraordinary names.
        In Australia the man who has defamed me so consistently

.          P-168

        has now received from my lawyers in West Australia four
        libel writs.  His name is Mr Izzy Leibler".
   A.   Leibler, L E I B L E R.  That has been misspelt.
   Q.   "Laughter".
   A.   Yes, if a man's name is Leibler and he has received from
        me four libel writs, it seems singularly apposite.
   Q.   Mr Irving, that is a perfectly decent joke.  It is a pity
        it is misspelt, is it not?
   A.   It has been consider in your copy but I know how to spell
        properly. His name is L E I B L E R and his brother, Mark
        Leibler, spells it the same way, oddly enough.  They are
        both multi-millionaires and they have used their money to
        try and destroy my career in Australia.
   Q.   I am sorry, L I E B L E R?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, it is misspelt.  It is L E I.  That is
        the point.
   MR RAMPTON:   Oh I see.
   A.   Which is pronounced by any normal person as "libeller".
        He is careful to pronounce it as "leebeller".
   MR RAMPTON:  Let us pass on, Mr Irving. "If I had a name like
        wine, W H I N E, or Leibler, it reminds me of Brentwood
        School, where I want to school.  Perhaps I ought not to
        read out the name of the school. There was a boy in our
        class called Bottomwetten".
   A.   There is another one called Jack Straw.
   Q.   "What bravery to carry the name of Bottomwetten, not only

.          P-169

        just through your own life, but also through generations
        before you, passing this name proudly down.  Whine,
        Leibler.  I would be inclined to change my name by deed
        poll, not once but twice, in case anyone asked what my
        previous name was".  I am going to pause there, Mr Irving.
   A.   You will recognize this as the old gramophone record, you see.
   Q.   Yes.  The old gramophone record, indeed I do.  Mr Irving,
        when you were being cross-examined by me some days ago,
        there was a reference to a footnote in van Pelt's report,
        I think it was, it matters not, to a book edited by a lady
        called Deborah Burnstone.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Do you remember that, when that was drawn to your
        attention, you pronounced that name "Bronsteen"?
   A.   No, I do not.
   Q.   I will find it for you in the transcript.  If I am right, why?
   A.   I have no idea.  I have no recollection of that episode at all.
   Q.   Why this interest in names?  What does it matter what a
        person is called?
   A.   You are putting this to me and I am hearing it for the
        first time.  I am as astonished as you are.  If I read it
        like that, then that was the way I read the name.

.          P-170

   Q.   No.  You did not read it like that.  You knew that she was
        called Burnstone?
   A.   Why would I know that she was called Burnstone?
   Q.   Because it is in the footnote and it was read out to you.
   A.   If I misread it, misreadings do occur.  You have been
        misreading words----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:   Let us wait until we have found the docment.
   A.   You have been repeatedly misreading words throughout the
        last few days but I have not commented on that.
   MR RAMPTON:  "Do not worry. I will come back to it tomorrow.
        You may have a chance to answer properly.  Let me go on.
        The problem is somebody has apparently issued a leaflet.
        I am sure that none of us here is personally responsible.
        The hoax, including a picture on the front cover of a
        notorious saisai" -- what is that? "Anti-Semitic forgery.
        The protocols of the learned elders of Zion. The covers
        cartoon which protects its serpent encircling the world
        used to have a traditional crude character of a hideous
        Jewish face, but it now includes instead a picture of
        Gerry Gable.  I wonder how they spotted the difference."
   A.   You know the connection with Gerry Gable, of course.  Or
        shall I explain it to you?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I know it so you do not need to.
   MR RAMPTON:  I do not want to know.
   A.   Gerry Gable is also no friend of mine, so I am quite happy
        to describe him in these terms.

.          P-171

   Q.   I see.  Another of your enemies whom you insult by, as it
        were, comparing with a hideous Jewish face - is that right?
   A.   Whether he is Jewish or not is neither here nor there.  He
        is hideous, he is immoral, he has spent the last 36 years
        of his life trying to destroy me and my family because he
        has a criminal conviction for breaking into my house.
   Q.   But the insult which you have prepared -- apparently they
        thought it was jolly funny because they laughed -- for
        Mr Gable is that he should replace the hideous Jewish
        face, is it not?.
   A.   Well, it certainly was not forged by me.  I do know who
        did that but obviously other people hold the same opinion
        of Mr Gable as I do.
   Q.   My problems began in October of last year when I was
        speaking in Los Angeles and I received a letter from the
        Canadian government telling me not to come home on my
        projected tour of Canada which was to cover 17 cities from
        Vancouver right the way across to Ottawa.  The Canadian
        governments had been alerted by the Simon Wiesenthal
        Institute in Los Angeles and immediately clicked their
        heels together and said "Ja vohl, Herr Wiesenthal, we will
        not let him in".  Now tell me about this Wiesenthal
        again.  I asked you before and you said, "Oh no, it is not
        the well known Simon Wiesenthal".
   A.   Well, of course, H I E R is the director of the Wiesenthal

.          P-172

        Centre.  The Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles has no
        connection with Simon Wiesenthal apart from the concession
        they pay him every year for the use of his name.
   Q.   But it is a Jewish organization, is it?
   A.   I imagine that they restrict their intake of employees to
        Jews, yes, but I have no information on that.
   Q.   I do not know about that, but it is some kind of Jewish
        institute in Los Angeles, no doubt in some part concerned
        with the history of the Holocaust?
   A.   Yes, I have collaborated with them in the past with
        documents and things.
   Q.   Then comes the stuff about the Wiesenthal facial
        appearance and its comparison with the Halloween mask.
   A.   I think I should explain.  It may very well help his
        Lordship.  This date is wrong on this.  It is not 1992, it
        is definitely 1993, after I have had to go through the
        harrowing episode of being deported and handcuffed on the
        floor of an Air Canada plane, after I have been thrown out
        of Germany.  All these things have happened as the result
        of the machinations of these people around the world,
        after I have been banned from Australia.  So I am afraid
        you have the wrong year on this and suddenly everything
        clicks into place.  I am perfectly entitled to criticise
        these people for what they have done to me.
   Q.   As we noticed before, when an anti-Semite is rattled or
        riled, out comes the anti-Semitic language.

.          P-173

   A.   No, critical language.  This is unfortunately where you
        make a mistake, Mr Rampton.  When you are critical of what
        the Jews do to you as Jews, it is not anti-Semitism.  They
        are entitled to take their action against me as Jews but,
        if I criticise them, it becomes anti-Semitism.  Have
        I understood correctly?
   Q.   No, you have not. I do not think you are trying, actually.
   A.   I am trying very hard to understand the point that you are
        trying to make.
   Q.   The answer to one's enemies is not that they are ugly Jews
        with silly names, it is that they are acting badly, is it not?
   A.   They were doing all of it.
   Q.   But what relevance is it that they have ugly Jewish faces
        and silly Jewish names?
   A.   Well, you are talking about the ugly Jewish face.  You are
        referring to the episode with the Halloween mask in which
        the word "Jew" does not figure.  We are talking about a
        man who is well known for not being a particularly
        beautiful gentleman.
   Q.   What relevance has it to your defence against him that he
        happens not to be beautiful?
   A.   I am just making fun of him.  If I had made fun of any
        other person who was not Jewish, it would never have
        occurred to them to say this is anti-Semitism or

.          P-174

        anti-Asian or anti-French.  If I made fun of Monsieur
        Mitterand, for example, or Jacques Cherac, I would not be
        accused of being anti-French if I said that he had a
        ridiculous face that looked like a Halloween mask.  I
        would be accused of being anti-Mitterand or anti-Cherac.
        But, because we are talking here about Wiesenthal,
        suddenly different rules apply.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, when you reach a convenient moment?
   MR RAMPTON:  I have not quite finished this, I am afraid.
   A.   He is beginning to whimper a bit and he wants to find a----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, that is unnecessary. We will be here a
        long time if you go on.
   MR RAMPTON:  You are not going to provoke me at this time of
        night, Mr Irving.  I can do another two of these things or
        I can stop and do them in the morning.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have you finished on this particular document?
   MR RAMPTON:  I have finished on Wiesenthal.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Then I think, in all the circumstances, we
        will adjourn until 10.30 until tomorrow morning.
                 
(The witness withdrew)
      (The court adjourned until the following day)


.          P-175

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