Canadian "Independent Jewish Voices" supports antisemitic conspiracy theories, linked to Holocaust denial article

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is essentially a Canadian version of "Jewish Voice for Peace," a virulently anti-Israel group that uses its Jewish members as a shield against charges of antisemitism - and manages to get media attention as a legitimate voice of the Jewish community.

Whoops.

This link goes to the well-known antisemitic conspiracy theory site Veterans Today, and the editor of that site added these paragraphs to the original article by rabid Ziophobe Alan Hart:

One of the most prevalent abuses of what is called the holocaust is the ritual exploitation of numbers which have long been debunked, but are still continually abused. I used to remind all media ten to twelve years ago that the Auschwitz plaque had been changed from the “four million died”, to roughly “one million died”.

I did the math for them… 6 minus 3 does not equal 6, except in holocaust math. Not a one of them was aware of the change in the Auschwitz plaque; but still, after all of this time, media never fails to use the old debunked number.

This link by IJV to the Holocaust-denial article was exposed by B'nai Brith Canada:

A group that calls itself Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), and passes itself off as an organization that speaks on behalf of Jewish Canadians, promotes Holocaust denial through social media, a B’nai Brith investigation reveals.

Postings on the group’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts have been directing followers to articles from the white supremacist hate site Veterans Today. One article in particular falsely asserts that no more than 1-million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany and characterizes modern antisemitism as a natural reaction to Israeli policies. The article was also promoted online by Sid Shniad, a B.C. resident who serves as IJV’s co-chair and official spokesperson.

Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Law Poverty Center have denounced Veterans Today as a white supremacist hate site, replete with false accusations of Jewish responsibility for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings.

The posting by IJV cannot be described as accidental or unknowing. In fact, one Facebook follower of the IJV page explicitly pointed out that the article supports Holocaust denial, but IJV failed to answer it or delete the link.

IJV then went into attack and coverup mode.

It apologized for linking to the story, but defended author Alan Hart. Here is its amended defense:

In 2015 IJV provided a social media link to an article written by the widely-respected journalist and Mid-East expert Alan Hart entitled, “A truth most Jews don’t want to know about anti-Semitism”. Like Hart, IJV strongly condemns anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial of any kind.

Hart’s article was re-published on a website called Veterans Today which upon further examination proved to be an extremely disreputable site that engages in wild conspiracy theory and Holocaust debunking. The editor at Veterans Today inserted a note into the article denying the number of Jews exterminated in the concentration camps that we find repugnant.

We thoughtlessly linked to Hart’s article on the Veterans Today site. We acknowledge that our oversight in this respect was lax: we didn’t verify the nature of the Veteran’s Today website, and we didn’t examine the Editor’s note. For that, we apologize to our members and supporters for our carelessness. IJV has now removed that link.

IJV is claiming ignorance about the nature of Veterans Today - and also about the fact that the article it linked to included Holocaust denial inserted by VT's editor. It seems more than strange for a group, and many of its members individually, to link to an article without actually reading it.

The idea that they knew nothing about Veterans Today is far-fetched. After all, VT itself praises IJV and its coordinator Tyler Levitan in 2015, with the VT editor saying that he wanted to get in contact with Levitan to see how they could work together.

Even without VT's adding the explicit Holocaust denial to Hart's article, IJV's defense of Alan Hart as a "widely-respected journalist and Mid-East expert" betrays its fringe agenda. After Bnai Brith Canada pointed out that Hart peddles outrageous 9/11 conspiracy theories, IJV added that they don't support that part of Hart's oeuvre. Yet they still defend him and call him "widely respected."

Also, IJV has another 9/11 conspiracy theorist on its steering committee, Diana Ralph. IJV deleted that page after it was exposed.

In fact, IJV has been furiously cleansing its social media timelines and website of embarrassing materials as Bnai Brith Canada has been exposing them.

This isn't the first brush that IJV had with crazed conspiracy theories that they now claim to disavow. Check out this Facebook post from 2012:

This episode shows that IJV is not mainstream and represents no one besides a tiny fringe of self-hating Jews who are happy to use their ostensible Jewish ancestry as a means to bash Israel. Its orgy of support for unhinged antisemitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories and its pathetic attempts to cover them up in the past few days proves this better than anything else.

(h/t Aidan Fishman)

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