The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/z/zundel.ernst/correspondence/zto960115a.txt


Subject:     "Debate," backing up, and the SWC
Sent:        1/15/96 1:26 PM
To:          E. Zundel, ezundel@cts.com
CC:          Ken McVay, kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca
             Hilary Ostrov, hostrov@uniserve.com
             CODOH, CODOHmail@aol.com
             Declan McCullagh, declan@well.com
             Greg Raven, ihrgreg@kaiwan.com


Ingrid Rimland, the webmaster of Zuendel's site, wrote me:


[IR's text deleted, private]


I still don't see why you're making this into a big deal.


Nizkor has been and will be linking to Zuendel's site, and every other
Holocaust-related site we can find.  The only question is whether that
favor will be returned.  The answer to that question is currently "yes"
for Zuendel and "no" for other Holocaust-denying sites, notably Greg
Raven.


To be honest, after you put up the cross-link from Mr. Zuendel's web
page, I made a mental check-mark on my mental to-do list, and moved on
to my next item, which was getting Greg Raven to do the same thing.  I
was a bit surprised when you reacted so excitedly.


I don't see how we got from a simple exchange of cross-links to "The
Great Electronic Holocaust Debate."  First of all, anything on the web
is ersatz debate.  The web is clumsy and slow.  As you put it earlier,
Ms. Rimland, running a web site is like flying a 747.  I might add that
conducting a web-based "debate" is like trying to _dogfight_ in 747s. 
It's hard to change content, and it takes time to make sure it all works
-- much more time than the actual reading, researching, thinking, and
typing that make up the actual process of debate.


We're only pushing web-based linking because we've all but given up on
getting Mr. Zuendel et al. to participate in _actual_ debate.


I say "all but given up," because we have an idea or two for getting an
actual debate going that Mr. Zuendel et al. might agree to.  If it's
technically feasible, we'll make a proposal to you and him (and other
"revisionists").  We're still considering the possibilities.


But now I see, Ms. Rimland, you've got a page up at:


   http://www.webcom.com/~ezundel/english/sm_pic.html


You write:


   The first two documents we will debate are:


   * "The Aaron Breitbart Rebuttal"
   * "66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust" in reply to Nizkor.


I don't know who this "we" is that you think you're speaking for. 
Debate is indeed a participatory event that requires more than one
entity, so I assume this "we" does not refer only to those of you at
Zuendel's web site.  "We" must refer to Zuendel's web site and the
Nizkor web site.  Am I mistaken?


Assuming I'm not mistaken --


You're not speaking for Nizkor with your "we."  Nizkor has its own
priorities and its own agenda, and I don't recall anyone at Nizkor
agreeing to modify those priorities to include Aaron Breitbart, or even
to continue discussion on the 66 Q&A beyond the information that we've
already put up.


Now, we may very well incorporate these into our future plans, because
frankly it's refreshing to see a "revisionist" finally agreeing to
actually talk about something, even if it is on the clumsy and slow web.
 We may put aside some of our sorely-needed web maintenance in order to
address these topics.  We can't say until we go over what our priorities
are.  Our resources are severely limited.


So don't quote my words above out of context and hint that Nizkor
refuses to debate on your terms.  Don't you _dare_ take our _request_
that you reciprocate a simple cross-link, and turn that into some sort
of backing-down from this "Great Electronic Holocaust Debate" that
you've invented out of thin air!


And I should add that I personally think it's rather presumptuous of you
to put up a premature announcement about this "Debate."  I think Mr.
McVay and Ms. Ostrov will agree with me on this point.


[remaining text deleted, mostly responses to private email from IR]

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