Harry’s Place down
Via Mr E:
Harry’s Place may be removed (or rather have it’s DNS disabled) after a ‘complaint’ to the company that our domain name is registered with.
We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this ‘complaint’ originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.
Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.
This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.
Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.
I can’t stand Harry’s Place but censors and those who run screaming for their lawyers at the drop of a hat are to be resisted at every turn. It can happen to any blogger.
Posted on August 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
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I don’t necessarily agree: people are entitled to seek redress where they think they’ve been defamed or traduced. Yes, it can happen to any blogger - but so can being on the receiving end. It all depends on the facts of the individual case, which to me, currently remain unclear.
(There is, by the way, a certain contradiction between saying “we have not yet seen the complaint submitted” and “nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made”. Without having seen it, how can they know?)
It’s quite likely that the complainant is in the wrong on this, perhaps entirely in the wrong. But there are sometimes very good reasons why people seek redress and there are good reasons why they are allowed to do so.
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
“Without having seen it, how can they know?”
The disappearance of their blog was probably their first clue.
“It’s quite likely that the complainant is in the wrong on this..”
An ‘academic’ who approvingly links to David Duke’s website to support her bizarre views? Yeah, I’d say so…
JuliaM’s latest blog post… Turning The Tide Down Under…
Delich has of course admitted circulating a link to the KKK site.
Which is all the HP post alleged.
If she wishes to rest a case on the fact that she didn’t know the nature of Duke (ie.she’s very very ignorant) then so be it.
But one look at the page she circulated clearly demonstrates the type of site.
If she wishes to rest a case on the fact….
I think the point here is that as yet we don’t know for sure the basis on which she does rest the case. This may very well be specious, malicious, or wrong in principle, law or fact: and we may, if we choose, infer all or any of these. But we don’t actually know.
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
If thats what makes you happy ej.
Stick with it.
Its a shame that she spread KKK propaganda, but the damage has been amplified a thousand times by this action, and as ever when racism in the Palestinian Solidarity movement is exposed, the losers are Palestinians.
(Actually for the sake of accuracy it might be worth noting that there’s not really a “case” at all, in the sense of a legal one: the action the complainant has taken is not one currently involving recourse to the law. This is among the reasons I’m not happy in general with this sort of thing: if one considers one has been defamed sufficiently to take action preventing a publication appearing, I think that really needs to be a legal process at the outset. Then again, the libel law is not all that accessible to everybody, which is among my objection to it as presently constituted.)
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle
Seems the Union is distancing itself from Delich, implying that she has form
Matt Waddup, the member of staff responsible for the UCU activist list has now sent the following email to the list:
Time for one of my universally popular interventions
I have received complaints from list members about the linking by another member to a website which contains highly offensive, racist material.
I acted to suspend the posting rights of the list member as soon as the union became aware of the link, and having reviewed this and previous conduct; I have now suspended their list membership indefinitely.
List members should note that my view as moderator is that you are responsible for what you post, including links.
Check what you are sharing before you share it. Think about what you are saying before you press send.
Best to all
Matt
So the UCU seems to be excluding Delich. But it has taken no responsibility for the incident.
It has taken no responsibility for the fact that it had already cleared Delich, in two formal investigations, of any wrongdoing. The UCU was told that there was a problem of antisemitism. It was given the evidence. And it refused, until now, to do anything about it.
Nevertheless today’s move against Delich is significant. It is the first time that UCU has come near to recognizing that there is any problem of antisemitism in the union. It constitutes the final crumbling of the “criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, antisemitic” brick wall.
Leon,
Are you cutting and pasting from someone who appears to be making the argument that, thank to Delich, criticism of Israel or Israeli policy can now be branded antisemitic? Or is this your own hope for the way the fallout of this case settles?
I think the tolerance of anti semitism in some parts of the “pro” Palestinian movement has inevitably led to the position where one of the less bright among them would openly start spreading links to nazi sites.
If you think that makes the case for criticism of Israeli policy more effective then I would suggest you’re part of the problem.
Saying that that claim: “It constitutes the final crumbling of the “criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, antisemitic” brick wall”, is nasty bollocks is not the same as saying that antisemitic criticisms of Israel make criticisms of Israeli policy more effective. Patently.
The claim is bollocks as it is the gleeful suggestion that the existence of antisemitism (and there is no charge that Delich is antisemitic, is there? The charge is that she linked to a article reprinted on a website run by an antisemite. The article was not written by the antisemite) in some criticisms of Israel makes all criticisms of Israel antisemitic. This is offensive on two levels. First, it does not follow - it is a mistake in reasoning of the first order(*). Second, such a deliberate - but perhaps persuasive - mistake in reasoning is made with politically nasty aims in mind.
(*) The only way the logic works is if our gleeful correspondent makes the claim that the terms Israel and Jew are not just interchangable in these entirely fictional hordes of antisemitic leftists, but are indistinguishable in actual fact. Such a categorisation of world is an example of the way in which some Zionist ideas demonstrate a very strange antisemitic flavour.
And, before you go off on one about Delich, the paragraph that ended the comment that I took issue with isn’t about whether Delich is stupid or antisemitic, is justified in complaining or not…
The paragraph that ended the comment was an attempt to make some particularly nasty Zionist profit from the case at end, by generalising it to the extent that it an exemplar of all criticisms of Israel.
Quite so.
It does turn out that there is perhaps more to this case than we were originally told, no? In particular it appears that Delich’s email address appeared in the comments thread.
Now that’s not necessarily the moderators’ fault (although Christ knows HP is less than perfectly moderated) but it would have been a piece of information worth knowing before everybody leapt to conclusions.
ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle