At the end of the first week of May, Federal Court proceedings began in Canada aimed at deporting Ernst Zündel to Germany. According to the Canadian Government's court submission, Zündel is a "national security threat." Even though the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service document admits that the lifelong pacifist has "virtually no history of direct personal engagement in acts of serious violence," they contend that his alleged connections with other individuals and groups constitute a threat to Canadian security.

One of the organisations named is the British National Party, which has just once again demonstrated its commitment to the democratic process by widespread participation in local government elections. Another gripe of Zündel's accusers is that his website has a link to Ahmed Rami's Radio Islam site, which they claim "calls for total war against Zionism." A reasonable person might say that Rami is entitled to his opinion about an ideology that has waged 55 years of total war against his own people, and this has nothing much to do with Zündel in any case. But, as is so often the case these days, even when the supposedly neutral legal system is concerned, it all comes down to money and power. The Canadian press - largely owned by one Isidore Asper - has been even worse, brandishing scare-words in nearly every article about the Zündel case - ‘white supremacist’, ‘anti-semite’, even ‘terrorist’.

I once watched a Channel Four documentary which featured famed ‘Holocaust survivor’ Kitty Hart debating with three or four American revisionists/nationalists. My first reaction to the Americans - to use their own idiom - was: "These guys are nuts!" It was not until later that I came to realise that the situation was by no means as clear-cut as I had been led to believe by official versions of events. Now - and here I address myself to those who still believe the orthodox version of WWII history - if indeed "this guy is nuts," then why the frenzied attempts to shut down his website? Why all the measures of dubious legality - and plain illegality - to railroad Zündel to Germany to face a possible 10-year jail sentence just for his opinions? One could, if one were so inclined, construct a history of the war in North Africa in which the Allies were murderous maniacs, and the Germans and Italians decent, chivalrous fighters. For the only example of what could be called a war-crime in North Africa at that time came from the Allied side - an attack by the New Zealand Division on a field hospital in Matruh. Additionally, the USAAF, then as now, seemed to have an unfortunate habit of blowing up Arabs in mosques. But we all know and understand that history is written by the victors!

That ‘history’, based on half-truths, distortions and exaggerations, has been used for years to justify both the shameful oppression of the Palestinians and the enervation and decline of the West.