Weekend Open Thread

A lot of attention this week has been on Asghar Bukhari and the revelations that he sent money to Holocaust denier David Irving to support his quest for "Truth". Explanations have been coming thick and fast varying from being "over idealistic" to not knowing who Irving was.

None of the excuses are credible, in fact by Asghar's own admission he was anti-Semitic. He wrote:

we saw the whole issue as a pretty simple equation: Jewish people had robbed Palestinian people of their land, not content with that, they massacred them, oppressed them brutally, and even went so far as murdering their children. Then anyone who spoke out against these Jews and what they were doing was silenced by being smeared as anti Semitic. That’s the understanding I myself had when I was growing up.

Bukhari should have simply accepted that he was indeed anti-Semitic but has since changed his views. His refusal to admit the obvious implies that he hasn't really changed his mind at all; something evidenced by his site and organisation.