Jewish Smear Campaign Against Assange?

The effort to discredit Julian Assange continues, with The New York Times reporting on a claim that Assange made anti-Semitic comments in complaining about a “Jewish smear campaign” against him and WikiLeaks.

A link to the Times story is available here. –JCL

Salon.com:

After the Bush administration implemented a worldwide torture regime, The New York Times (and many other American media outlets) infamously — and so very courageously — refused to use the word “torture” to describe what was done. Their excuse was that there was a “debate” over whether the authorized tactics were in fact torture, and media outlets should not take sides in that debate.

Earlier today, Ian Hislop, editor of a magazine called Private Eye, published a lengthy article recounting what he claims are anti-Jewish remarks made to him by Julian Assange in a private telephone call (meaning a call in which only Hislop and Assange participated). Hislop claims that Assange complained that an earlier Private Eye story about a Holocaust-denying, Russian WikiLeaks volunteer was part of an anti-Wikileaks conspiracy orchestrated by several Jewish editors and reporters at The Guardian, with whom Assange has been feuding.

Assange vehemently denies the story as asserted by Hislop — both its particulars and its general claims. WikiLeaks, on its Twitter feed, quoted Assange as stating that “Hislop has distorted, invented or misremembered almost every significant claim and phrase”; that the “‘Jewish conspiracy’ [claim] is false, in spirit and in word. It is serious and upsetting”; and that “we treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world.”

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