An anonymous post on Harry's Place has alleged that I am responsible for posting anti-semitic material by Kevin McDonald on the Neocon Europe website. This allegation is false and I demand that Harry's Place retract it.
Harry’s place should already be aware that this was false as it had been made perfectly clear by Spinwatch in July of this year when David Miller wrote:
The quote was removed as soon as the mistake was spotted and an apology made. The person involved is no longer a contributor to our wiki projects.
I remain a contributor to Powerbase and other Spinwatch projects.
I fully endorsed and indeed helped to draft the apology which was made at the time by David Miller which stated in particular that:
The reason that the quotations by Macdonald were removed is that Macdonald has been repeatedly and rightly (in our view) accused of racism. Moreover, the statements expressed core essentialist anti-semitic/racist ideas. This material should not have been posted and is in no way endorsed by this site. I apologise for, and deeply regret, this error.
I was involved in ensuring the material was removed from the site, and in the subsequent editorial review, which led in part to the incorporation of Neocon Europe into the main SpinWatch Wiki, PowerBase. We took this action because, contrary to Harry's Place's claims, we take anti-semitism seriously and are determined to deal with the issue robustly.
Harry's Place nevertheless writes:
Who was the Kevin MacDonald fan at the University of Strathclyde? I think it may well be Tom Griffin. If I’m wrong, I’m very happy to post his denial.
The manifestly cavalier manner in which Harry's Place makes this extremely serious allegation, for which it cannot present any evidence, tells its own story.
I cannot see any reason for this false speculation, except to allow Harry's Place to make an entirely spurious connection to openDemocracy, an organisation which has no relation to the entire episode whatever.
In the period since Neocon Europe was incorporated into Powerbase, events have only served to confirm our thesis. We argued that neoconservative groups like the Center for Security Policy were building links with the European far right as part of an organised campaign of Islamophobia. The role of these organisations in the Park 51 smear campaign in the US has since been well documented, not least by American Jewish journalists appalled by such vicious sectarianism. The links which we identified between groups like Stop the Islamization of America and the English Defence League have become increasingly brazen.
That the Kevin MacDonald material appeared on the site is a source of lasting regret. I nevertheless remain proud that SpinWatch is prepared to call out those who seek to gain political advantage by scapegoating the Muslim community. We will not be deterred from that work by anonymous smears.
Update: Harry's Place has retracted its allegations against me, although they still seem determined to ignore David Miller's clear statement that: "The person involved is no longer a contributor to our wiki projects."
