Friday, April 03, 2009

Ezra Levant (and Others) Responds

We received the following message from Mr. Ezra Levant in response to our article calling attention to his claims about Warren Kinsella's relationship with the CJC:

That letter is an after-the-fact attempt at spin by Kinsella. In February, he threatened to blackball and bad-mouth the Canada-Israel Committee, a sister organization to the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Jewish community's central advocacy agency ordered Kinsella off the CJC. He asked to "resign" instead of being fired, just to save face. But fired he was.

While we thank Mr. Levant for his response, we can't help but think he's now trying to move the goal posts a bit. First he claims that Mr. Kinsella was fired, but now he's claiming that Mr. Kinsella resigned from his position with the CJC before he could be fired, which means that he was fired.

Circular reasoning?

BigCityLib commented on this portion of Mr. Levant's response:

The Jewish community's central advocacy agency ordered Kinsella off the CJC.

Ohhhh, sounds spooky!

Please! Our Jewish friends, including those who contribute to this blog, usually can't agree amongst themselves on where to go out for dinner.

We also received a number of other comments from fans of Mr. Kinsella:

Epic
Fail

Check the dates involved

Nice try though...


and...

Looks like old kinsella is getting slow, it took almost a month to generate this letter. Quick response by way of Canada Post. It is sad really, just like it was sad to see Chuck Guite go as well.

and...

Yeah, a month ago... took awhile, huh? I guess the CJC doesn't backdate on request.

and..., well, that's all the anonymous comments we'll address since they all cover basically the same ground.

In response, we'll simply provide Harry's, who posted on BigCityLib's page stated so well, response:

It doesn't matter if the letter was issued five minutes ago. The current position by the Executive managers of CJC state that he Warren resigned and was not dismissed. This leaves Ez on the hook 100%. Not exactly the first time he's rushed into print with misapprehensions followed up by more misapprehensions. If he was smart he'd apologize and try to settle. But he isn't so he won't.

And now on to Jay Currie.

First, Jay, you hurt us. Cut us right down to the bone:

A letter from the CJC to the Lying Jackal stating that the Jackal offered to resign and was not “fired” has surfaced at the rather obscure “Anti-Racist Canada”.

Obscure? Ouch! Not nice at all. Okay, so it's factually correct, but gee whiz!

Jay does sort of redeem us soon after he commented on our obscurity:

The Jackal links to it but here are a couple of questions: how did the shadowy characters at ARC get a copy of the letter?


Cool! We've been upgraded to the status of "shadowy characters." Perhaps soon we might even be referred to as a cabal! Cross your fingers folks.

One of Jay's concerns is that we redacted a single line of text from the Kinsella letter:

And what is “redacted” at the top of the letter. (Redacting Daisy’s addy is simply silly as it is on the website.)

Could the redaction at the top be “Strictly Confidential – Without Prejudice?” or words to that effect? And would that, perhaps, explain why the Jackal is not publishing it on his site?

Now we didn't ask the little birdie who sent us the letter why it was being sent to us. However we can address Jay's paranoia. Here is a slightly less redacted top portion of the letter:

So do you still want to call Mr. Farber over this, Jay?

Finally, one we'll leave a final comment posted by ED. He asks three questions, though we would like to focus on his final question:

3. Why wouldn't Kinsella have sued Ezra (again) for defamation. This is a slam dunk case if this is real.

Well maybe ED isn't aware, but Mr. Kinsella is suing Mr. Levant over Levant's claim that Kinsella was fired. Also, Rabbi Bulka, Bernie Farber and others will be witnesses for the plaintiff.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm amused at how Jay Currie calls you folks "shadowy". It infers he disapproves of you folks exposing skinheads and bigots.

Maybe Jay doesn't realize if this blogsites blog-owners identities were known, the folks might be in some danger from the hatemongers they're exposing.

TorontoSHARP said...

"Skinheads and bigots"

To the anonymous poster who left that comment, this being 2009, you might want to check your facts about skinheads. I have yet to see the fine folks at ARC expose any skinheads. They have however done a wonderful job bring us information on the bald neo-nazis all over Canada.

"Exposing" skinheads would be boring, and easy. Just go to a ska or reggae show, or a TFC match. you'd be sure to see skinheads drinking ourselves silly while listening to some fantastic music. Heck, buy us the next round and we might even pose for a few pictures for you too!

Kurt Phillips said...

Sadly, we both know that for many people who are not familiar with the real skinhead scene the bald neo-Nazis have done too good a job at co-opting skinhead culture in the eyes of the public. We need to address this, but in the short term thank you TorontoSHARP for your efforts to set this record straight.

Ezra Levant said...

Thanks for posting my comment -- I appreciate your even-handedness. This is obviously a contentious issue.

In response to another one of your commenters who sounds skeptical, the central Jewish advocacy organization I mentioned is called CIJA, and it's not secret -- it's at www.cija.ca. It's the funder for both the CIC and CJC. They just simply refused to have someone (Kinsella) on one CIJA agency threaten another CIJA agency.

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

I love how Levant always acts like he's so persecuted every time someone sues him even though he's kind of got a reputation for being litigious.

My guess as to what's caused all this: The man has nowhere left to turn, and he's in a downward spiral. Withdrawal for a Stockaholic is an ugly thing, but we have to admire him: it takes time to get clean, and it's a lot of effort.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your response.... and unblocking the top. There was an email address. I appreciate your candor.

ED

Mitka said...

Ezra says "In response to another one of your commenters who sounds skeptical, the central Jewish advocacy organization I mentioned is called CIJA, and it's not secret -- it's at www.cija.ca. It's the funder for both the CIC and CJC. They just simply refused to have someone (Kinsella) on one CIJA agency threaten another CIJA agency."

But but...God this is frustrating. So let's parse Ezra's latest comment. He says this shadowy Jewish group is something called "CIJA" and that this "CIJA" that controls the purse-strings demanded that Warren be removed from CJC. That is his new position because we all know that only a few short weeks ago Ezra claimed that Warren was fired. That story seemed to get around even repeated ad nauseum in the House of Commons for Cripes sake!!

Now this CJC letter plainly shows that Warren chose to resign. Why he resigned is his business but bottom line he was not fired.

So if this all powerful "CIJA" wanted Kinsella gone never to return why would they "allow" CJC to send out this letter? Why indeed?

I mean its clear CJC want to bring him back (or did "CIJA" just miss this in the letter that maybe they missed altogether?)...You get the drift. If this "CIJA" runs the ship this CJC letter would never have been sent. Ezra is trying to tread water and his arms are getting very very heavy...look forward to the next Levant installment of "Making it up"

Anonymous said...

Ezra Levant has pegged you people 100% correct in his book Shakedown.

On Page 102 he calls you people "a violent street gang"

Kurt Phillips said...

Except for the rather inconvenient fact that we aren't a gang.

Ah! I bet you're mistaking us for the ARA. Sorry, not us. However we would like to ask on what basis he makes his claim that the ARA are "a violent street gang"? Is it as vague as the other claims that have been made about the ARA because when we look at the actual record, we can find very, very few examples of said violence. What we can find in spades are acts of violence, up to and including murder, of anti-racists and ARA members.