email start/ "From: Luke.Tryl[at]magd.ox.ac.uk
To: normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Debate
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:38:31 +0100

"Dear Dr Finkelstein,

I hope that you are well, I'm so sorry for the confusion about the debate. There was an organisational difficulty at my end and my secretary hadn't seen your emails.I would appreciate it if you could keep this bit between you and I. Many people expressed concern that the debate as it stood was imbalanced and people felt that as someone who had apparently expressed anti-zionist sentiments that you might not be appropriate for this debate. I tried to convince them otherwise but was accused of putting forward an imbalanced debate and various groups put pressure on me. I received numerous emails attacking the debate and Alan Dershowitz threatened to write an Oped attacking the Union. What is more he apparently attacked me personally in a televised lecture to Yale.I hope that you understand my position, this is not ideal and I would be happy to welcome you as an individual speaker to the Union in a forthcoming term. I know that the President-Elect Emily Partington would be keen to host you in Hilary. I just did not want to see the debate compromised and given the Irving Griffin Controversy I couldn't fight a battle on all fronts. Best wishes Luke." email end/

From: bps11@cam.ac.uk
Sent: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 09:27:07 -0000
To: stephen stannard
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Mr Stannard,

Thank you for your email. Of course, I shall look into it. In the interest of clarity can you please set out for me which part of Alan Mendoza's letter you consider incorrect and why.

Can you also please let me know the circumstances of the 'publication' of Mr Tryll's email - which was supposed to be confidential. I assume that he himself released it? If so, can you let me know his accompanying statement.

Yours sincerely,

Brendan Simms

From: Stephen Stannard
To: Dr B Simms
Cc: jpab@cam.ac.uk ; luke.trylat@magd.ox.ac.uk ; president@oxford-union.org
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Dr Simms

I am most grateful to you for your reply and I am happy to assist you in pointing out the discrepancies in Mendoza'a letter:

Tryl, Luke, Oxford Union President 17 Oct 2007 email to Norman Finkelstein:

"I received numerous emails attacking the debate and Alan Dershowitz threatened to write an Oped attacking the Union. What is more he apparently attacked me personally in a televised lecture to Yale.

Mendoza, A, Executive Director HJS, 26 Oct 2007 published letter to Guardian:

'Norman Finkelstein was not uninvited by the union on account of any pressure from "American pro-Israeli academics"..."Attributing the Finkelstein debacle to international intervention from a prominent American pro-Zionist shows the extreme paranoia and hate-filled agenda that has come to be the mainstay of this movement. In life, the cock-up theory of disaster almost always takes precedence over that of conspiracy. The rabid anti-Israel lobby would do well to remember this and inject some notion of reality into their discourse."

Now, to come to the issue of how this came to light I suggest you refer to Professor Finkelstein's website site( http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1288#rdrl "What really happened at Oxford Finkelstein comments: Insofar as the lies about what happened at the Oxford Union are getting more and more appalling, I have very reluctantly decided to post the email from the President of the Oxford Union disinviting me.) since, quite understandably and in the light of and after the intervention of Mendoza, he chose to put the record straight, and clearly had no option given not only the inaccuracy of Mendoza's letter but the extremely unpleasant terms in which he Mendoza framed his letter. Now either Luke Tryl, Oxford Union President, is lying and committing libel - and I'm sure you will agree the consequences for Tryl would be fearsome to say the least if that were the case - or Mendoza is lying.I am minded, with little fear of error, to believe that Luke Tryl's email is the truth of the matter simply because of the documentary proof and televised and audio record of Alan Dershowitz.

Perhaps I can bring to your attention documents released under the California Public Rights Act and passed to Professor Norman Finkelstein where they are currently hosted in PDF format?
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1287

You may not know but Dershowitz has publicly and frequently named and written about Professor Finkelstein (the son of two parents who were sole survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and Majdanek and Auschwitz nazi concentration camps) suggesting he is an 'Anti-Semite', 'self-hating Jew', 'Holocaust Denier' and, at other times depending on his audience, a 'Holocaust Minimizer'.

Documentary records have proved, beyond any doubt, Dershowitz has breached more than one formal Codes relating to citing of sources in more than one of his own 'scholarly' books.These documents (now a verified matter of public record) - that Alan Dershowitz has refused to make public in the two years past, and which he would have required to back up his claim that he had never tried to prevent publication of a scholarly work by Professor Finkelstein, prove the contrary. That is the nature of Alan Dershowitz.

Rather, documentary records and exhaustive peer-reviewed examination have proved, beyond any doubt, that Dershowitz has breached more than one formal Code relating to citing of sources in more than one of his own 'scholarly' books - in effect plagiarism to the extent he repeated verbatim errors made by the sources used - sources which he claimed to be either his own or those of a differently cited source.

That scholarly publication (Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History), released through University of California Press, has been widely acclaimed by your fellow esteemed academic colleagues - such as Professors: (the late) Raul Hilberg, (the late) BARUCH KIMMERLING, George S. Wise Professorof Sociology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Avi Schlaim, Professor of International Relations, Oxford University, SARA ROY, Senior Research Scholar, Center for MiddleEastern Studies, Harvard University, Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Talmudic Culture among many others - as a work of oustanding scholarly worth, quality and research excellence.

Given the high-minded 'Statement of Principles' of the Henry Jackson Society - of which you are President - the terms in which your Executive Director Mendoza placed his inaccurate letter to the Guardian, and his comments such as the "repugnant Professor Finkelstein" who he suggests represents "the extreme paranoia and hate-filled agenda that has come to be the mainstay of...the anti-Israel lobby" can only bring harm and disrepute to the organisation you represent.

Indeed, I intend to communicate with at least three signatories of the HJS 'Statement' through my 30+ year active membership of an organisation they all take the whip for in the UK House of Commons.

In the light of the above I would welcome your comments based upon your own academic credentials and integrity.

Once again please accept my sincere appreciation for your time which I fully accept is precious and I trust you will accept that I do not raise this matter with you lightly.

Yours truly

Stephen Stannard

From: bps11@cam.ac.uk
Sent: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 09:31:46 -0000
To: stephen.stannardinbox.com
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Mr Stannard,

Thank you for the clarification of the position as you see it. Before replying, I should like to hear Mr Tryl's account of what happened, in particular what if anything he told the participants in the debate on the night or on any other occasion about why Professor Finkenstein had not come or been disinvited.

(Mr Tryl: Stephen Stannard copied you into this, and I copy you therefore into the reply and look forward to your explanation of how two apparently contradictory stories of the disinvitation - if that is what it was - came about.)

Yours sincerely,

Brendan Simms

Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 08:42:25 -0800
From: stephen stannard
Subject: FW: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS
To: bps11@cam.ac.ukCC: luke.tryl@magd.ox.ac.uk; president@oxford-union.org

Dear Dr Simms

**My earlier reply to you appears (from looking at my saved sent copies) to have been 'chewed up' by my email provider software and makes less than sense. I hope the corrected email substance below is now clearer. Thanks, Stephen Stannard.**

Thank you for your further replies. As to the substance of your reply vis obtaining Luke Tryl's further explanantion.

However, I think you need to bear in mind that:

1. His, Tryl's, email to Professor Finkelstein is a fact and dated 17 October

2. News media was reporting the substance of his email 6 days earlier than that.

3. Sources within Oxford Union were already reporting those facts at or immediately prior to the scheduled debate. Indeed, other invited speakers, including Professor Avi Schlaim, had withdrawn on the basis of Dershowitz's known intervention - why would they withdraw on the basis of a fiction?

4. Alan Dershowiz had by now penned a piece for FrontPageMag to the effect and of the substance that Luke Tryl suggests he had been threatened with.

I find it very difficult to believe that Alan Mendoza was ignorant of Dershowitz's admitted and known intervention up to some 14 days prior to his Guardian letter.

In any case, what business is it of Mendoza and the HJS to intervene in such an egregious and inflammatory manner on the basis of a very clear and known falsehood?

Yours

Stephen Stannard

From: bps11@cam.ac.uk
Sent: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 09:31:46 -0000
To: stephen stannard
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Mr Stannard,

Thank you for the further clarification. I had wondered about the 'chewed up' bits.

I now await the response from Mr Tryll.

Yours sincerely,

Brendan Simms

From: stephen stannard
Sent: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:20:31 +0000
To: bps11@cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Dr Simms

Thanks for that.

I look forward with interest to your substantive reply when Luke Tryl confirms, as he cannot fail to so do, the contents of his email to Professor Finkelstein.

Since even if the substance of Luke Tryl's 17 October email had not already been reported to news media by Oxford Union sources, and had not already been communicated to the other speakers - Professor Avi Schlaim included - well before Mendoza's letter, the fact that has been established by Tryl's email indicates that Professor Finkelstein was neither 'lying' nor 'paranoid' about the reason given to him for his dis-invitation, which is what Mendoza states.

Therefore the issue of an apology would seem inescapable since the denial of one would simply prove a shameful lack of integrity on the part of both Mendoza and HJS and all who represent it.

Yours

Stephen Stannard

Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:01:08 -0800
From: stephen stannard
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS
To: bps11@cam.ac.uk
CC: luke.tryl@magd.ox.ac.uk; president@oxford-union.org; jpab4@cam.ac.uk

Dear Dr Simms

Further to our recent correspondence of 3 November, I wonder if you are now able to respond substantively?

Once again many thanks for your time and consideration.

Yours truly

Stephen Stannard

From: bps11@cam.ac.uk
Sent: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:25:47 -0000
To: stephen stannard
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS

Dear Mr Stannard,

I have not heard from Mr Tryl, but I am satisfied that the main reason Professor Finkelstein was 'disinvited' was not the pressure brought upon him by Professor Dershowitz.

I refer you to the account below.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/
2007/11/03/the_case_of_the_missing_pyrite_a_case
_study_in_demonisation.php

The key phrase here is that of Mr Tryl's email of 1 November 'The cancellation of Finkletsein had nothing to do with pressure from supporters of Israel. Rather, it resulted from another of the speakers against the motion and groups of interested students pointing out that Finkletsien ws an inappropriate co-speaker. I told the Union members prsent at the debate that the selection of Finkelstein had been an unfortunate mistake'.

Furthermore, to describe Professor Finkeltsein's views - which come close to suggesting that some Jews 'market' the Holocaust - as 'repugnant' seems fair comment.

In that context, I see no reason to dissent from Alan Mendoza's remarks to the Guardian.

As far as I am concerned the matter is now closed.

Thank you for drawing this affair to my attention.

Yours sincerely,

Brendan Simms

From: Stephen Stannard
Subject: Re: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS
To: Dr B Simms bps11@cam.ac.uk
Cc: luke.tryl@magd.ox.ac.uk, president@oxford-union.org, jpab4@cam.ac.uk

Dear Dr Simms

Thank you for your substantive response and your time in doing so.

Of course, your rather simplistic reliance on inaccurate comment; your quite breathtaking ignorance of the sheer weight of academic research that backs up Professor Finkelstein's published works - on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, the Holocaust Industry and its negative effects on actual survivors of the Nazi Holocaust (both financial and social), beggars belief from a Cambridge academic.

The fact that the world renowned 'father' of Nazi Holocaust studies, the late Professor Raul Hilberg, and many others in the field have given such firm support for the findings of Professor Finkelstein, put such refusal on the part of you and others, to acknowledge the cancer of the abuse of anti-semtism, in a nakedly ideological light that is far away from academic standards of truth and integrity.

Far worse though is your failure to respond to the issue of freedom of speech.

Yours

Stephen Stannard

• The bottomless capacity for falsification at Oxford
  (To: Dr B Simms, "RE: Dr. Alan Mendoza - Executive Director HJS") 11.18.2007
• Haaretz on Oxford and Beyond
  (Haaretz: "Are two states still viable?" ) 11.15.2007
• Avi Shlaim on Oxford Farce
  (Avi Shlaim: "Israel, Free Speech, and the Oxford Union") 11.13.2007
• More Oxford Fantasies
  (Haaretz: "VIEWPOINT / 'Israel Lobby' book may have sinister impact in U.K.; Finkelstein comments at the bottom of this article." ) 11.12.2007
• What really happened at Oxford
  (Finkelstein comments: "Insofar as the lies about what happened at the Oxford Union...;" Reader letters) 11.01.2007
• Rewriting history before the ink has dried
  (Dr Alan Mendoza, Executive director, Henry Jackson Society, The Guardian "No pressure put on Oxford Union;" w/ reader letters) 11.03.2007
• More Oxford fantasies
  (Haaretz: "High-profile invitees to Oxford Union debate on Israel walk out") 11.04.2007
• Israeli soldier writes President of Oxford Union
  (From Ronen Berelovich (Israel) to Luke Tryl, President of Oxford Union (Oxford University, UK)) 10.24.2007
• Still more on the Oxford Union
  (Peter Tatchell: "Free speech threatened by ban on Norman Finkelstein") 10.25.2007
• More on the Oxford Union
  The Guardian: "Intellectual terrorism. For the sake of free speech, British organisations should confront pro-Israel bullies, not appease them.") 10.25.2007
• Shouldn't there be a mandatory decent interval before history is rewritten?
  (The Jerusalem Post: "Oxford cancels one-state debate;" w/ Finkelstein's comment) 10.23.2007
• Isn't it time to seek therapy for his obsession?
  (Alan M. Dershowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com: "Oxford Union Is Dead") 10.20.2007