Wikileaks activist in Russia a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite, says report

17 December 2010

An anti-Semitic writer who has been described by campaigners as a Holocaust denier is believed to be working as a distributor for the internet platform WikiLeaks in Russia. Israel Shamir, a Swedish resident who also uses the names Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, has been identified as a WikiLeaks staff member and is reportedly responsible for choosing which leaked documents are distributed in Russia. It is also claimed that his son Johannes Wahlström, a journalist known to share some of Shamir’s views and previously criticized for faking reports, works for WikiLeaks in Scandinavia.

A journalist for the Russian newspaper ‘Moscow Times’ accused Shamir of falsifying a US diplomatic cable about collusion in the international response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations, and feeding it to the Russian press. Shamir previously called Ahmadinejad a “brave and charismatic leader” on his website.

Siberian-born Shamir,who was born Jewish but has renounced his religion, claims on his website to have served in the IDF during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He is described by the anti-Fascist organization Hope Not Hate as a “professional anti-Zionist” who publishes “rabid Holocaust denial material on his website”. Shamir has reportedly worked for Zavtra, a notoriously anti-Semitic Russian publication, and has written of his belief in the blood libel on his own website.

After White House correspondent Helen Thomas, 90, was fired for making anti-Semitic remarks, Shamir condemned “the madness of organized Jewish outrage.” He wrote: “Might not this unique Jewish ability to become outraged be connected with that other Jewish ability, of becoming rich?”

The platform Wikileaks became famous after it published hundreds of thousands confidential US diplomatic cables.

WJC and Anti-Semitism