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Articles by Subject
The Bollyn Trial
ADL Link to Bollyn Case by M.C. Piper
ADL Link to Bollyn Case by M.C. PiperAugust 27, 2006 The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith has had its eye on AFP correspondent Christopher Bollyn for a long time. In light of the recent attack on Bollyn, in his own front yard, by officers of his hometown police department in Hoffman Estates, Ill., it is fitting to outline what we know about past ADL efforts to undermine Bollyn. What follows is Michael Collins Piper's abbreviated account of a previous ADL campaign against both Bollyn and Piper, demonstrating that the ADL maintains intimate contact with police officials in suburban Chicago where the attack on Bollyn took place. As Piper notes, this certainly raises the question as to whether the thugs who attacked Bollyn had been "advised" by the ADL about Bollyn. For the first five months of the year 2000 the otherwise quiet Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., was wracked by a stormy debate over censorship, centering around my book Final Judgment, which charges Israeli involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The frenzy began when a local library patron, Christopher Bollyn, tried to donate a copy to the Schaumburg Township District Library (STDL). Trained in Middle East studies, Bollyn is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, among other languages. In addition, his late mother was one of the library's founders, his wife was a volunteer at the library, and Bollyn himself had worked at the library as a young man. Despite all this, the library rejected the donation. However, Bollyn attended a library board meeting to press the matter, and, at that time, pointed out that several library directors were partisans of Israel. He charged that the book was rejected because of the Israeli lobby's fervent objections to the book. Already involved behind the scenes, the Chicago office of the ADL publicly stepped into the picture, with ADL spokesman Richard Hirshhaut attacking Bollyn. "We believe this is a cynical ploy, an attempt to create a First Amendment issue as a subterfuge for an effort to exploit the goodwill and fair-mindedness of the public library system," said Hirshaut. "The library should not be forced to put itself in a position of being a warehouse or central address for every bigot with an agenda." Hirschaut had previously been based in the San Francisco office of the ADL at the very time - seven years previously - that the ADL came under intense public scrutiny for its improper involvement with at least one member of the San Francisco Police Department. Following that scandal, in which Hirschaut was under criminal investigation for his involvement in the ADL-connected police scandal, Hirschaut was moved to Chicago. In fact, Hirschaut and the San Francisco ADL office were keeping tabs on Bollyn as far back as the early 1990s when Bollyn, then a college student in the San Francisco Bay area, was leading protests against the first U.S. war against Iraq, which was being promoted by the Israeli lobby. In any case, the brouhaha between Bollyn and the ADL and the Schaumburg Library attracted the attention of the media. No less than five area newspapers and the PBS affiliate reported on the controversy. The mess dragged on for some five months, with Bollyn insisting that the library accept the copy of Final Judgment. In response, the library appointed a special three-member "tribunal" to examine Final Judgment and determine whether it was "appropriate" for inclusion in the library. Heading the tribunal was Uri Toch, the library's official translator of Hebrew, which is the state language of Israel. Toch and his tribunal declared the book "poorly written" and essentially called it a piece of garbage but finally consented to permit the book to be accepted by the library to avoid being accused of censorship. At one point, Toch tried to get Bollyn arrested after Bollyn called the library and asked Toch, in the Israeli state language, where Toch had lived in Israel. Toch called the local police, crying that he felt "threatened." By this juncture, I was personally tired of the attacks by the ADL on Bollyn, whom I had never even met in person and with whom I had never even spoken on the telephone, and I accepted Bollyn's invitation to come to the Schaumburg-Hoffman Estates area and speak publicly at the library where the Israeli librarian and the ADL had worked to suppress my book. Some 150 people turned out for the event - including a local police officer who happened to have been a reader of The Spotlight newspaper by which I was employed. The officer advised me, confidentially, that the ADL had contacted the Schaumburg Police Department to "brief" them about me and about Bollyn. In response to the ADL briefing, the Schaumburg police chief at the time, Richard Casler, sent out word that one of the "top Nazis in America" (me) was coming to town and that this Nazi bigwig had invited "his followers" to come to a rally. To preserve the peace and prevent Bollyn and me from instigating another holocaust, perhaps, Casler ordered extra officers on duty. When I learned of this tough cop's toadying to the ADL, I called his office, but Casler wouldn't come to the phone. He sent his deputy, Capt. Tom Ostermann, who refused to either admit or deny the chief had been in touch with the ADL. When Ostermann became exasperated and said he was "just a hard-working cop," I told him I thought the Schaumburg police would do the public a much better service by watching out for drug dealers rather than chasing down a fat guy with glasses whose only crime was to write a book. The big problem is that the ADL's contacts with local law enforcement all over America have intensified. The ADL's web site on the Internet brags of its close "cooperation" with local police. The ADL brags of "advising" police departments about "gangs" and in techniques of fighting "terrorism." Our police departments are being made adjuncts of the ADL's efforts to suppress dissent in America. Outspoken journalists such as Bollyn are the frontline targets. Don't let it happen in your town. |
