This report was completed within a few weeks of the judgment in what has become known as the ‘Holocaust denial trial’. The denier David Irving had sued the historian Deborah Lipstadt, complaining that she had defamed him in her book Denying the Holocaust. He said that her description of him as an antisemite[*], a Hitler partisan and a bogus historian (I summarize) was libellous.

After the trial, which lasted just over two months and during which a number of historians gave expert evidence against Irving, the judge concluded that Professor Lipstadt was right. In a judgment that runs to over 300 pages, Mr Justice Gray rejected every single aspect of Irving’s case for denial.

The deniers themselves are thinking fast to discredit the judgment. Their websites are thick with excuses and explanations: Irving was not given a fair trial; the judge was an ‘establishment figure’; oppressive tactics brought the doughty Irving down. Deniers cannot be convinced of either the wickedness or the idiocy of their cause. For them, the Jews are devils who have bewitched the world; and they, the deniers, are the white magicians who can lift the spell. This is about as close as deniers get to a reasoned defence of denial. It is fanciful, inconsequential stuff, pernicious only if taken seriously. Irving and other antisemites take it seriously. The question is whether anyone else does, or is likely to.

The conclusion that the Law Panel reached in the following report is that the present risk that Holocaust deniers pose can best be dealt with by education. Existing race hate laws, if appropriately modified, together with a drive to raise public awareness of the nature of the Holocaust is sufficient to deal with the threat that the deniers pose. They are small, benighted people. Their work does not represent a challenge to historians. They are few in number, and that number is not growing. The response to denial should be proportionate to its menace.

This report is the outcome of lengthy deliberations by the members of the JPR Law Panel as well as an extensive consultation process involving many experts. It is therefore the work of many hands whose contribution I would like to acknowledge.

First of all, I would like to thank my fellow members of the JPR Law Panel, who gave generously of their time and expertise, and all those who made submissions to the Panel, whose names are listed in the appendix.

My gratitude goes also to: Jessica Jacobson for drafting the text of the report; Antony Lerman[*] for his guidance; Jacqueline Sallon for overseeing the work of the JPR Law Panel in the first eighteen months of its existence, and for organizing the Inquiry Day together with Lena Stanley-Clamp, who also saw the report through its final stages; Adrian Marshall-Williams for undertaking additional research; and Karen Rosen and Mark Sellman who helped with the writing of minutes and the compilation of documentation.

It has been a privilege to chair this panel and I commend this report.

Anthony Julius (right)
London, June 2000

* The grossly overrated (and widely disliked) legal wizard Anthony Julius is lying in stating that Mr Irving complained that Lipstadt’s book called him an anti-Semnite. The book made no such claim, or about racism, (as Judge Gray himself pointed out in his Judgment) consequently Mr Irving did not complain about it. It was the defence team which played the “antiu-Semitism” and “race” cards. As for Julius’s frequent claims to have led the Lipstadt defence team, he did not speak once during the trial except when asked by the Judge about a broken undertaken given by his law firm to Mr Irving (a serious matter). Antony Lerman, head of the JPR, was the liar who started the legend that David Irving “supplied the trigger mechanism” used for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.