BRA ERIN HONE OEE Cok sae

A COUPLE of months ago,
anti-Semitic graffiti were
scrawled on a synagogue
construction site in West
Vancouver. Right away, it
. became front-page news. It
was big on the TV screens,
too.

Who did it? No one knows.
-But that kind of coverage is auto-
‘matic. The media invariably.
accept such incidents as gespel,
(“West Van Jews face Nazi threat”
was the News’ headline.)

But I will stick my neck out
(Hello, there, Press Council!) and
say that the chances of the inci-
dent having been a hoax are far
greater than its having been gen-
ine, : ,

The “message” included the
term “Juden ‘raus!" which means
“Jews out!"

_ Not many Canadians would
know that. Germans would, but
today’s Germans would be the
very last to risk doing such a
dumb thing.

One has to ask the classic
question: who gains?

Not the alleged anti-Semites,
because such idiocies are counter-
productive. A hoaxer on the

. Jewish side would, though,

ing.

In a previous incident four
years ago a “cross-burning” took
place in the front yard of a house
in which Iranians were living.
More panic stations. The KKK are
upon us!

A couple of years later it
turned out that the deed had been
“artificial,” and that left-wing
Iranians had used it to show evi-

- dence of “racism” on the North
Shore.

‘That, at any rate, was what the
editor of the Iranian newspaper
toid the Vancouver Sun.

A fascinating book has now

_ been published on the subject of |

such tricks. It’s called Crying

Wolf, Hate Crime Hoaxes i in North

KEN BAXTER | |

“LAWYER
24Years ~
Experience _

because it keeps the right pot boil-~

on the
other hand

America, by Laird Wilcox,

The author documents hun-
dreds of hoaxes. And he isn’t
some wild-cyed right-winger, On
the contrary, he has written about
Nazis, the KKK and others on the
extreme right.

Here are a couple of exampies
from his book.

In West. Hartford, Connecticut,
the Jewish community was terror-
ized by fires set at iwo syna-
gogues and by another set at the
home of a rabbi, The home of a
State Representative, a Jewess,
was also set on fire.

Nation-wide media attention
followed. A $50,000 reward was:

: posted for information leading to

a conviction, and dozens of
policemen were put on the case.
But the fires had been set by 17-
year-old Barry Dov Schuss, him-
self Jewish.

He was charged with second-
degree arson and told the court
that a “possible reason” for his
actions was to show the vulnera-
bility of the police to anti-Semitic
violence.

He got off with probation, but
if he had been a'skinhead he
would have been put away for
years.

White gentiles are sometimes

~ involved in these capers but usual-

ly it is minorities. In New York
State, a black teenager by the
name of Tawana Brawley became
a cause celebre. ;

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: .

She claimed to have been kid-
napped and raped by white men,
smeared with dog feces, stulfed
into a plastic garbage bag, and
marked with racial slurs.

The facident “fuelled support
for bate crime legislation around
the nation.”

There were Maws in her tale
from the start, But as Wilcox puts
it, “an incredible media feeding
frenzy took place.”

A grand jury concluded the
woman had fabricated the story.

William Kunstler the radical
lawyer offered a thought on the
matter, He said tt made no differ-
ence whether the attack really
happened, “A lot of black women
ire treated the way she says she
was trested.”"

‘Another famous hoax was per-
petrated hy Laurie A. Recht in
Yonkers, New York. Recht was
supposed to have received death
threats and claimed she was the
target of anti-Semitic graffiti in
her apartment block.

_ As a result of another media
feeding frenzy she was given an
honorary doctorate, was offered a
scholarship, and became “a. very
important lady.”

It was proved, though, that she
had received no threatening calls.
And a hidden police camera --
showed she was painting graffiti
on the wall herself. She too got
probation.

These incidents work well for
the perpetrators. And nothing will
change as long as minorities are
seen as permanent victims.
Which, of course, is all part of
political correctness.

The book costs $19.95 (U. S.)
postpaid and is available from
Laird Wilcox Editorial Research
Service, P.O. Box 2047, Olathe,
KS 66061, U.S.A.

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