COMMENT: Evi­dent­ly feel­ing the heat, Wik­iLeaks chief Julian Assange has shown some­thing of his true nature–not the altru­is­tic “war­rior for truth” that he rep­re­sents him­self as being. In an arti­cle in Pri­vate Eye (UK), Assange posit­ed a Jew­ish con­spir­a­cy against Wik­iLeaks, react­ing to crit­i­cism of his selec­tion of a cel­e­bra­to­ry anti-Semi­te, Holo­caust denier and inti­mate of the Swedish Nazi milieu Joran Jer­mas, aka “Israel Shamir.”

Defend­ing this overt fas­cist, who has stat­ed that “It is the duty of all good Chris­tians and Mus­lims to deny the Holo­caust,” Assange ini­tial­ly blamed the bad pub­lic­i­ty the  group has received over this Nazi on a “Jew­ish con­spir­a­cy.” Con­sid­er­ing that The Guardian (UK) was one of his tar­gets in that rhetor­i­cal flour­ish, the com­ment is as ludi­crous as it is offen­sive and reveal­ing–The Guardian is fierce­ly anti-Israel.

Assange echoed the sub­stance of his remarks about Jermas/“Shamir” in an arti­cle in The New York Times.

“Report Says Assange Com­plains of Jew­ish Smear Cam­paign” by Ravi Somaiya; The New York Times; 3/1/2011.

EXCERPT: . . . . He was espe­cial­ly angry about a Pri­vate Eye report that Israel Shamir, an Assange asso­ciate in Rus­sia, was a Holo­caust denier. Mr. Assange com­plained that the arti­cle was part of a cam­paign by Jew­ish reporters in Lon­don to smear Wik­iLeaks.

A lawyer for Mr. Assange could not imme­di­ate­ly be reached for com­ment, but in a state­ment lat­er released on the Wik­iLeaks Twit­ter feed, Mr. Assange said Mr. His­lop had “dis­tort­ed, invent­ed or mis­re­mem­bered almost every sig­nif­i­cant claim and phrase.”

The Pri­vate Eye arti­cle quot­ed Mr. Assange as say­ing the con­spir­a­cy was led by The Guardian and includ­ed the newspaper’s edi­tor, Alan Rus­bridger, and inves­ti­ga­tions edi­tor, David Leigh, as well as John Kampfn­er, a promi­nent Lon­don jour­nal­ist who recent­ly reviewed two books about Wik­iLeaks for The Sun­day Times of Lon­don.

When Mr. His­lop point­ed out that Mr. Rus­bridger was not Jew­ish, Mr. Assange coun­tered that The Guardian’s edi­tor was “sort of Jew­ish” because he and Mr. Leigh, who is Jew­ish, were broth­ers-in-law. . . .