This morning we have another case of classic misdirection from the Eurofascist-supporting twins, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller; they’ve both posted long ad hominem screeds attacking me for “falling for fauxtography.”

Apparently, one of the photos I used to illustrate my post yesterday about the neo-facscist and outright neo-Nazi connections of the “pro Koln” conference in Germany was altered:

This photograph:

Which I discovered, ironically, at a pro-fascist website through Google Images: Translated version of Markus Beisicht (per NRW): “Islamization fight!”

Spencer and Geller have turned up another version of the photo (without saying where they got it):

Which one is the real photo and which is the altered one? It’s not obvious from examining the pictures, but clearly, one of them was altered.

But it’s a meaningless distinction. The point of posting the photograph was not to show Filip DeWinter of the Vlaams Belang and Markus Beisicht of Pro Koln in front of a demonstration — it was very obviously to show that they are associates.

The photograph Spencer and Geller have posted merely confirms that fact. And it’s very easy to find more photographs of DeWinter and Beisicht together — at the Pro Koln website itself.

Both of them are screaming about the “fauxtography,” to divert your attention from the fascist connections of these people — which, you may notice, they don’t dispute.

Pamela Geller has always been into these dishonest techniques, so there’s nothing more to say about her; but it’s sad, and utterly pathetic, to see Robert Spencer resorting to such sleaze.

(They both seem to think I would simply make the picture vanish and deny it was altered; actually, no, that’s not how I work. But it’s telling that they project their own techniques onto me.)

Spencer has also denied that he confirmed he would attend the Pro Koln meeting; if that’s true, he should take it up with the organizer (whose picture you see above, shaking hands with Filip DeWinter), who announced yesterday that he had confirmed: Translated version of “Robert Spencer on 9 May in Cologne”.

As of today, there is no correction at the Pro Koln website.

UPDATE at 4/25/09 9:43:59 am:

LGF reader “gegenkritik” has more information on the now-hidden anti-Israel history of Pro Koln.

Something more about pro Köln: their “pro-Israel”-stance is relatively new, it’s mainly PI-news-founder Stefan Herre, who appears at their demonstrations with israeli-flags. He was also the one to interview former CDU deputy mayor of district Cologne-Ehrenfeld (where the mosque will be built), Jörg Uckermann, who is now one of the leading figures of pro-Köln, and it was Herre who convinced him to to take a “pro-Israel”-stance.

Some years ago, pro-Köln was openly hostile towards Israel: here’s a leaflet (Google translated) that was handed out by pro-Köln’s student-organization, entitled “Solidarity with Palestine!”. You’ll find the typical anti-zionism in it: Israel is waging war against the Palestinians, Ariel Sharon is seeking for cruel vengeance, the German Goverment should not deliver weapons but put pressure on Israel.

Two years ago, pro-Köln defended the stance of the German Bishops, who compared the situation of the Palestinians with the Jews in the Warsaw-Ghetto (Here is a LGF-post about this).

To be fair, all this is still not a real Nazi-position, and it is the common stance of 90% of Germans. But there is more: their agitation against the planned Jewish museum in Cologne. The background: after the destruction of most Jewish buildings in Cologne in the Nazi-era, a private foundation was fundraising for a museum about the Jewish history in Cologne. The foundation got the building permission, but suddenly, nearly all media as well as the city council were against the museum.

The only newspapers that were still in favor of the planned museum, were those of the Axel Springer AG, who are often attacked by leftists, muslims and Neonazis alike because of their Corporate principles (“To promote reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support the vital rights of the State of Israel”). Neonazis and other Anti-semites often take this point to lament about the “jewish controlled media” (“Verjudete Presse” was the original slogan in the Nazi-era) and it’s very clear that pro-Köln is referring to this.

All this shows, that pro-Köln’s pro-Israel-attitude is essentially a fake.