Reason magazine says it has confirmation from a WikiLeaks spokesperson that Israel Shamir, an anti-Semitic Russian-born resident of Sweden, is employed by WikiLeaks. Shamir, who also goes by the aliases Adam Ermash or Jöran Jermas, likes to write things like “Jews asked God to kill, destroy, humiliate, exterminate, defame, starve, impale Christians, to usher in Divine Vengeance and to cover God’s mantle with blood of goyim” on his website. Also on his site: a prominently displayed picture of him and Julian Assange. The original reports of Shamir’s connection to WikiLeaks came out of Swedish and Russian media outlets, but a WikiLeaks spokesman confirmed that Shamir serves as the group’s content aggregator in Russia, with the role of selecting and distributing the cables to Russian news organizations. Like the sex-crimes allegations levied at Assange by Swedish prosecutors, this latest revelation complicates the confusion over WikiLeaks. What, you thought the moral morass was going to get cleaned up? Employing someone who denies that Auschwitz was a concentration camp is one thing. Giving that person the power to disseminate, and possibly manipulate, government cables is another. In one case, it looks like Shamir’s political views influenced his on-the-job (mis)behavior.
Yulia Latynina, a reporter at the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, alleges that Shamir faked a cable related to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations, which supposedly showed collusion among those who walked out of the talk in protest. Shamir’s son, Johannes Wahlström, who Reason describes as a disgraced journalist also “accused of anti-Semitism and falsifying quotes,” works as a WikiLeaks spokesman in Sweden.
In case you’re keeping track, the list of unanswered questions about the cables — including the motivation of its leakers, the potential impact on U.S. diplomacy, and now the veracity of its contents — is mounting.
Assange’s Extremist Employees [Reason]
