Benny Morris
Born	(1948-12-08)8 December 1948 Ein HaHoresh, Israel
Residence	Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of Cambridge
Occupation	Historian
Known for	One of Israel's "New Historians"

Benny Morris (Hebrew: בני מוריס‎‎; born 8 December 1948^[1] in Ein HaHoresh, Israel) is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel. He is a key member of the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians".

Morris's work on the Arab-Israeli conflict and especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has won praise and criticism from both sides of the political divide. He is accused by some academics in Israel of only using Israeli and never Arab sources, creating an "unbalanced picture".^[2] Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened."^[3]

Biography[link]

Morris was born in Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, the son of Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom.^[4] His father, Ya'akov Morris, was an Israeli diplomat, historian, and poet.^[5] According to The New Yorker, Benny Morris "grew up in the heart of a left-wing pioneering atmosphere".^[6]

His parents left their kibbutz and moved to Jerusalem when Morris was a year old, so that Morris could spend more time with them: kibbutz life had entailed a degree of separation.^[7] In the wake of his father's diplomatic duties, the family spent four years in New York when Morris was nine, and another two years there when he was 15.

Morris served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces during the Six-Day War. He was wounded in 1969 by an Egyptian shell at the Suez Canal, and was released from the army four months later. He completed his undergraduate studies in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a doctorate in Anglo-German relations from the University of Cambridge.^[7]

Journalistic career and military refusal[link]

After graduation from the University of Cambridge he returned to Jerusalem and worked as a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post for 12 years.^[7] In 1982, he covered the Lebanon War, and also served as a reservist, taking part in the siege of Beirut in a mortar unit.^[6] In 1986, he did reserve duty in the West Bank. In 1988, when he was called up for reserve duty during the First Intifada, he refused to serve and spent three weeks in jail.^[7]

It was while working at The Jerusalem Post in the 1980s that Morris began reading through Israeli government archives, at first looking at the history of the Palmach, then turning his attention to the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem. Mainstream Israeli historiography at the time explained the 1948 Palestinian exodus from their towns and villages as having been driven by fear, or by instructions from Arab leaders. Morris found evidence that, in fact, there had been expulsions, which he made public in 1988 in The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949.^[7]

Morris coined the term "New Historians" to describe himself, and historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe. All three were attacked by the Israeli right, accused of being antisemites and Arab lovers, and compared to Holocaust deniers.^[7]

When Conrad Black bought the Post in 1990, Morris was one of the Israeli left-wing journalists. He continued to write as a freelance, producing Israel's Secret Wars, co-written with Ian Black of The Guardian, and Righteous Victims, a history of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In 1996, he told a journalist that he was thinking of moving to America to find work; when this appeared in an article, he was invited to talk to Israel's president, Ezer Weizman, who reportedly interrogated Morris for an hour about 1948, to find out whether he was a good historian and a good Zionist. Satisfied that he was both, Weizmann found him a job as a history professor at the University of the Negev in Beersheba.^[7]

Political views[link]

Critics on the Israeli right have alleged that Morris's first book betrayed Arab sympathies and have criticized his work as biased for that reason. Morris responds that they failed to read his book with moral detachment. They assumed that, when he described Israeli actions as cruel or as atrocities, he was condemning them. In fact, he writes, he not only fails to condemn, but in many cases supports Israeli actions during 1948. That support does not stop him from wanting to describe them.^[4]

His work has been cited and criticized by Arab writers for failing to use the evidence he found of forced evictions of Palestinians in 1948 from their homes and land.^[8] His views seemed to harden in 2000 after the Palestinian rejection of President Clinton's peace accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada:

My turning point began after 2000. I wasn't a great optimist even before that. True, I always voted Labor or Meretz or Sheli and in 1988 I refused to serve in the territories and was jailed for it, but I always doubted the intentions of the Palestinians. The events of Camp David and what followed in their wake turned the doubt into certainty. When the Palestinians rejected the proposal of [prime minister Ehud] Barak in July 2000 and the Clinton proposal in December 2000, I understood that they are unwilling to accept the two-state solution. They want it all. Lod and Acre and Jaffa.^[4]

Morris still describes himself as left-wing because of his support for the two state solution, but he has said that his generation will not see peace in Israel.^[4] He has said, "I don't see the suicide bombings as isolated acts. They express the deep will of the Palestinian people. That is what the majority of the Palestinians want."^[4] According to The Economist: "Mr Morris also said, in an interview that stunned his supporters, that Israel was justified in uprooting the Palestinian 'fifth column' once the Arabs had attacked the infant state, and that the number executed or massacred—some 800, on his reckoning—was 'peanuts' compared with, say, the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s."^[9] On the subject of Israel's Arab citizens, Morris has argued:

The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel again finds itself in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to act as it did then. If we are attacked by Egypt (after an Islamist revolution in Cairo) and by Syria, and chemical and biological missiles slam into our cities, and at the same time Israeli Palestinians attack us from behind, I can see an expulsion situation. It could happen. If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified...^[4]

Morris has called the Israel–Palestinian conflict a facet of a global clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalism and the Western World, saying, "There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien.^[4] He also says "Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions."^[4]

When a Haaretz interviewer called the 1948 Palestinian exodus "ethnic cleansing", Morris responded, "[t]here are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."^[4]

Morris endorses the creation of a Palestinian state, as reducing the urge for violence against Israelis. But he thinks Israel needs take measures to protect her citizens in the meantime:

"We have to try to heal the Palestinians. Maybe over the years the establishment of a Palestinian state will help in the healing process. But in the meantime, until the medicine is found, they have to be contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us.

"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." This was said in the context of Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers during the Second Intifada.

In the end, he says, the Jews, in their restored existence as a national state, are the greater victims, past and potential:

"...that's so for the Jewish people, not the Palestinians. A people that suffered for 2,000 years, that went through the Holocaust, arrives at its patrimony but is thrust into a renewed round of bloodshed, that is perhaps the road to annihilation. In terms of cosmic justice, that's terrible. It's far more shocking than what happened in 1948 to a small part of the Arab nation that was then in Palestine."

"...We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late."

Morris wrote in the Irish Times, "There was no Zionist 'plan' or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of 'ethnic cleansing'" and "the demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies—much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two."^[10] Morris has criticized David Ben-Gurion for not carrying out such a plan, saying "In the end, he faltered... If he had carried out a full expulsion—rather than a partial one—he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."^[4]

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times in July 2008, Morris wrote, "Iran's leaders would do well to rethink their gamble and suspend their nuclear program. Bar this, the best they could hope for is that Israel's conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland."^[11] In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard Morris argues for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran as the only alternative left to stop the Iranian nuclear program.^[12]

Selected book summaries[link]

1948 Palestinian exodus Main articles 1948 Palestinian exodus 1947–48 civil war 1948 Arab-Israeli War 1948 Palestine War Causes of the exodus Nakba Day Palestine refugee camps Palestinian refugee Palestinian right of return Present absentee Transfer Committee Resolution 194 Background Mandatory Palestine Israel's declaration of independence Israeli-Palestinian conflict history New Historians Palestine · Plan Dalet 1947 partition plan · UNRWA Key incidents Battle of Haifa Deir Yassin massacre Exodus from Lydda Notable writers Aref al-Aref · Yoav Gelber Efraim Karsh · Walid Khalidi Nur Masalha · Benny Morris Ilan Pappe · Tom Segev Avraham Sela · Avi Shlaim Related categories/lists List of depopulated villages Related templates Palestinians This box: view talk edit

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947—1949 (1988)

In his first The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947—1949 (1988), Morris argues that the 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in 1947 left mostly due to Israeli military attacks; fear of impending attacks; and expulsions. He argues that there was no centralized expulsion policy as such, but expulsions were ordered by the Israeli high command as needed. This was a controversial position when Morris first wrote of it; the official position in Israel was that the Palestinians had left voluntarily, or under pressure from Palestinian or other Arab leaders. At the same time, Morris documents atrocities by the Israelis, including cases of rape and torture. The book shows a map of 228 empty Palestinian villages, and attempts to explain why the villagers left. In 41 villages, he writes, the inhabitants were expelled by the IDF; in another 90, residents fled because of attacks on other villages; and in six, they left under instructions from local Palestinian authorities. He was unable to find out why another 46 villages were abandoned.

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2004)

In his updated The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2004), Morris answers critics of the first version and adds material from the opening of new Israeli government archives. He writes that the contents of the new documents substantially increase both Israeli and Palestinian responsibility for the refugee problem, revealing more expulsions and atrocities on the Israeli side, and more orders from Arab officials to the Palestinians to leave their villages, or at least to send their women and children away. Morris writes that his conclusions are unlikely to please either Israeli or Palestinian propagandists, or "black-or-white historians".^[13]

1948 and After (1994)

1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians is a collection of essays dedicated to the Palestinian exodus of 1948 and subsequent events. It analyses Mapai and Mapam policy during the exodus, the IDF report of July 1948 on its causes, Yosef Weitz's involvement in the events, and some cases of expulsions that occurred in the fifties. Although Morris dismisses the claim that the Palestinians were systematically expelled due to orders from Israeli officials, he nevertheless cites an IDF Intelligence Report that concludes that 70% of the exodus was caused by Israeli forces and 'Jewish dissidents^[14]

The IDF report lists: 'the factors that precipitated the exodus in order of importance—

1. direct, hostile Jewish [Haganah/IDF] operations against Arab settlements.
2. the effect of our [Haganah/IDF] hostile operations on nearby Arab settlements
3. Operations of the Jewish dissidents [the Irgun Z'va'i Leumi and Lohamei Herut Yisrael]'^[15]

Collectively these 3 factors were considered to be responsible for causing 70% of the exodus, according to the IDF report. Furthermore, Morris states 'the report makes no mention of any blanket order issued over Arab radio stations or through other means, to the Palestinians to evacuate their homes and villages'^[16] despite as Morris states the IDF 'monitoring Arab radio transmissions'. Confirming as has been argued elsewhere, notably by Avi Shlaim in 'the debate about 1948' that the myth of the invading 'Arab armies' calling Palestinians to flee is totally unsustainable and without substance.

Righteous Victims (1999)

Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 is based largely on secondary works and gives a synthesis of existing research on the various subjects and periods covered. Morris writes "a history of this subject, based mainly on primary sources is, I suspect, beyond the abilities of a single scholar. There are simply too many archives, files, and documents. Nonetheless, parts of the present book-the coverage of the 1948 war and the decade after it, and of certain episodes that occurred during the 1930s and the 1982–85 Lebanon War—are based in large measure on primary sources." ^[17]

Making Israel (2008)

Edited by Morris, this collection of articles was written by "traditionalists and revisionists who openly and directly lay out their key insights about Israel's origins".^[18] The articles can be downloaded from the website of the University of Michigan Press.^[19]

1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War (2008)

Morris gives a detailed account of the 1948 Palestine war. Yoav Gelber writes, "1948 is a praiseworthy achievement of research and analysis, the work of a historian unwilling to rest on his already considerable laurels." Gelber disagrees with some of Morris's analysis, in particular with the idea that the 1948 war was more a "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam than a nationalist struggle. He also argues that Morris overestimates Israel's military strength, and disagrees with Morris about the aims of King Abdullah of Jordan.^[20]

One State, Two States (2009)

Morris contends that there is no two-state solution to the Middle East crisis, and that the One-state solution is not viable because of Arab unwillingness to accept a Jewish national presence in the Middle East. He suggests the possibility of something like a Three-state solution in the form of a Palestinian confederation with Jordan.^[21]

Praise and criticism[link]

Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, and himself a New Historian, writes that Morris investigated the 1948 exodus of the Palestinians "as carefully, dispassionately, and objectively as it is ever likely to be", and that The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem is an "outstandingly original, scholarly, and important contribution" to the study of the issue.^[2]

Many of Morris's critics cling to the tenets of "Old History", the idea of an Israel born untarnished, a David fighting the Arab Goliath, Shlaim writes. He argues that these ideas are simply false, created not by historians but by the participants in the 1948 war, who wrote about the events they had taken part in without the benefit of access to Israeli government archives, which were first opened up in the early 1980s. Another group of Morris's critics, primarily Orientalists such as Avraham Sela, but also historians on the left such as Ilan Pappe, argue that he has relied too heavily on Israeli sources and hardly at all on the Arabs. Norman Finkelstein, Nur Masalha and others argue that Morris has been too soft on the Israelis, often ignoring the force of his own evidence.^[22] Efraim Karsh alleges that Morris has distorted source material, an allegation not accepted by other historians.^[23][24]

Efraim Karsh

Efraim Karsh, professor of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, writes that Morris engages in what Karsh calls "five types of distortion". According to Karsh, Morris "misrepresents documents, resorts to partial quotes, withholds evidence, makes false assertions, and rewrites original documents... [he] tells of statements never made, decisions never taken, events that never happened ... at times [he] does not even take the trouble to provide evidence..... He expects his readers to take on trust his assertions that fundamental contradictions exist between published accounts and the underlying documents.....he systematically falsifies evidence. Indeed, there is scarcely a document that he does not twist. This casts serious doubt on the validity of his entire work."^[25]

Yezid Sayigh, professor of Middle East Studies in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, writes of Karsh's criticism, "[t]his is not the first time that Efraim Karsh has written a highly self-important rebuttal of revisionist history. He is simply not what he makes himself out to be, a trained historian (nor political/social scientist)." (Karsh responds that he has an undergraduate degree in modern Middle Eastern history, and Arabic language and literature, and a doctorate in political science and international relations.) Sayigh urges academics to compose "robust responses [to Karsh] that make sure that any self-respecting scholar will be too embarrassed to even try to incorporate the Karsh books in his/her teaching or research because they can't pretend they didn't know how flimsy their foundations are".^[23] Ian Lustick, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, writes of Karsh's attacks on the New Historians that, "however likely readers are to be impressed by the intensity of Karsh's pristine faith in Zionism, they are sure to be stunned by the malevolence of his writing and confused by the erratic, sloppy nature of his analysis. Errors, inconsistencies and over-interpretations there may be in some of the new Israeli histories, but nothing in them can match the howlers, contradictions and distortions contained in [Karsh's Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians]."^[24]

Morris responds that Karsh's article is a "mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material (his piece contains more than fifty footnotes but is based almost entirely on references to and quotations from secondary works, many of them of dubious value) and the history of the Zionist–Arab conflict. It does not deserve serious attention or reply."^[26] Anita Shapira, Dean of Tel Aviv University, argues "thirty of [Karsh's] references actually refer to writings by Shlaim and Morris, and fifteen others cite primary sources, and the rest refer to studies by major historians...." ^[27]

Morris elsewhere argues that Karsh "belabor[s] minor points while completely ignoring, and hiding from his readers, the main pieces of evidence" and argued, "... Karsh, while claiming to have 'demolished' the whole oeuvre, in fact deal[t] with only four pages of Birth. These pages tried to show that the Zionist leadership during 1937–38 supported a 'transfer solution' to the prospective Jewish state's 'Arab problem.'"^[28]

Finkelstein and Masalha

From the other side Morris has been criticised by Norman Finkelstein^[29][30] and Nur Masalha.^[31] They argue that Morris's conclusions have a pro-Israeli bias, in that:

• Morris did not fully acknowledge that his work rests largely on selectively released Israeli documentation, while the most sensitive documents remain closed to researchers.
• Morris treated the evidence in the Israeli documents in an uncritical way, and did not take into account that they are, at times, apologetics.
• Morris minimized the number of expulsions: Finkelstein asserts that in the table in which Morris summarizes causes of abandonment, village by village, many cases of "military assault on settlement (M)" should have been "expulsions (E)".
• Morris's conclusions were skewed with respect to the evidence he himself presents, and when the conclusions are harsh for the Israelis he tended to give them a less incriminating spin.

Both Finkelstein and Masalha prefer the conclusion that there was a transfer policy.

In a reply to Finkelstein and Masalha,^[32] Morris answers he "saw enough material, military and civilian, to obtain an accurate picture of what happened", that Finkelstein and Masalha draw their conclusions with a pro-Palestinian bias, and that with regard to the distinction between military assault and expulsion they should accept that he uses a "more narrow and severe" definition of expulsions. Morris holds to his conclusion that there was no transfer policy.

Ilan Pappé

Benny Morris wrote a fiercely critical review of Ilan Pappé's book A History of Modern Palestine^[33] for The New Republic.^[34] Morris called Pappé's book "truly appalling". He says it subjugates history to political ideology, and "contains errors of a quantity and a quality that are not found in serious historiography". In his reply, Pappé accused Morris of using mainly Israeli sources, and disregarding Arab sources, which he cannot read. Pappé says Morris has held "racist views about the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular" since the late 1980s. He also attributed Morris's perceived rightward drift since the late 1980s to political opportunism.^[35][36]

Michael Palumbo

Michael Palumbo, author of The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland,^[37] reviewing the first edition of Morris's book on Palestinian refugees, criticizes Morris's decision, which Palumbo thinks characteristic of Israeli revisionist historians generally, to rely mainly on official, 'carefully screened' Israeli sources, especially for radio transcripts of Arab broadcasts, while disregarding unofficial Israeli sources such as BBC and CIA transcripts, many of which point to a policy of expulsion.^[38] He says Morris failed to supplement his work in Israeli archives, many still classified, by U.N., American, and British archival sources that Palumbo considers objective on such issues as IDF atrocities,^[39] as well as oral testimonies of Palestinians and Israelis, which can be reliable if their substance can be independently verified.^[40] Palumbo says:

Morris' regard for documentation is indeed commendable, were it not for his tendency to choose sources which support his views, while avoiding those document collections which contain information inconsistent with his principal arguments. His decision not to use the testimony of Israeli veterans is unfortunate, since some of them have spoken candidly about Israeli atrocities and expulsion of civilians at Deir Yassin, Lydda–Ramle and Jaffa.^[41]

Published works[link]

• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949, Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-521-33028-2
• Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services, New York, Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8021-1159-3
• Israel's Border Wars 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3
• 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. ISBN 0-19-827929-9
• Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2001 [Original in 1999]. ISBN 978-0-679-74475-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZawVAQAACAAJ. 
• Correcting a Mistake? Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936–1956, Am Oved Publishers, 2000.
• The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003. ISBN 978-1-86064-812-0
• The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Making Israel (ed), University of Michigan Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-472-11541-9
• 1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War, Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9
• One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-12281-7

See also[link]

• History of Israel
• 1948 Palestinian exodus—Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus
• Exodus from Lydda and Ramla

References[link]

External links[link]

• Claremont Review of Books on Benny Morris and 1948
• Morris, Benny. Camp David and After: An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak), continued, The New York Review of Books August 9, 2001;
• Benny Morris essay regarding a nuclear Iran, The Jerusalem Post, January 18 2007
• Israel Revisited Benny Morris, Veteran 'New Historian' of the Modern Jewish State's Founding, Finds Himself Ideologically Back Where It All Began, by Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service, March 11, 2007
• 'New Historian' Shifts from Old View of Israel Israeli "new historian" Benny Morris was online Monday, March 12, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss his books and changing views that have driven him away from the critical perspective of Israeli history that he helped create.
• Benny Morris meets his readers at the International Book Fair of Turin (Italian)
• Review of Benny Morris' book "1948: The First Arab-Israeli War" in Jewish Literary Review
• 1 hour interview of Benny Morris about the 1948 war (2008)
• Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol 21(1), p. 98–114 :Morris Response to Finklestein and Masalah
• History in the (almost) making, Ynetnews, November 2007
• ISRAEL AT 60: From Dove to Hawk Newsweek May 8, 2008
• Benny Morris debates with Norman Finkelstein On RT CrossTalk May 21, 2010

David Duke
David Duke, whose 1990 campaign for United States Senator in Louisiana was the impetus for the first iteration of Stormfront
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the 81st district
In office 1990–1992
Preceded by	Charles Cusimano
Succeeded by	David Vitter
Personal details
Born	David Ernest Duke (1950-07-01) July 1, 1950 (age 61) Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Political party	Republican since 1989,[1] Democratic until December, 1988[2]
Spouse(s)	Chloê Eleanor Hardin (m. 1974 – divorced 1984); 2 daughters
Residence	Mandeville, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation	Author, political activist
Religion	Christianity[3]
Website	http://www.davidduke.com

David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988 and the Republican presidential primaries in 1992. Duke has unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana State Senate, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Governor of Louisiana.

A former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,^[4][5] Duke describes himself as a racial realist, asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage."^[6] He is in strong opposition to what he asserts to be Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the federal government and the media. Duke supports stopping both legal and illegal Non-European immigration, preservation of what he labels Western culture and traditionalist Christian "family values", strict Constitutionalism, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, ardent anti-communism and white separatism.^[7][8][9]

Youth and early adulthood[link]

Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to David H. Duke and Alice Maxine Crick. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil, Duke frequently moved with his family around the world. They lived a short time in the Netherlands, before settling in Louisiana. In the late 1960s, Duke met the leader of the white supremacist National Alliance, William Pierce, who would remain a life-long influence. Duke joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.^[10]

Duke studied at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, and in 1970, he formed a white student group called the White Youth Alliance; it was affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. The same year, to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University, Duke appeared at a demonstration in Nazi uniform. Picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, he became notorious on the LSU campus for wearing a Nazi uniform.^[11]

Duke claimed to have spent nine months in Laos, calling that a "normal tour of duty". He actually went there to join his father, who was working there and had asked him to visit during the summer of 1971.^[12] His father got him a job teaching English to Laotian military officers, from which he was dismissed after six weeks when he drew a Molotov Cocktail on the blackboard.^[13] He also claimed to have gone behind enemy lines twenty times at night to drop rice to anti-Communist insurgents in planes flying ten feet off the ground, narrowly avoiding receiving a shrapnel wound. Two Air America pilots who were in Laos at that time said that flights were during the day and flew no less than 500 feet from the ground. One suggested that it might have been possible for Duke to have gone on a safe "milk run" once or twice but no more than that. Duke was also unable to recall the name of the airfield used.^[12]

He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1974 after enrolling in 1968. During this time he spent what would have been his senior year organizing the National Party.^[14]

Family and personal life[link]

While working in the White Youth Alliance, Duke met Chloê Hardin, who became active in the group. They remained companions throughout college and married in 1974. Hardin is the mother of Duke's two daughters, Erika and Kristin. According to Martin A. Lee of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 1977 David Duke, then married with two children, pursued female sex partners so avidly and so openly that it embarrassed many of his closest colleagues.^[15] Metzger, then Duke's state leader in southern California, became livid when Duke showed up for a Ku Klux Klan anti-immigrant "border watch" stunt and immediately started pursuing women.^[15] Duke divorced in 1984—arguably because Chloe was fed up with Duke's womanizing^[16]—and Chloe moved to West Palm Beach to be near her parents. There she became involved with Duke's Klan friend, Don Black, whom she later married.^[17] Duke also developed a life-long weakness for gambling^[15]

As of 2009, it was confirmed that David Duke was living in Zell am See in Salzburg, Austria,^[18] from which he ran the Internet business "Art by Ernst", taking and selling photographs of rare birds, mountain scenery and wildlife^[19][20] under the pseudonym "Ernst Duke" (his middle-name "Ernest" Germanized).^[21][22] Local authorities have stated that as long as he does not break any laws, Duke is allowed to stay in Austria if he wishes.^[23] Duke has stated: "I'm not in Austria for any political activities. I just come to Austria to relax – the mountains are beautiful. The Austrian Alps are just beautiful. There's beauty all over the world." In May 2009, Duke issued a statement denying that he resides in Austria and saying that he is a resident of Mandeville, Louisiana, and is registered as a taxpayer in his city, state and on the national level.^[24]

Political activities[link]

Early campaigns[link]

Duke first ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from a Baton Rouge district in 1975. He received 11,079 votes, a third of those cast.^[25] In 1979, he ran as a Democrat for the 10th District Senate seat and finished second in a three-candidate race with 9,897 votes (26 percent).^[26] Duke allegedly conducted a direct-mail appeal in 1987, using the identity and mailing-list of the Georgia Forsyth County Defense League without permission. League officials described it as a fund-raising scam. Duke was accused by several Klan officials of stealing his organization's money. "Duke is nothing but a con artist," Jack Gregory, Duke's Florida state leader, told the Clearwater Sun (of Florida) after David Duke allegedly refused to turn over proceeds from a series of 1979 Klan rallies to the Knights. Another Klan official under Duke, Jerry Dutton, told reporters that Duke had used Klan funds to purchase and refurbish his home in Metairie. Duke later justified the repairs by saying most of his home was used by the Klan. In 1979, after his first, abortive run for president (as a Democrat) and a series of highly publicized violent Klan incidents, Duke quietly incorporated the nonprofit National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) in an attempt to leave the baggage of the Klan behind.^[27]

1988 Democratic presidential campaign[link]

In 1988, Duke ran initially in the Democratic presidential primaries. His campaign failed to make much of an impact, with the one notable exemption of winning the little-known New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary.^[28] Duke, having failed to gain much traction as a Democrat, then successfully sought the Presidential nomination of the Populist Party.^[29] He appeared on the ballot for President in eleven states and was a write-in candidate in some other states, some with Trenton Stokes of Arkansas for Vice President, and on other state ballots with Floyd Parker for Vice President. He received just 47,047 votes, for 0.04 percent of the combined, national popular vote.^[30]

1989: Successful run in special election for Louisiana House seat[link]

In December 1988, Duke changed his political affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.^[2]

In 1988, Republican State Representative Charles Cusimano of Metairie resigned his District 89 seat to become a 24th Judicial District Court judge, and a special election was called early in 1989 to select a successor. Duke entered the race to succeed Cusimano and faced several opponents, including fellow Republicans, John Spier Treen, a brother of former Governor David C. Treen, Delton Charles, a school board member, and Roger F. Villere, Jr., who operates Villere's Florist in Metairie. Duke finished first in the primary with 3,995 votes (33.1%).^[31] As no one received a majority of the vote in the first round, a runoff election was required between Duke and Treen, who polled 2,277 votes (18.9%) in the first round of balloting. John Treen's candidacy was endorsed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other notable Republicans,^[32] as well as the Democrat Victor Bussie (president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO) and Edward J. Steimel (president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and former director of the "good government" think tank, the Public Affairs Research Council). Duke, however, hammered Treen on a statement the latter had made indicating a willingness to entertain higher property taxes, anathema in that suburban district.^[33] Duke with 8,459 votes (50.7%) defeated Treen, who polled 8,232 votes (49.3%).^[34] He served in the House from 1990 until 1992.^[35]

As a short-term legislator, Duke was, in the words of a colleague, Ron Gomez of Lafayette, "so single minded, he never really became involved in the nuts and bolts of House rules and parliamentary procedure. It was just that shortcoming that led to the demise of most of his attempts at lawmaking."^[36]

One legislative issue pushed by Duke was the requirement that welfare recipients be tested for the use of narcotics. The recipients had to show themselves to be drug-free to receive state and federal benefits under his proposal.^[37]

Gomez recalls having met and interviewed Duke in the middle 1970s when Duke was a state senate candidate: "He was still in his mid-20s and very non-descript. Tall and slimly built, he had a very prominent nose, flat cheek bones, a slightly receding chin and straight dark brown hair. The interview turned out to be quite innocuous, and I hadn't thought about it again until Duke came to my legislative desk, and we shook hands. Who was this guy? Tall and well-built with a perfect nose, a model's cheek bones, prominent chin, blue eyes and freshly coiffed blond hair, he looked like a movie star. He obviously didn't remember from the radio encounter, and I was content to leave it at that."^[38]

Consistent with Gomez's observation, Duke in the latter 1980s reportedly had his nose thinned and chin augmented. Following his election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, he shaved his mustache.^[39][40][41]

Gomez continued: "He once presented a bill on the floor, one of the few which he had managed to get out of committee. He finished his opening presentation and strolled with great self-satisfaction back up the aisle to his seat. In his mind, he had spoken, made his presentation and that was that. Before he had even reached his desk and re-focused on the proceedings, another first-term member had been recognized for the floor and immediately moved to table the bill. The House voted for the motions effectively killing the bill. That and similar procedures were used against him many times."^[42] Gomez said that he recalls Duke obtaining the passage of only a single bill, legislation which prohibited movie producers or book publishers from compensating jurors for accounts of their court experiences.^[43]

Gomez added that Duke's "tenure in the House was short and uninspired. Never has anyone parlayed an election by such a narrow margin to such a minor position to such international prominence. He has run for numerous other positions without success but has always had some effect, usually negative, on the outcome."^[44]

Gomez continued: Duke's "new message was that he had left the Klan, shed the Nazi uniform he had proudly worn in many previous appearances and only wanted to serve the people. He eliminated his high-octane anti-Semitic rhetoric. He was particularly concerned with the plight of 'European-Americans.' He never blatantly spoke of race as a factor but referred to the 'growing underclass.' He used the tried and true demagoguery of class envy to sell his message: excessive taxpayers' money spent on welfare, school busing practices, affirmative action... and set-aside programs. He also embraced a subject near and dear to every Jefferson Parish voter, protection of the homestead exemption."^[45]

Duke launched unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1990 and governor in 1991. Villere did not again seek office but instead concentrated his political activity within the Republican organization.^[46]

1990 campaign for U.S. Senate[link]

In 1990, in the October 6 primary, Duke ran as a Republican against three Democrats including incumbent Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.^[47]

The Republican Party endorsed state Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans, but national GOP officials anticipated that Bagert could not win and was fragmenting Johnston's support; so funding for Bagert's campaign was halted, and he dropped out two days before the election, though his name remained on the ballot.^[48]

Duke's views prompted some of his critics (including Republicans) to form the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, which directed media attention to Duke's statements of hostility to blacks and Jews.^[49] Duke received 43.51 percent (607,391 votes) of the vote to Johnston's 53.93 percent (752,902 votes).^[47]

In a 2006 editorial, Gideon Rachman (The Economist, the Financial Times) recalled interviewing Duke's campaign manager (from his 1990 campaign) who said, "The Jews just aren't a big issue in Louisiana. We keep telling David, stick to attacking the blacks. There's no point in going after the Jews, you just piss them off and nobody here cares about them anyway."^[50]

1991 campaign for Governor of Louisiana[link]

Despite repudiation by the Republican Party,^[51] Duke ran for Louisiana Governor in 1991. In the open primary, Duke was second to former governor Edwin Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32% of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27% of the vote. Duke effectively killed Roemer's bid for re-election. While Duke had a sizable core constituency of devoted supporters, many voted for him as a "protest vote" to register dissatisfaction with Louisiana's establishment politicians. Duke said he was the spokesman for the "White majority."^[52]

The interest group, the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism, rallied against the election of Duke as governor. Among its leaders was Beth Rickey, a moderate member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee and a Ph.D. student at Tulane University, who began to follow Duke to record his speeches and expose what she saw as instances of racist and neo-Nazi remarks. For a time, Duke took Rickey to lunch, introduced her to his daughters, telephoned her late at night, and tried to convince her that he was a mainstream conservative in the Reagan mold.^[53]

Between the primary and the runoff, called the "general election" under Louisiana election rules (in which all candidates run on one ballot, regardless of party), white supremacist organizations from around the country contributed to his campaign fund.^[54][55] Duke was endorsed by James Meredith, a black civil rights figure.^[56]

Duke's success garnered national media attention. While Duke gained the backing of the quixotic former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, he won few serious endorsements in Louisiana. Celebrities and organizations donated thousands to Edwards' campaign. Referencing Edwards' long-standing problem with accusations of corruption, popular bumper stickers read: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important,"^[57] and "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard." When a reporter asked Edwards what he needed to do to triumph over Duke, Edwards replied with a smile: "Stay alive."

Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%). Duke's 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke claimed victory, saying: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." Exit polls confirmed that he had.^[11]

1992 Republican Party presidential candidate[link]

In 1992 Duke ran for the nomination. Republican Party officials tried to block his participation.^[58] He received 119,115 (0.94%) votes^[59] in the primaries, but no delegates to the national convention. His presidential campaign inspired a song by Skankin' Pickle.^[60]

In 1992 a film was released that investigated Duke's appeal among some white voters. Backlash: Race and the American Dream explored the demagogic issues of Duke's platform, examining his use of black crime, welfare, affirmative action and white supremacy and tied Duke to a legacy of other white backlash politicians, such as Lester G. Maddox and George C. Wallace, Jr., and the use in the 1988 Presidential campaign of Pres. George H.W. Bush of these same racially themed hot buttons.^[61]

Late 1990s campaigns[link]

When Johnston announced his retirement in 1996, Duke ran again for the U.S. Senate. He polled 141,489 votes (11.5%). Former Republican state representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge and Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, the former state treasurer, went into the general election contest. Duke was fourth in the nine-person, jungle primary race.^[62]

Because of the sudden resignation of powerful Republican incumbent Bob Livingston in 1999, a special election was held in Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke sought the seat as a Republican and received 19% of the vote. He finished a close third, thus failing to make the runoff. His candidacy was repudiated by the Republicans.^[63] Republican Party Chairman Jim Nicholson remarked: "There is no room in the party of Lincoln for a Klansman like David Duke."^[63] Republican state representative David Vitter (now a U.S. Senator) went on to defeat Republican ex-Governor David C. Treen. Also in the race was the New Orleans Republican leader Rob Couhig.

In 1999 Duke ran for Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke finished third in the May 1, 1999 election with 28,059 votes (19.15%).^[64]

In 2004, Duke's bodyguard, roommate, and longtime associate Roy Armstrong made a bid for the United States House of Representatives, running as a Democrat, to serve Louisiana's First Congressional District. In the open primary Armstrong finished second in the six candidate field with 6.69% of the vote, but Republican Bobby Jindal received 78.40% winning the seat.^[65] Duke was the head advisor of Armstrong's campaign.^[66][67]

Affiliations[link]

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan[link]

In 1974, David Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK), a Louisiana Ku Klux Klan organization, shortly after graduating from LSU.^[68] He became Grand Wizard of the KKKK. A follower of Duke, Thomas Robb, changed the title of Grand Wizard to National Director, and replaced the Klan's white robes with business suits.^[69] Duke first received broad public attention during this time, as he endeavored to market himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman: well-groomed, engaged, and professional. Duke also reformed the organization, promoting nonviolence and legality, and, for the first time in the Klan's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership.^[70] Duke would repeatedly insist that the Klan was "not anti-black", but rather "pro-white" and "pro-Christian."

NAAWP[link]

In 1980, Duke left the Klan and formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP).^[71]

On May 20, 2004, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became outraged when it discovered that David Duke had chosen New Orleans to host his International NAAWP Conference during the NAACP's Big Easy Rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.^[72]

Ernst Zündel and the Zundelsite[link]

Duke has expressed his support for Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, a German who lived in Canada. Duke made a number of statements in support of Zündel and his Holocaust denial campaign.^{[73][74][75][76]} After the aging Zündel was deported from Canada to Germany^[77] and imprisoned in Germany on charges of inciting the masses to ethnic hatred,^[78] Duke referred to him as a "political prisoner".

Interregional Academy of Personnel Management[link]

In September 2005, Duke received a Kandidat Nauk degree in History from the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP).^[79]

His doctoral thesis was titled "Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism."^[79] Prior to earning his Ph.D., Duke had received an honorary doctorate^{[citation needed]}. Anti-Defamation League claims that MAUP is the main source of antisemitic activity and publishing in Ukraine,^[80] and its "anti-Semitic actions" were "strongly condemned" by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and various organizations.^{[81][82][83][84]} The Anti-Defamation League describes it as a "University of Hate".^[85] Duke has taught an international relations and a history course at MAUP.^[86]

New Orleans Protocol[link]

Shortly after his release from prison for tax fraud in 2004, Duke organized a weekend gathering of "European Nationalists", in the vein of white nationalism, in Kenner, Louisiana. In an attempt to overcome the splintering and division that had followed the death of William Pierce in 2002, he presented a unity proposal for peace within the movement and a better image amongst outsiders. His proposal was accepted and is now known as the New Orleans Protocol (NOP). It pledges adherents to a pan-European outlook, recognizing national and ethnic allegiance, but stressing the value of all European peoples. It has three provisions:^[87][88]

1. "Zero tolerance for violence."
2. "Honorable and ethical behavior in relations with other signatory groups. This includes not denouncing others who have signed this protocol. In other words, no enemies on the right."
3. "Maintaining a high tone in our arguments and public presentations."

Those who signed the pact on May 29, 2004 include Duke, Paul Fromm, Don Black, Willis Carto, Kevin Alfred Strom, and John Tyndall (signing as an individual, not on behalf of his British National Party).^[87]

Publications[link]

Finders-Keepers[link]

Duke wrote a self-help book for women to raise money under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt and James Konrad, titled Finders-Keepers – Finding and Keeping the Man You Want which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, published by Arlington Place Books in 1976. Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who read a rare copy of the book given to him by Patsy Sims, wrote that it includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.^[89][90][91] The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, The Times-Picayune obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke^[92] who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.^[11]

My Awakening[link]

Duke published his autobiography My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding in 1998. The book details Duke's social philosophies, especially his reasoning behind racial separation. In the book, Duke says:

We (Whites) desire to live in our own neighborhoods, go to our own schools, work in our own cities and towns, and ultimately live as one extended family in our own nation. We shall end the racial genocide of integration. We shall work for the eventual establishment of a separate homeland for African Americans, so each race will be free to pursue its own destiny without racial conflicts and ill will.^[7]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) book review refers to it as containing racist, antisemitic, sexist and homophobic views.^[93]

To raise the money to re-publish a new, updated edition of My Awakening, Duke instigated a 21-day fundraising drive on November 26, 2007 where he had to raise "$25,344 by a December 17 deadline for the printers."^[94] Duke states this drive is necessary because the work "has become the most important book in the entire world in the effort to awaken our people for our heritage and freedom."

Jewish Supremacism[link]

David Duke (right) and Udo Voigt (left), the leader of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), shaking hands.

In 2002, Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times."^[95] The book is dedicated to Israel Shahak, a critical author of what Shahak saw as supremacist religious teachings in Jewish culture. Former Boris Yeltsin administration official and politician Boris Mironov wrote an introduction for the Russian edition, called The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American.

The ADL office in Moscow urged the Moscow prosecutor to open an investigation of Mironov. The ADL office initiated a letter from a prominent Duma member to Russia’s Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, urging a criminal case be opened against the author and the Russian publisher of Duke's book. The letter by Aleksandr Fedulov described the book as antisemitic and as violating Russian anti-hate crime laws.^[96] Around December 2001 Prosecutor's office closed the investigation of Boris Mironov and Jewish Supremacism. In a public letter, Yury Biryukov, First Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, stated that a socially-psychological examination, which was conducted as a part of the investigation, concluded that the book and the actions of Boris Mironov did not break Russian hate-crime laws.^[97]

Duke says his views had been "vindicated" with the publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and said he was "surprised how excellent [the paper] is". Duke dedicated several radio webcasts to the book and the authors comparing it to his work Jewish Supremacism,^{[98][99][100][101]} although Walt stated: "I have always found Mr. Duke's views reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with his view of the world".^[102]

Duke says that his books "have become two of the two most influential and important books in the world."^[103] The ADL refer to the book as antisemitic,^[104] though Duke had denied the book is motivated by antisemitism.^[105] At one time, the book was sold in the main lobby of the building of Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament). The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out in several weeks.

In 2004, the book was published in the United States. Originally published in English and Russian, the book has subsequently been translated internationally into Swedish, Ukrainian, Persian, Hungarian, Spanish.^[103] and most recently (2010) into Finnish (ISBN 978-952-92-8137-4). In 2007, an updated edition was published^[106] which Duke purports to be a "fine quality hardback edition with full color dust jacket and it has a new index and a number of timely additions".^[103]

His website has hosted articles by various authors claiming that Jewish loan-sharks own the Federal Reserve Bank^[107] and that Jews own Hollywood and the American media.^[108]

Internet commentary[link]

In 1995, Don Black and Chloê Hardin, Duke's ex-wife, began a small bulletin board system (BBS) called Stormfront. Today, Stormfront has become a prominent online forum for white nationalism, Neo-Nazism, hate speech and racism.^{[109][110][111]} Duke has an account on Stormfront which he uses to post articles from his own website, www.davidduke.com, as well as polling forum members for opinions and questions, in particular during his internet broadcasts. Duke has worked with Don Black on numerous projects including Operation Red Dog in 1980.^[112][113]

On February 5, 2002, Duke said, on his Internet radio show, that Ariel Sharon was "the world's worst terrorist" and that Mossad was involved in the September 11 attacks. The broadcast said that Zionists were behind the attacks in order to reduce sympathy for Muslim nations in the West, and that the number of Israelis killed in the attack was lower than it would be under normal circumstances, citing early assessments by The Jerusalem Post and "the legendary involvement of Israeli nationals in businesses at the World Trade Center". According to Duke, this indicated that Israeli security services had prior knowledge of the attack.^[114]

On August 5, 2005, Duke published an article stating support for Cindy Sheehan, saying that:

The Iraq war and her son's death did not defend America from hatred or terrorism ... In fact, the war is massively increasing hatred and terrorism. For every one terrorist killed in Iraq, we are creating thousands more who hate and want to hurt America and Americans. This is the surest way to lose the war on terror, not win it.^[115]

On February 4, 2009, Duke repeatedly called MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann "untermensch" on his radio show in response to being labeled "Worst Person in the World" on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[116]

Public appearances[link]

Public address in Syria[link]

On November 24, 2005, Duke visited Damascus, Syria, addressing a rally which was broadcast on Syrian television, and later giving an interview.^[117][118] During the rally, he referred to Israel as a "war-mongering country" and stated that Zionists "occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government…It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington D.C. and New York and London and many other capitals of the world.” He concluded by stating: "Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.” After speaking at the rally, Duke gave an interview where he said that Israel "makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate." Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash later stated that Duke's visit gave Syrians a "new and very positive view of the average American."^{[117][119][120]}

Comments in the media[link]

Since 2005, Duke has appeared three times on Current Issues, a Lafayette, Louisiana–based television show hosted and produced by Palestinian-American Hesham Tillawi, which has recently been picked up by Bridges TV. Show host Tillawi gave Duke the opportunity to discourse at length about his beliefs about Jewish supremacism. On a show in October 2005, Duke claimed that Jewish extremists are responsible for undermining the morality of America and are attempting to "wash the world in blood."^[121]

After John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper on the Israel Lobby appeared in March 2006, Duke praised the paper in a number of articles on his website, on his March 18 Live Web Radio Broadcast, and on MSNBC's March 21 Scarborough Country program.^[122] According to The New York Sun, Duke said in an email, "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." Duke added that "the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons that seek to lead us into what they expectantly call World War IV."

Conferences[link]

Duke organized a gathering of European Nationalists who signed the New Orleans Protocol on May 29, 2004. The signatories agreed to avoid infighting among far-right racialists.

On June 3, 2005, Duke co-chaired a conference named "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization" in Ukraine, sponsored by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. The conference was attended by several notable Ukrainian public figures and politicians, and writer Israel Shamir.^[123]

Duke claims that Swedish police thwarted an attempted assassination against him, in August 2005, while Duke was speaking in Sweden.^[124]

On the weekend of June 8–10, 2006, Duke attended as a speaker at the international "White World's Future" conference in Moscow, which was coordinated and hosted by Pavel Tulaev.^[125] From December 11–13, he Duke attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, opened by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating "The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder."^[126]

Duke attended the conference, along with Gazi Hussein (Syria); Dr Rahmandost (conference chair, Society for Supporting People of Palestine); Jan Bernhoff, a Swedish computer science teacher who maintains that 300,000 Jews died during the Holocaust;^[127] and Fredrick Töben, director of the Adelaide Institute, Australia.

Criticism and legal difficulties[link]

Plastic surgery claims[link]

In 1990 syndicated columnist Jack Anderson argued Duke has done "everything to make himself look better to the voters, including plastic surgery".^[128][129]

Duke explained in My Awakening that he had had reconstructive surgery on his nose, which had been broken many times.^[130]

Critical publications[link]

In Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust and David Duke's Louisiana^[131][132] by Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who teaches at Tulane University history department and was a founding member of Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, "connects the prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors to the lives they built in the United States" and depicts the "story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of reputed neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke." The book won three awards.^[133]

Tax fraud conviction[link]

David Duke pleaded guilty to the felony charge of filing a false tax return under 26 U.S.C. § 7206 and mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 in December 2002.^[134]

Four months later, Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison, and he served the time in Big Spring, Texas. He was also fined US$10,000, ordered to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service, and to pay money still owed for his 1998 taxes. Following his release in May 2004, he stated that his decision to take the plea bargain was motivated by the bias that he perceived in the United States federal court system and not his guilt. He said he felt the charges were contrived to derail his political career and discredit him to his followers, and that he took the safe route by pleading guilty and receiving a mitigated sentence, rather than pleading not guilty and potentially receiving the full sentence.

Duke pleaded guilty to what prosecutors described as a six-year scheme to dupe thousands of his followers by asking for donations. Through postal mail, Duke later appealed to his supporters that he was about to lose his house and his life savings. Prosecutors claimed that Duke raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in this campaign. Prosecutors also claimed he sold his home at a hefty profit, had multiple investment accounts, and spent much of his money gambling at casinos.^{[135][136][137]}

The entire file of court documents related to this case can be found at The Smoking Gun^[138] website, including details on the December 12, 2002 guilty plea to federal charges that he filed a false tax return and committed mail fraud.

Don Black claims that Duke was targeted by the government to discredit him.^[139]

Arrest in the Czech Republic and dropping of the charges[link]

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews Shorts: April 27, 2009

On April 24, 2009, Duke, who had arrived in the Czech Republic on invitation by a Czech neo-Nazi Group known as Národní Odpor ("National Resistance")^[140] to deliver three lectures in Prague and Brno to promote the translation of his book My Awakening into Czech language,^[140] was arrested on suspicion of "denying or approving of the Nazi genocide and other Nazi crimes" and "promotion of movements seeking suppression of human rights," which are crimes in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years' imprisonment. At the time of his arrest, Duke was reportedly guarded by members of the Národní Odpor.^[141][142]

The Czech police accused Duke of promoting movements suppressing human rights.^{[143][144][145]} The police released him early on April 25, 2009, on condition that he leave the country by midnight that same day.^[146][147]

Duke's first lecture had been scheduled at Charles University in Prague, but it was canceled after university officials learned that neo-Nazis were planning to attend.^[148] Some Czech politicians, including Interior Minister Ivan Langer and Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb, had previously expressed opposition to Duke's being allowed into the country.^[141]

In September 2009, the office of the District Prosecutor for Prague dropped all charges, explaining that there was no evidence that David Duke had committed any crime.^[149]

Election history[link]

Possible 2012 presidential campaign[link]

Duke claimed that thousands of Tea Party movement activists had urged him to run for president in 2012^[150][151] and he was seriously considering entering the Republican Party primaries.^[151]

References[link]