George Soros threatens to sue Sun Media after Nazi comment
Remember last week’s dust-up between Antonia Zerbisias and Ezra Levant? It was over one of Levant’s columns, published in the Toronto Sun, that accused billionaire Avaaz funder George Soros of some pretty nasty stuff relating to Soros’s time living under Nazi occupation in Hungary. The ensuing argument got sour very quickly, as Twitter fights are wont to do, but the upshot of it all is that when Zerbisias counselled Levant about making libellous statements, she was being eerily prescient. Soros is now threatening to sue the pants off Sun Media.
The Globe and Mail reports:
Billionaire George Soros is threatening to sue the Sun Media chain over a column penned by a conservative gadfly expected to play a key role in the media giant’s Sun TV venture.
Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said the chair of Soros Fund Management was deeply upset by a early September Sun Media column by right-wing activist and author Ezra Levant.
In the piece, which has since been removed from Sun chain news websites, Mr. Levant offered his opinion of how Mr. Soros, a Hungarian Jew born in 1930, survived the Nazis.
It’s true—if you follow the old link to Levant’s piece you get a charming 404 error page. This might be the first part in the retraction-apology two-step that newspapers sometimes do. Billionaires, it turns out, have a lot of money. And they’re not afraid to spend some of their pocket change on fancy lawyers.
Not that we want to tell another publication how to do their jobs, but perhaps if the Sun finds itself with the choice of whether to call a billionaire a Nazi collaborator or not, they’ll opt for “no.”
We can’t say it enough: Godwin’s not just a good idea—it’s the law.
• Billionaire Soros threatening to sue Sun Media [Globe and Mail]
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/george-soros-threatens-to-sue-sun-media-after-nazi-comment/&title=George Soros threatens to sue Sun Media after Nazi comment&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/George-Soros.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_40952" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="George Soros (Image: World Economic Forum)"][/caption]
Remember last week’s dust-up between Antonia Zerbisias and Ezra Levant? It was over one of Levant’s columns, published in the Toronto Sun, that accused billionaire Avaaz funder George Soros of some pretty nasty stuff relating to Soros’s time living under Nazi occupation in Hungary. The ensuing argument got sour very quickly, as Twitter fights are wont to do, but the upshot of it all is that when Zerbisias counselled Levant about making libellous statements, she was being eerily prescient. Soros is now threatening to sue the pants off Sun Media.
The Globe and Mail reports:
Billionaire George Soros is threatening to sue the Sun Media chain over a column penned by a conservative gadfly expected to play a key role in the media giant’s Sun TV venture.
Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said the chair of Soros Fund Management was deeply upset by a early September Sun Media column by right-wing activist and author Ezra Levant.
In the piece, which has since been removed from Sun chain news websites, Mr. Levant offered his opinion of how Mr. Soros, a Hungarian Jew born in 1930, survived the Nazis.
It’s true—if you follow the old link to Levant’s piece you get a charming 404 error page. This might be the first part in the retraction-apology two-step that newspapers sometimes do. Billionaires, it turns out, have a lot of money. And they’re not afraid to spend some of their pocket change on fancy lawyers.
Not that we want to tell another publication how to do their jobs, but perhaps if the Sun finds itself with the choice of whether to call a billionaire a Nazi collaborator or not, they’ll opt for “no.”
We can’t say it enough: Godwin’s not just a good idea—it’s the law.
• Billionaire Soros threatening to sue Sun Media [Globe and Mail]){kind=link}
Interestingly, in my 37 years as a professional journalist, I have never been sued for libel.
Levant, on the other hand, has been repeatedly sued for libel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Levant#Libel_cases
And he’s the lawyer. Not I.
I would speculate that he so insulates himself ideologically – so that outside of venemous accusations and insults he has little to no contact with anyone but fellow travellers on the far right – he really doesn’t get how outre he comes off to anyone not also occupying the same ideological cocoon.
In the weirdly conspiratorial, extremely right wing circles he moves in, making bizarre and offensive accusations against anyone who disagrees with you is so common as to seem perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour – sure sometimes he’s being deliberately provocative, but sometimes I wonder if he really doesn’t get that you can’t say this kind of stuff without consequences.
Ezra levant sued me about a year ago in defemation court for $100,000 over a silly letter I had published in a local Calgary, Alberta newspaper. He settled in the end for $5000.00 Free speech warrior YA RIGHT B.S!!!!
Karma sucks eh Levant!!!!
Hey Merle, I remember that. I remember the content of the letter too and I’m still surprised truth wouldn’t be an effective defense in that one.
Ya I tried, but Ezra bullied me into settling as I did not have the money or mental capacity to go on. That is why it’s called Libel Chill etc. The link is here too: I hope Soros hands him his ass on a plate!
Ezra Levant is a megalomaniac of the highest order. It is heartening to see someone with deep pockets, like Mr. Soros, finally deliver him his comeuppance. Watch his performance on tv last night, where he manages to make the Greenpeace representative seem moderate and sane while he goes over the top like a raving lunatic. This is Alberta, so this is a quite a feat, even for Levant. A glimpse of Sun TV to come? Super! I can really see Canadians getting behind that.
The only reason the right tolerates Ezra is because he is an anti-Semite.
And at the stroke of midnight the Sun buckles, releases a groveling apology and throw Ezra to the wolves. Come warm yourself at the schadenfreude:
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/2010/09/17/15388356.html
Intriguingly, Levant quotes a _60 Minutes_ interview with Soros about his teen-activity in 1944 Hungary. Maybe the curious difficulty the Sun had in their retraction was retracting these quotes, which technically aren’t their department>>>
The problem was that Levant selectively quoted the 60 Minutes interview to make it appear that Soros was being accused of something he had never done (helping the Nazis steal Jewish property) and admitting he had done it when in fact he was being asked about posing as a Christian during the war and explicitly said he had nothing to do with property theft. (See http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/apicazo/2010/09/ezra-levant-vs-reality-prelude-fox-news-north ) As a journalist, Levant is a great propagandist and, if nothing else, his irresponsibility has driven another nail into Sun News Channel’s coffin. Levant’s taken the Soros smear down from his blog but doesn’t have the maturity to post a retraction or apology himself. I suspect if the Sun hasn’t already given him his walking papers, they will in a matter of days. Levant can put his severance pay towards his legal costs.
Hello there,
However, I do suffer there is a dissimilarity between the healthy opposition and joking between the a mixture of groups of metal head, emus, Goths, Vikings, scene kids with neon shirts and whoever else is characteristically in the same venues/skate parks/clothing shops/websites etc.
Thanks
it isn’t smart to say nasty things about/to billionares if they aren’t true. It is not nice to say things about anyone who survived the Nazi’s. If you didn’t go to a death camp & you made it through the war & were Jewish you were a survivor. If I were Mr. Soros I too would sue Ezra Levant. My Jewish grandfather survived the Nazi occupation of his country & didnt’ go to a death camp. He wasn’t a collaborator. Countries took care of those after the war.
Ezra, Ezra, dont comment about something you obviously know nothing about & didn’t experience.
I do hope Mr. Soros takes this case to the wall. What Mr. Levant & his fellow travels said is disgusting.