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Let us celebrate a man, a good man, a good man hell-bent on justice and human rights: Elias Davidsson.
I was very sorry to learn, from his son, that he died last week on April 7, 2022, in his town near Koln, Germany. But we mustn’t let him go! His life’s work, for the last 20 years or more, adds up to a great contribution to society.
There are well-known facts of his biography, which I will state briefly below, and familiar items in his bibliography. But, to make this obituary personal, I will say what I knew of Elias personally. And then I will suggest that someone start a university course on “Elias Davidsson,” as one would hold a course on, say, Ludwig Beethoven, or Abraham Lincoln. We need to grab ahold of his mission.
Brief Bio
Elias was born in Jerusalem in 1941. His parents had escaped Germany in the 1930s when threatened by the voluminous anti-Jewish legislation. There was not yet an Israel; Palestine was under a mandate of Britain as part of the Versailles treaty of 1919. Hence, Elias grew up living among both Muslims and Jews and thought that was a perfectly calm arrangement.
I do not know at what age he “returned” to Germany, but whilst there he worked for IBM for about 20 years. Then he got into music. He moved to Iceland (population today still only 330,000) and was both a composer and a piano teacher. And also church organist.
The odd spelling of the name Davidsson (his “maiden” name was Kahn) came about because Iceland required him to icelandicize his name. He later had a very happy marriage to a lady from Poland and they have one son, David.
As far as I know, Elias was in good health — we had a regular correspondence. His death was reportedly due to difficulty breathing and it was chalked up to Covid. I can assure you that Elias was furious over the dishonesty of the pandemic and especially discouraged about the way children in Germany were absorbing “the new normal.”
Brief Bibliography
Whilst Elias has some books and videos about music, here we will concentrate only on his political publications. His books in English include Hijacking America’s Mind on 9-11; The Betrayal of India; and America’s Betrayal Confirmed.
Whilst most of us who write about “that stuff” do not expect to be rewarded — rather the opposite — Elias did receive much thanks and praise for his book The Betrayal of India, which concerned the bombings of hotel in Mumbai. Of course it is the people of India who should be thanking him, but it is the Pakistanis who feted him with a few days of celebration in Islamabad, (Elias proved that it was not Pakistan that did the bombings at Mumbai.)
Another part of his “bibliography” is his website juscogens.org. But its content was not mainly from the pen of Davidsson. It contained (and I hope someone will keep it going) selected essays from many authors on any international injustice. Remarkably it was published in the four languages in which Elias had true proficiency: English, German, French, and Icelandic.
My Personal Knowledge of Elias Davidsson
In the early Oughts, both I and Elias were frequent commenters at a list-serve (which would nowadays be called a chat group?) at the website of the American Society of International Law — ASIL. I was not yet a card-carrying dissident, and there was nothing at ASIL about 9-11, and probably still isn’t.
The conversation was about international law. Other commenters at the ASIL list-serve were Anthony d’Amato (famous for his line “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s jus cogens”) and Charlie Gittings, the indomitable advocate for the Geneva Conventions. (I think Charlie’s death at age 56 was due to you-know-what, as he always stated the law of war so clearly and “We can’t have that.” His work is at pegc.org)
So, years later, when I saw Elias’ name somewhere, I was able to appreciate his views. In 2014, I wrote to him asking if he would answer some written questions, as an interview, which I emailed to him. Minutes later (I really mean minutes later) the item came flying back to me. I thought it was a rude refusal. Luckily, I looked at it more closely later and saw that he had entered concise answers under each of my questions.
I would not give Elias high marks for politeness. Pleasing people was not his game. Getting the truth — accurately — was his goal. I often told him he was a top candidate for the Fusspot award. After I read his book Hijacking America’ Mind on 9-11, which is largely about the phone calls made by persons on the 9-11 planes, such as Barbara Olsen, I told Elias he should have made it easier to read.
“No way, Jose” — or words to that effect — was his reply.
Elias wrote the Foreword to my book Inquest, about the phony 2014 hostage-taking at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. He stated that he “joined the author” in standing up to the Australian government. But when I asked him for a blurb for my Boston Marathon book, he wouldn’t give me one, as I had failed to prove that Jahar Tsarnaev did not do the bombing.
This is true, as I readily admit in the book. I can firmly show that brother Tamerlan was not at the locale of the police shootout — and that he was in fact murdered in custody, but I have no such proof of Jahar’s innocence. I did explain to Elias that an American is not required to prove his innocence — Jahar need only show that the evidence presented against him by the prosecution is Crock City.
One additional note about our interactions. After Elias wrote an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, I asked him to provide me with the German translation. He said that he had no intention of writing it in German or of sending it to Merkel, and that in the content of it (asking Merkel to re-think) he was just imitating me!
Did Elias Support His Fellow Jews?
Name one other person of whom it can be said “X is a proud German, a proud Jew, and a defender of all persecuted groups.” Herr Davidsson was all three. This is not to say he supported the government of Israel. And Zionism was not his cup of tea. But he was alert to the blaming of persons based on their Jewish identity.
Example: he chided me for my recent article asking for the arrest of Larry Silverstein, whom Elias thought may have been set up to take the heat. I explained that I had other dirt on Larry, dating back to the 1960s, so Elias more or less said “Well, OK.” Now, because of Elias’ death I will not get a chance to show him my recent Gumshoe article entitled “Jews, ‘the Jews,’ Judaism, etc.” I simply don’t know if he would have approved.
Gosh, he will be missed by his many friends.
The “University Course” on Elias Davidsson
Perhaps there is a philosophy department somewhere in the world that would take up the subject of “finding the truth in a world of official propaganda.” In my opinion, Elias’s central contribution was his detailed investigation of claims made by officials about various terrorist attacks. Recall his fusspot nature — he applied it both to official liars and to sloppy dissidents.
I am not aware of all his in-depth studies. In regard to an alleged truck rampage that caused destruction at a Christmas outdoor mart in Berlin, Elias wrote, in the German language only, a very skeptical account. The name of the book is The Yellow Bus. (Reviewed by Felicity Hingston in a Gumshoe article.)
Davidsson’s efforts to disprove the lies of 9-11 consisted first in his book about the phone calls from the planes, and subsequently in his book America’s Betrayal Confirmed, where he challenges any of the loose end, such as Mohammed Atta’s apparent double identity. He is also named in the preface to one of David Ray Griffin’s books as a contributor of ideas on the subject of 911.
Undoubtedly his masterwork is the 800-page investigation of the Mumbai hotel bombings, entitled The Betrayal of India. Elias was able to tear the official story apart by using mostly opensource material. He spent years on it, getting it right. In reviewing the book at Gumshoe, Adeela Naureen wrote:
“Elias Davidsson has rebutted the Indian narrative and proved with authenticity that Indian version was totally concocted, based on deceit and outright lies, and that it was promulgated through a well thought out disinformation campaign ensconced in hyperbole.”
Yet Elias was about to outdo that achievement – I suspect — with his work on the Bataclan episode in France. I recently asked him to confer with me about something, and he replied that no hour of the day could be spent on anything but finishing his French work. Officially, 130 concert-goers died at the Bataclan in Paris in 2015, and “ISIS claimed responsibility.”
Yeah, right.
I do not rule out that his findings were hot stuff and cost him his life. (Note: that is pure speculation and so would not earn his approval. On the other hand, if Elias saw the end coming and imagined it to be “them,” he’d want someone to say so.) I don’t know. Maybe God took him in the usual way. He was 81.
Summary
As you can see, this late, great scholar believed in international law and demanded that it be fulfilled. Interested students could write a thesis on the proposition that a person like Davidsson who starts from a premise of human rights will always run into the facts that he ran onto. That is, he or she will be up against amazing deceitfulness — including fake terrorism — and everyday corruption.
Hence, to keep human rights on the books, those obstacles should also be on the books. It is a natural part of the academic subject matter. There is no room for dismissing any of it as conspiracy theory.
Davidsson will be there with you, O Students. He will applaud your efforts. Don’t write him off as “finished history.”
Thank you, Elias! Vale. Rest in peace.
If you know you know, this man was a gem. RIP
Source: https://gumshoenews.com/a-time-to-d...avidsson-scholarly-critic-of-false-terrorism/
I was very sorry to learn, from his son, that he died last week on April 7, 2022, in his town near Koln, Germany. But we mustn’t let him go! His life’s work, for the last 20 years or more, adds up to a great contribution to society.
There are well-known facts of his biography, which I will state briefly below, and familiar items in his bibliography. But, to make this obituary personal, I will say what I knew of Elias personally. And then I will suggest that someone start a university course on “Elias Davidsson,” as one would hold a course on, say, Ludwig Beethoven, or Abraham Lincoln. We need to grab ahold of his mission.
Brief Bio
Elias was born in Jerusalem in 1941. His parents had escaped Germany in the 1930s when threatened by the voluminous anti-Jewish legislation. There was not yet an Israel; Palestine was under a mandate of Britain as part of the Versailles treaty of 1919. Hence, Elias grew up living among both Muslims and Jews and thought that was a perfectly calm arrangement.
I do not know at what age he “returned” to Germany, but whilst there he worked for IBM for about 20 years. Then he got into music. He moved to Iceland (population today still only 330,000) and was both a composer and a piano teacher. And also church organist.
The odd spelling of the name Davidsson (his “maiden” name was Kahn) came about because Iceland required him to icelandicize his name. He later had a very happy marriage to a lady from Poland and they have one son, David.
As far as I know, Elias was in good health — we had a regular correspondence. His death was reportedly due to difficulty breathing and it was chalked up to Covid. I can assure you that Elias was furious over the dishonesty of the pandemic and especially discouraged about the way children in Germany were absorbing “the new normal.”
Brief Bibliography
Whilst Elias has some books and videos about music, here we will concentrate only on his political publications. His books in English include Hijacking America’s Mind on 9-11; The Betrayal of India; and America’s Betrayal Confirmed.
Whilst most of us who write about “that stuff” do not expect to be rewarded — rather the opposite — Elias did receive much thanks and praise for his book The Betrayal of India, which concerned the bombings of hotel in Mumbai. Of course it is the people of India who should be thanking him, but it is the Pakistanis who feted him with a few days of celebration in Islamabad, (Elias proved that it was not Pakistan that did the bombings at Mumbai.)
Another part of his “bibliography” is his website juscogens.org. But its content was not mainly from the pen of Davidsson. It contained (and I hope someone will keep it going) selected essays from many authors on any international injustice. Remarkably it was published in the four languages in which Elias had true proficiency: English, German, French, and Icelandic.
My Personal Knowledge of Elias Davidsson
In the early Oughts, both I and Elias were frequent commenters at a list-serve (which would nowadays be called a chat group?) at the website of the American Society of International Law — ASIL. I was not yet a card-carrying dissident, and there was nothing at ASIL about 9-11, and probably still isn’t.
The conversation was about international law. Other commenters at the ASIL list-serve were Anthony d’Amato (famous for his line “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s jus cogens”) and Charlie Gittings, the indomitable advocate for the Geneva Conventions. (I think Charlie’s death at age 56 was due to you-know-what, as he always stated the law of war so clearly and “We can’t have that.” His work is at pegc.org)
So, years later, when I saw Elias’ name somewhere, I was able to appreciate his views. In 2014, I wrote to him asking if he would answer some written questions, as an interview, which I emailed to him. Minutes later (I really mean minutes later) the item came flying back to me. I thought it was a rude refusal. Luckily, I looked at it more closely later and saw that he had entered concise answers under each of my questions.
I would not give Elias high marks for politeness. Pleasing people was not his game. Getting the truth — accurately — was his goal. I often told him he was a top candidate for the Fusspot award. After I read his book Hijacking America’ Mind on 9-11, which is largely about the phone calls made by persons on the 9-11 planes, such as Barbara Olsen, I told Elias he should have made it easier to read.
“No way, Jose” — or words to that effect — was his reply.
Elias wrote the Foreword to my book Inquest, about the phony 2014 hostage-taking at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. He stated that he “joined the author” in standing up to the Australian government. But when I asked him for a blurb for my Boston Marathon book, he wouldn’t give me one, as I had failed to prove that Jahar Tsarnaev did not do the bombing.
This is true, as I readily admit in the book. I can firmly show that brother Tamerlan was not at the locale of the police shootout — and that he was in fact murdered in custody, but I have no such proof of Jahar’s innocence. I did explain to Elias that an American is not required to prove his innocence — Jahar need only show that the evidence presented against him by the prosecution is Crock City.
One additional note about our interactions. After Elias wrote an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, I asked him to provide me with the German translation. He said that he had no intention of writing it in German or of sending it to Merkel, and that in the content of it (asking Merkel to re-think) he was just imitating me!
Did Elias Support His Fellow Jews?
Name one other person of whom it can be said “X is a proud German, a proud Jew, and a defender of all persecuted groups.” Herr Davidsson was all three. This is not to say he supported the government of Israel. And Zionism was not his cup of tea. But he was alert to the blaming of persons based on their Jewish identity.
Example: he chided me for my recent article asking for the arrest of Larry Silverstein, whom Elias thought may have been set up to take the heat. I explained that I had other dirt on Larry, dating back to the 1960s, so Elias more or less said “Well, OK.” Now, because of Elias’ death I will not get a chance to show him my recent Gumshoe article entitled “Jews, ‘the Jews,’ Judaism, etc.” I simply don’t know if he would have approved.
Gosh, he will be missed by his many friends.
The “University Course” on Elias Davidsson
Perhaps there is a philosophy department somewhere in the world that would take up the subject of “finding the truth in a world of official propaganda.” In my opinion, Elias’s central contribution was his detailed investigation of claims made by officials about various terrorist attacks. Recall his fusspot nature — he applied it both to official liars and to sloppy dissidents.
I am not aware of all his in-depth studies. In regard to an alleged truck rampage that caused destruction at a Christmas outdoor mart in Berlin, Elias wrote, in the German language only, a very skeptical account. The name of the book is The Yellow Bus. (Reviewed by Felicity Hingston in a Gumshoe article.)
Davidsson’s efforts to disprove the lies of 9-11 consisted first in his book about the phone calls from the planes, and subsequently in his book America’s Betrayal Confirmed, where he challenges any of the loose end, such as Mohammed Atta’s apparent double identity. He is also named in the preface to one of David Ray Griffin’s books as a contributor of ideas on the subject of 911.
Undoubtedly his masterwork is the 800-page investigation of the Mumbai hotel bombings, entitled The Betrayal of India. Elias was able to tear the official story apart by using mostly opensource material. He spent years on it, getting it right. In reviewing the book at Gumshoe, Adeela Naureen wrote:
“Elias Davidsson has rebutted the Indian narrative and proved with authenticity that Indian version was totally concocted, based on deceit and outright lies, and that it was promulgated through a well thought out disinformation campaign ensconced in hyperbole.”
Yet Elias was about to outdo that achievement – I suspect — with his work on the Bataclan episode in France. I recently asked him to confer with me about something, and he replied that no hour of the day could be spent on anything but finishing his French work. Officially, 130 concert-goers died at the Bataclan in Paris in 2015, and “ISIS claimed responsibility.”
Yeah, right.
I do not rule out that his findings were hot stuff and cost him his life. (Note: that is pure speculation and so would not earn his approval. On the other hand, if Elias saw the end coming and imagined it to be “them,” he’d want someone to say so.) I don’t know. Maybe God took him in the usual way. He was 81.
Summary
As you can see, this late, great scholar believed in international law and demanded that it be fulfilled. Interested students could write a thesis on the proposition that a person like Davidsson who starts from a premise of human rights will always run into the facts that he ran onto. That is, he or she will be up against amazing deceitfulness — including fake terrorism — and everyday corruption.
Hence, to keep human rights on the books, those obstacles should also be on the books. It is a natural part of the academic subject matter. There is no room for dismissing any of it as conspiracy theory.
Davidsson will be there with you, O Students. He will applaud your efforts. Don’t write him off as “finished history.”
Thank you, Elias! Vale. Rest in peace.
If you know you know, this man was a gem. RIP
Source: https://gumshoenews.com/a-time-to-d...avidsson-scholarly-critic-of-false-terrorism/
