July 11, 2008, - 12:21 pm
Aaron Klein Watch: WND’s Plagiarist Rips Off Schlussel Again, Book Plagiarized Schlussel, Israeli Newspapers, Fabricated the Rest
By Debbie Schlussel
Recently, I wrote about how Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily “wrote” an article, which was actually a rewrite of an exact article I’d written 5 months earlier on Barack Obama’s Nation of Islam staffers. Some of it was almost word for word, and all of it was stolen. Klein’s version was labeled, “Exclusive” and “Breaking News,” and his sleazy PR person, Maria Sliwa sent out press releases saying the same thing, even though she knew otherwise.
As I noted, Klein and his site have a long record of plagiarizing–without credit–the work of others (including mine) and representing it as his own. And Maria Sliwa has a record of enabling the same with press releases to that effect, when she knows otherwise. After I wrote the piece I got a gazillion more examples of Aaron Klein’s plagiarism sent to me.
Now he’s done it . . . again.
The other day, a friend forwarded me an article “by” Klein, in the Jewish Press, about Richard Gere and a campaign commercial Gere and two extremist Palestinian leaders, Sheikh Taissir Rajab Al-Tamimi and Atallah (a/k/a Theodosios) Hanna, made for the Palestinian elections in 2005. The article sounded exactly like my 2005 column on Gere and the commercial. And whaddya know? It was my column, down to a mistake I made in it. Sure, Klein left out a few things I wrote in the column and paraphrased a few things, but it was clear, he did no research of his own. He merely regurgitated what I wrote, without a single iota of credit to me.
And his repeat of a mistake I made when I originally wrote it is telling. Aaron Klein “wrote”–as I did in my original column that he ripped off:
Problem is, the businessman, Daniel Lubetzky, is not Israeli. He’s American and South American, which he wrote me after I posted the article. I would have corrected it, but since it’s from an old template of my website to which I no longer have access, I couldn’t correct this mistake. And Aaron Klein was so lazy and so hellbent on keeping up his thievery that he stole my article in whole, including the mistake:
DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL in 2005:
“One Voice,” the sponsor of Gere’s ads is . . . the invention of a sleazy, far-left Israeli businessman, Daniel Lubetzky.
AARON KLEIN’s rip-off in 2008:
Gere’s appearance on Palestinian television was sponsored by One Voice, a far-left organization run by an Israeli businessman.
SCHLUSSEL:
Hanna was fired by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate because of his open support for terrorism.
KLEIN:
Hanna was fired from his church position after being accused of directly aiding terror organizations.
And there are several other, um, “similarities” between my column and what Aaron Klein presented as his own work. Except that Klein got the year of the commercial wrong. It was from 2005, NOT 2006, as he claimed. When you’re ripping off someone else’s work, you don’t always get the facts straight, especially when you’re not quite the expert on the Middle East or even Israel that you claim to be.
Anyone who knows anything about politics in Israel, knows that Arafat died in 2004 and that the first elections after his death were in 2005, NOT 2006. They also know that–contrary to Aaron Klein’s false claims–that election was not between HAMAS and Fatah, the 2006 election was. And experts know that Tamimi and Hanna both support HAMAS, NOT Fatah, as Klein claims.
Clearly, Aaron Klein doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he’s not a real expert . . . unless it’s an “expert” in plagiarism. And he’s really not good at that either.
And it’s not just an article. I’m told this column is a rehash of some of what’s in his book, “Schmoozing With Terrorists,” which might be better titled, “Schmoozing with Plagiarism of Debbie Schlussel and Israeli Newspapers,” since I’m told by intelligence analysts in Israel and America that Aaron Klein’s entire book is plagiarism of Israeli newspapers stories and fabricated information that he made up. I believe it, since he ripped me off for it and other articles and since he’s fabricated his whole persona. For example, he markets himself as an Orthodox Jews, but isn’t one–he doesn’t keep the Jewish Sabbath, the main requirement of Orthodox Judaism.
Here is what more than one intelligence expert here and in Israel sent me about Aaron Klein:
Those of us both in private work and in the Israeli secret services constantly suck air when Aaron Klein’s name is mentioned. They all say Aaron is a nice enough young guy whom they really want to like, but he makes this all but impossible. Little that he publishes under his own name is really his own material. “Schmoozing with Terrorists” was taken straight out of Israeli newspapers, with a sprinkle from Sherut Bitachon Klali [DS: Known as “ShaBaK,” it is Israelis “General Security Service,” like the FBI, but more secretive] internal reports to add a little spice.
My sympathies on the plagiarization.
Another:
A retired top Israeli commander now working in private security consulting knows Aaron Klein fairly well. He seconds the opinions I gave you previously: friendly boy, immature, plagiarizes everything, does little original investigation and writing.
Another source:
I had an email run in with Aaron Klein a couple of years ago. I was getting increasingly turned off by his quoting terrorists of their future operational plans (which I thought was B.S. – why tell someone what you are going to do in advance?) and called him out on it, in essence that the Palestinians are blowhards and Bullshit artists. He wrote back that he found them to be more reliable then the Israelis. I wrote him back saying that I will tell the Israelis he said so. He is a self important ass.
The next time you see an Aaron Klein article or book, best to ignore it. What you’re reading is either made up . . . or flat-out stolen from someone else’s work written long ago.
The guy’s a sleazebag. And not to be believed.
You can’t sue the bastard?
Norman Blitzer on July 11, 2008 at 2:24 pm