Barry Chamish

Barry Chamish (born January 13, 1952) is a Canadian-born Israeli writer and public speaker. He is best known for developing Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories.[1]

Early years

Barry Chamish was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.[2]

In the first half of the 1970s, Chamish had three novels and a book of short stories published in his native Canada.[3] His novel Mack won a Canada Council Award worth several thousand dollars.[4] In 1976, his book Alice in Newfoundland won a Manitoba Arts Council Award.[5]

Chamish earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Manitoba in 1974.[2] In 1975, Chamish emigrated to Israel, where he attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received a Master of Arts degree in 1979.[6]

Following graduation, Chamish was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces, and served as a regular from 1979 to 1981.[4][5] He participated as a reservist in the 1982 Lebanon War, during which he operated a Redeye anti-aircraft missile.[4]

Career

Chamish began to work as a free-lance writer, publishing material in a range of publications including The Atlantic, National Review, and the New York Newsday.[3] Chamish established a news service to distribute his work called "Profiles of Israel," which he continued throughout the decade of the 1980s.[4]

During the 1990s, Chamish wrote extensively on Unidentified Flying Objects, investigating a spate of sightings in Israel during that period.[7] Chamish's work was featured on four episodes of the NBC-TV program Sightings as well as a half-hour of primetime coverage on FOX-TV.[7]

From the 1990s, Chamish began publishing a series of books charging acts of treachery against the state of Israel, including Traitors and Carpetbaggers in the Promised Land (1997), The Final Days of Israel (2000), Israel Betrayed (2001), and Bye Bye Gaza (2006). In these and similar works, Chamish charged that an array of external and internal forces had "corrupted the country's leaders" and engaged in a "determined agenda aimed at the demise of the Jewish state."[8]

In 1998 Chamish published the book Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin?, his best known book to date. In the book Chamish disagrees that Rabin was assassination by a lone Zionist gunman, as is widely accepted to be the case. Using police reports and ballistics testing, Chamish claims that it was impossible for that lone gunman to have killed Rabin. Chamish asserted that Rabin was not shot twice, but was actually shot three times—with the fatal wound being fired from the front.[7] By the end of 2005 the book had sold 39,000 copies and had been published in seven different languages.[7]

In 2008 the Jerusalem Magistrate Court summoned Chamish to pay Itamar Ben-Gvir defamation damages of 36,000 NIS (roughly US$10,000) after repeatedly calling him an agent of the Shin Bet.[9]

Barry Chamish now lives in the United States, where he has continued writing and has a radio show on First Amendment Radio on Tuesday evenings.

Scrabble

Chamish was the winner of the 1987 Israeli Scrabble Tournament and the runner-up in 1988.[4]

Books

References

  1. ↑ http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=3777
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "About Barry," thebarrychamishwebsite.com/ Retrieved March 6, 2011.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Barry's Biography," Barry Chamish Archives, Retrieved March 6, 2011.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Matt Bellan, "Former Winnipegger Israeli Scrabble Whiz," The Jewish Post and News, February 1, 1989, pg. 5.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Wikipedia False Claims on Barry Chamish as ‘Holocaust Denier,'" Inquisition News, February 26, 2011.
  6. ↑ Greer Fay Cashman, "Grapevine, The Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2000.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Barry Chamish, "Sorry for Being Right," The Jerusalem Post, February 2, 2006.
  8. ↑ "Books," thebarrychamishwebsite.com/ March 6, 2011.
  9. ↑ http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/172478

External links