Irving gets just what he wanted - his name in the headlines

A WEEK of perplexing polarities. After the discredited British historian David Irving was sentenced to a three-year jail term in Austria as a penalty for denying the Holocaust, the liberal conscience of western Europe has squirmed and agonised.

Jewish historians have been implored to comment on the judgment, and most have expressed anxiety. They have defended Irving's right to reach whatever malevolent conclusion he chooses, because one crackpot is of little importance compared with the rig...