BDS-supporting philosophy professor outed as a prominent neo-Nazi writer ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

BDS-supporting philosophy professor outed as a prominent neo-Nazi writer

David Skrbina was a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn from 2003 to 2018 and more recently at the University of Helsinki. While he was in Dearborn he was an active supporter of BDS, writing op-eds and being interviewed as a leading BDS campaigner on campus.

His personal webpage has a statement written soon after the October 7 attacks, saying,

STATEMENT ON PALESTINE (1 Nov 2023)

I call on all people of conscience to stand with Palestine, and against the criminal Jewish state. I call on everyone to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel -- permanently. Through their criminal actions, they have forfeited their right to exist.

Recall the words of Martin Heidegger: "planetary master criminals" (in Trawny, Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy; 2015: 33)

That Heidegger quote is curious. Most people believe that his writings about "planetary master criminals" refers to Jews. He elsewhere wrote about “the basis for the peculiar predetermination of Jewry [Judenschaft] for planetary criminality," which aligns with Skrbina's emphasis on the "criminal Jewish state."

This suggests that Skrbina's hate for Israel is not political but antisemitic. Now we now that is true.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reveals that Skrbina had another persona, "Thomas Dalton PhD.," who is an infamous and prolific neo-Nazi antisemitic author and Holocaust denier. The ADL describes him:

Thomas Dalton, likely a pseudonym, is an author with numerous Holocaust denial works. ...He has emerged as an unbridled antisemite and Holocaust denier, including by suggesting that “Jews caused World War Two.” He refutes that there was a master plan to murder Jews and claims only 500,000 died at the hands of the Nazis.

His books include The Jewish Hand in the World Wars and Debating the Holocaust, and he has edited and/or provided introductions and commentary for numerous editions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other antisemitic works. He is a frequent contributor to antisemitic and Holocaust denial publications such as The Barnes Review and the Occidental Observer.

While appearing on the antisemitic Keith Barrett podcast in December, Skrbina accidentally logged in as Dalton, and Barrett noted this and even joked about it, noting that he saw Daltons' profile with Skrbina's photo.

Skrbina denies that he is Dalton:

It has come to my attention that I have been subjected to yet another slanderous personal attack by a malicious Jewish special-interest group. This is not the first time; ever since I have been defending the call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) from Israel, beginning back in 2003, Jewish groups have found it convenient to target me personally, in an attempt at intimidation. Sadly for them, it has never worked. And as I have heightened my critiques since the attack on Gaza, so too have my critics. Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial. These are absurd. My areas of expertise are in philosophy, history of philosophy, environmental ethics, and philosophy of technology; these have no bearing on the claimed subjects, nor do I have any special expertise in such areas.

The denial is comical when you look at the facts.

Articles on Dalton's website - including a Holocaust denial article - show in their metadata that they were written by Skrbina.

Skrbina claims he has no expertise on the subjects that "Dalton" writes about, yet somehow he reviewed and praised Dalton's antisemitic books. He wrote on another antisemitic site a rave review of his own The Jewish Hand in World Wars that leaves no doubt at to Skrbina's own antisemitism even outside his Dalton persona:

[T]hough TBR and author Thomas Dalton will be called anti-Semites for even daring to discuss it—there is no better subject to explore than the Jewish role in history and whether or not the claims that they have manipulated nations into many devastating wars have any basis of fact at all.

This is precisely what Dalton has done in his thought-provoking new book, The Jewish Hand in the World Wars

No other author has been able to compile, in such concise and clear terms, all key elements of this story. As such, Dalton’s book provides us with an invaluable resource, one overflowing with lessons for the present.

The book begins with some context from ancient times. Literally for millennia, Jews have for some reason—deserved or not—been viewed as troublemakers, agitators and scoundrels. It is highly revealing that nearly every ancient reference to the Jews is negative.

...We can well understand why Seneca called them “an accursed race,” and why Tacitus described them as “a disease” and “the basest of peoples.” The story continues with extremely critical remarks by the likes of Aquinas, Luther, Paul-Henri d’Holbach, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel and Johann Fichte. Dalton proves his point: Jews have a very long reputation for belligerence, hostility, maliciousness, and warmongering.

...As Hitler and the NSDAP rose to power in Germany in the 1930s, Jews worldwide began to agitate against him. These included Bolshevik Jews in the Soviet Union, Jews in the United Kingdom and France, and FDR’s Jewish advisors. The second half of Dalton’s book focuses specifically on the Jewish American role and World War II, presenting a clear and logical argument based on six points:

the extensive Jewish role in the Roosevelt administration;
that the majority Christian U.S. public was solidly isolationist;
that prominent Jews did see war as a benefit to their interests;
that FDR acted surreptitiously on behalf of war;
that the Jewish-dominated U.S. media constantly pushed for war; and
that the U.S. ultimately entered the war under false pretenses.

Dalton presents an impressive sequence of statistics, quotations, and authoritative references that defend all these points.

If Skrbina says he has no expertise on the topic, why would he review and promote an otherwise obscure book by "Dalton"?

Here is a major BDS proponent who has been outed as a neo-Nazi. On campus, he pretends to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, yet his hatred of Jews is undeniable even in his own writings, let alone the ravings of "Thomas Dalton PhD."

Scratch the surface of most such defenders of Palestinian rights and you will find antisemites. Most of them are not as explicitly Nazi as Skrbina but in the end, as we see in Skrbina's own words, there is precious little difference between "progressive" and "far right wing" antisemitism.