Al-Guardian's strange ideas about free speech in the US
Today's Al-Guardian has an article that expresses a rather strange understanding of the concept of 'free speech' in the United States:A party in honour of Bad Faith, [British author Carmen] Callil's account of Louis Darquier, the Vichy official who arranged the deportation of thousands of Jews, was to have taken place at the French embassy in New York last night but was cancelled after the embassy became aware of a paragraph in the postscript of the book. In the postscript Callil says she grew anxious while researching the "helpless terror of the Jews of France" to see "what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people. Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians. Everyone forgets."In other words, someone pointed out to the French embassy in the US that Calil has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and the French embassy decided to cancel a party in her honor. That has nothing to do with the US concept of free speech, which states that Congress shall make no law respecting ... abridging the freedom of speech.... As long as it's not the US government restricting speech, what the French embassy chooses to do is the French embassy's affair.
The embassy said the passage had been brought to its attention after a guest declined the invitation because of it. A spokesman denied allegations from Callil, reported by Reuters, that "fundamentalist Jews" had complained and had the party shut down.Calil apparently cannot accept that her odious comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany is too much for even the Fwench to handle.
But then Al-Guardian goes on to turn this into a 'pattern' of restriction on 'free speech' (that is, criticism of Israel) in the United States:
The row over Callil's book is the latest element in a dispute about restrictions on freedom of speech in the US in relation to comments on Israel.The article goes on to report that the Polish consulate canceled after the Anti-Defamation League called to ask if Judt was speaking there, while the second appearance was canceled after Rabbi Avi Weiss threatened to hold a demonstration of Holocaust survivors - all of whom would be in their late 60's and beyond today since the war ended in 1945 - outside the venue. Judt felt that the demonstration would have been "obscene, close to pornography." Apparently Judt can dish out anti-Semitic abuse but he cannot take the response.
A British-born academic based at New York University has had two speaking engagements called off after criticism of his views. Tony Judt, an American Jew who was brought up in Britain, was due to speak on the subject of the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby on US foreign policy and at a separate location under the title War and Genocide in European Memory Today. The first lecture was cancelled by the Polish consulate in New York, which owned the venue, while Mr Judt pulled out of the second after he was asked by the organisers to refrain from direct references to Israel. In both cases pro-Israeli organisations and individuals had raised objections to Mr Judt's views on Israel.
I wonder what would happen if the US embassy in London decided to sponsor a gala celebration in honor of the Danish video lampooning the 'prophet' Muhammed.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:29 PM
2 Comments:
What the Guardian is attempting to illustrate is the extent to which a word or two from the Anti-Defamation League et al can lead to cancellations of speaking arrangements.
The fact that the speech was to take place in an embassy is significant as embassies are even more reluctant to offend (as such the examples given by the Guardian were relatively poor).
However, there as been a persistant pattern of over-sensitivity (I'm sorry but free speech is just that "free" and if comparisons or suggestions of a comparison with the human rights abuses of Nazi Germany are extreme, so be it...speech is meant to be "free" after all.)It's not just in the incidents listed above that speech has been prevented (albeit in the touchy surrounds of an embassy) there have been many instances of persons who are not remotely racist or anti-semitic slandered by the Anti-Defamation League and other such groups and had their careers endangered by relatively harmless (and justified) criticisms of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
The events of sixty years ago in Europe are not a sufficient justification for whatever brutality it takes to sort "the demographic problem" of Palestinians living on their own land,land which Israel wishes to annex.
Concern for human rights of Israelis and Palestinians (it is hard to envisage true peace for one without the other) is not anti-semitism, groups like the Anti-Defamation League impugn criticism of a sovereign country's foreign policy (freedom of speech) as racism etc...slandering the speaker and silencing speech. This is simply not acceptable.
The embassy situations are a poor example for reasons given above (and the reasons you yourself give) but there are many more examples of effots to silence speech about Israeli foreign policy.
You are free to disagree etc...we are are entitled to hold and voice opinions, the beauty of democratic debate can only be maintain if debate is allowed.
A point to note is that:
I favour the German approach to group defamation (a strong protection from defamation for identifiable groups)...and the absolute prohibition on holocaust denial. Such speech is dangerous.
Criticism of the invasion of Lebanon or heavy handed military incursions into Gaza is not.
People differ. Life would boring if we didn't. Speech deserves protection and over-zealous use of "sensitivity" about history is merely a cloak for abuse.
Can you imagine the decendants of African slaves insisting that they are above criticism (strongly worded or otherwise)because of history. It's ridiculous.
Here's a more suitable example of the over-reach of "anti-defamation" groups; the mysterious “cancellation” of the play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, by the New York Theatre Workshop earlier this year under similar pressure from unnamed “Jewish community members.”
Using the dead of sixty years ago to justify the military actions of a major military power today is disgusting.
It's also wrong.
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