NEW THOUGHT POLICE. Campaign to criminalize criticism of Israel,
by Justin Raimondo, antiwar.com, June 23, 2003
"Last week, after Israel targeted Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi – and, instead, got a woman passer-by and a three year-old child, while 27 others were injured. – George W. Bush came out with some very mild criticism of Israel: 'I am troubled by the recent Israeli helicopter gunship attacks. I regret the loss of innocent life. I also don't believe that the attacks help Israeli security.' From the hysterical reaction, one might have thought that he had uttered a blood libel, or suddenly taken to wearing a kaffiyeh. Such a commotion! House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), reportedly strode into the Oval Office and threatened to push a resolution through Congress offering unconditional support to Sharon and implicitly rebuking the President. God forbid the President of the United States should mourn the death of a three-year-old child whom the Israelis say was inadvertently kill ... We hear constantly about the supposed rise of anti-Semitic sentiments in Europe: this is not neo-Nazi activity, or the "old" anti-Semitism of the Protocols, but the "new anti-Semitism," which boils down to criticism of Israel and its supporters. As officials of the Anti-Defamation League recently put it in the Denver Post: 'Today's strain of anti-Semitism usually targets Israel in some form. The most socially acceptable way to vent anti-Semitism today is to criticize Israel, the only state controlled by Jews, by holding Israel to standards not applied to any other country. Of course, it is not anti-Semitic to express sympathy with the Palestinian people or to disagree with Israeli government policies. But a hateful bias is revealed when critics subject Israel, and Israel alone, to invective and demonization, while human-rights abuses of other countries are overlooked or excused.' If you criticize "the only state controlled by Jews" you aren't necessarily anti-Semitic – but you probably are. And just what are these standards that Israel alone is held to? Any other country that separated out the majority of the population on the basis of ethnicity, and subjected them to draconian controls, controlling their movements, and keeping them penned up in special ghettos, would long ago have been declared an international pariah. How has Israel managed to get away with it – and, not only that, but how have they managed to go on the offensive, and target their critics as "bigots"? Make no mistake about it: they are indeed on the attack, and not only in the occupied territories. At a recent international conference on anti-Semitism called by the O.S.C.E. , addressed by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a number of Orwellian proposals were floated "Another idea advanced by some delegates that would certainly provoke disagreement if it ever became actual policy by O.S.C.E. governments was that ways need to be found to control publications and Web sites that promote anti-Semitism. One delegate, for example, Jean Kahn, president of the Union of French Jewish Communities, argued that the Arab television network Al Jazeera fomented anti-Semitism and that it should be suppressed." The American representatives, far from dissenting, sat complicit with this totalitarian proposal, and hailed others just as bad if not worse. Giuliani, whose Mussolini-like reign in New York City made the trains run on time, endorsed the totalitarian spirit of the proposals: "Words aren't going to suffice to turn the tide of anti-Semitism, which is once again growing in Europe and other parts of the world." Israel's international amen corner is hoping that criticism of the Jewish state is now going to be made a "hate crime," at least in Europe. So that if harsh words for Ariel Sharon aren't accompanied by equally harsh words for, say, Yasser Arafat, the author may find him- or herself fined, jailed, and silenced. The ever-expanding definition of "anti-Semitism" is certain to put a chill on Israel's critics, as the socialist EU imposes limitations on speech throughout the continent: even, now, in England. The campaign to stamp out all but the mildest criticism of Israel is also likely to impinge on the Internet, as the New York Times reports: 'That idea [the banning of Al Jazeera] was not challenged, given the nature of the conference proceedings, but it also did not become a main theme of the conference, though worries about the power of the Internet to spread anti-Semitism did. 'Hypertexts and cybertexts are mostly imitations through which the social deviancy present in society speaks,' Jacques Picard, a professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland told the conferees. His point was that the ideas being expressed on the Internet hate sites are imitations of old anti-Semitic notions but that they have gained new force both by the power of the Internet and by the anonymity of many of those who use it. 'What's new here is that the Internet disseminates these ideas with the protection of anonymity,' Mr. Picard said. 'Anonymity should be lifted.'" This pompous frog flapping his lips about "hypertexts and cybertexts" is the voice of the new Euro-commies, at once absurd and deadly dangerous. "Hate speech" as defined by some committee of commissars is a crime throughout Europe, including the once-free British isles, as well as Canada. And our own would-be commissars on this side of the Atlantic are all too eager to start implementing the same totalitarian methods here. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, to its ever-lasting shame, has been especially active on this front, leading the charge to enforce and extend "hate speech" laws that could never be enacted in the United States without first overturning the First Amendment. That hasn't happened, as yet. They can get away with banning newspapers and prohibiting speech in Iraq on the grounds of an "incitement" to violence, but treating U.S. citizens like the inhabitants of a conquered province is still out of bounds. For how much longer is an open question…. What really disgusts me is the silence of the so-called "libertarians," who are so quick to pounce on instances of censorship, both real and imagined, especially when it comes to the Internet. Yet a campaign that seeks to ban plain speech about Israel and its supporters is ignored."
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