Source: http://www.renegadetribune.com/is-criticism-of-israel-already-an-official-hate-crime-in-america/
By Philip Giraldi
One subject
that congressmen and the mainstream media tend to avoid is the erosion of
fundamental liberties in the United States as a consequence of the war on
terror and American involvement in the Middle East. Some of America’s
legislators apparently do not even understand that freedom of speech actually
means that one can say things that others might find distasteful. The assault
on freedom of speech has been accelerated through the invention of so-called
“hate speech,” which has in turn morphed into “hate crimes” where punishments
are increased if there is any suggestion that hatred of groups or individuals
is involved. Some have rightly questioned the whole concept, pointing out that
if you murder someone the result is the same whether you hate your victim or
not.
Freedom of speech is particularly
threatened in any situations having to do with Israel, a reflection of the
power of that country’s lobby in the United States. At a recent town hall
gathering, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) demonstrated how he and his colleagues
run and hide whenever the issue of Israel is raised when he would not respond
directly to a question over whether any criticism of Israel should or should
not be protected under the First Amendment. Crenshaw is a Republican and
generally reliably conservative, though he recently spoke out against the “For
the People Act of 2019,” which he claimed “would limit free speech dramatically.”
A constituent specifically asked
Crenshaw’s opinion about federal laws that require citizens in some states to
sign a pledge that they will not boycott Israel if they wish to get government
contracts or obtain a government job. The audience member also mentioned a law
passed in Florida that bans anti-Semitism in public schools and universities,
defining “anti-Semitism” as criticism of Israel. The constituent observed,
“These laws are obviously flagrant and troubling violations of the First Amendment
to free speech.”
“Will you honor your oath and
denounce these laws here, now and forever?” Crenshaw was then asked. Crenshaw
quickly fired back that the critic was “cloaking yourself in the First
Amendment” to enable engaging in “vehement anti-Semitism.” Crenshaw then
asserted that the questioner was “advocating the BDS movement,” a recent target
of much of the legislation that the critic was addressing.
BDS refers to the Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which calls on people to protest Israel by
pulling investments from and boycotting the country.
Israel is engaged in what might be
described as a war with the objective of driving any and all criticism of the
Jewish state out of polite discourse, making it illegal wherever and whenever possible.
The Knesset has passed legislation criminalizing anyone who supports BDS and
has set up a semiclandestine group called Kella Shlomo to counteract its
message. The country’s education minister has called BDS supporters “enemy
soldiers” and has compared them to Nazis. Netanyahu has also backed up the new
law with a restriction on foreigners who support the BDS movement entering the
country, including American Jewish dissidents, several of whom have been turned
around at the airport and sent home.
Israel has been particularly
successful at promoting its own preferred narrative, together with sanctions
for those who do not concur, in the English language speaking world and also in
France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe. The U.S. government
under Donald Trump is completely under the thumb of the Israeli prime
minister’s office, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently saying “our
major focus is stamping out anti-Semitism.”
Sanctions already in place in Europe
consist of fines and even jail time. The legal penalties come into play for
those criticizing Israel or questioning the accuracy of the accepted holocaust
narrative, i.e., disputing that “6 million died.” Even attacking specific
Israeli government policies, like its slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza every
Friday, can be found guilty of anti-Semitism, which is now considered a hate
crime in Britain, France, Germany, and, most recently, the Czech Republic. In
Britain, where the Jewish lobby is extremely strong, a law passed in December
2016 made the UK one of the first countries to use the definition of
anti-Semitism agreed upon earlier in the year at a conference of the
Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
A statement from the British prime
minister’s office at that time explained that the intention of the new
definition was to “ensure that culprits will not be able to get away with being
anti-Semitic because the term is ill-defined, or because different
organizations or bodies have different interpretations of it.”
The British government’s own
definition relies on guidance provided by the IHRA, which asserts that it is
considered anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being “more loyal to Israel or their
religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is
intrinsically racist.” In other words, even if many Jews are more loyal to
Israel than to the countries they live in and even though Israel is in fact
intrinsically racist, it is now illegal to say so in Great Britain.
One should not be surprised, as the
British government’s subservience to Jewish and Israeli interests is nearly as
enthusiastic as is government in the United States, though it is driven by the
same sorts of things – Jewish money and Jewish power, particularly in the media.
A majority of Conservative Party members of parliament have joined Conservative
Friends of Israel, and the Labour counterpart is also a major force to be
reckoned with on the political left.
Here in the United States, the
friends of Israel appear to believe that anyone who is unwilling to do business
with Israel or even with the territories that it has illegally occupied should
not be allowed to obtain any benefit from federal, state or even local
governments. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association for
every American are apparently not valid if one particular highly favored
foreign country is involved, as the discussion with Crenshaw reveals.
Twenty-seven states now have laws
sanctioning those who criticize or boycott Israel. And one particular pending
piece of federal legislation that is regularly re-introduced into the Senate
would far exceed what is happening at the state level and would set a new
standard for deference to Israeli interests on the part of the national government.
It would criminalize any U.S. citizen “engaged in interstate or foreign
commerce” who supports a boycott of Israel or who even goes about “requesting
the furnishing of information” regarding it, with penalties enforced through
amendments of two existing laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the
Export-Import Act of 1945, that include potential fines of between $250,000 and
$1 million and up to 20 years in prison.
Israel, and its friends like
Crenshaw, are particularly fearful of the BDS movement because its non-violence
is attractive to college students, including many young Jews, who would not
otherwise get involved on the issue. The Israeli government clearly
understands, correctly, that BDS can do more damage than any number of terrorist
attacks, as it represents a serious critique of the behavior of the Jewish
state while also challenging the actual legitimacy of the Israeli government
and its colonizing activity in Palestine. Much of the current hate crime
legislation in places like Germany and the Czech Republic directly targets BDS,
stating specifically that it is “inherently” anti-Semitic. In late July, the
House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed its own resolution condemning
BDS explicitly in a 398-to-17 vote.
Going hand-in-hand with the
condemnation of BDS is a drive to maintain the exclusivity of Jewish suffering.
In June, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (D-N.Y.) called border detention
centers holding asylum seekers “concentration camps,” she was inundated with
protests from Jewish groups that claimed she was denigrating the holocaust and
“insulting victims of genocide.” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
even published a statement objecting to comparisons between “the holocaust and
other events.”
It is important for Americans to
realize that Israel not only spies on the U.S., digs its paws deep into our
Treasury, and perverts Washington’s Middle East policy, it is also attempting
to dictate what we the people can and cannot say. And Congress and much of the
media are fully on board, which is the real tragedy.
This article was originally
published on American free press, found via American Herald Tribune.
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