In a dramatic abridgement of political and general speech, a new Israeli bill aims to criminalize any use of Holocaust-related terms or symbols in “non-educational’ contexts, threatening $29,000 fines and six months imprisonment to violators.
The bill aims primarily at ending the use of comparisons to Hitler in political discourse, which is the go-to response in almost every major topic in Israel and which officials say is making debate more difficult.
Though backers of the bill say they believe Israelis can find plenty of other expressions and idioms to use in future speeches, the law could also severely limit the speech-giving options of most of Israel’s political leadership on the international stage.
In particular, it is going to be hard for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to find things to talk about in Holocaust memorial speeches when they are visiting Europe, since the law would seemingly preclude likening whoever happens to be the president of Iran at any given time to Hitler, and that’s what literally all those speeches end up being build around.
Hmm–wonder how many other folks left comments here that didn’t make it through the AW.C PC sentinel? So why does AW.C even bother posting articles about this particular subject when it’s guaranteed there will be many responses? I have a pretty good idea of what they are afraid of–the truth.
[moderator’s note: I have a pretty good idea that the next time you have a pretty good idea will be the first time you have a pretty good idea. The number of folks who left comments here overnight that didn’t make it past the automated anti-spam moderation, once I got out of bed and checked those comments, is: Zero – TLK]
That’s a crock Mr. Knapp–my comment was automatically censored probably because I used a well-known parody of “Holocaust”. Other posters have made similar complaints before and you give the same response. How convenient, since we can’t prove anything on our end. Perhaps you honestly don’t know, but I do have my doubts.
[Werner — your comment wasn’t “censored” at all, automatically or otherwise. During the period in question, I didn’t see a single comment on this story, other than spam (none of it from you) which violated Antiwar.com’s guidelines and got deleted. Which, by the way, would not have been “censorship” in any case. You’re free to say whatever you want. We’re free to decide whether you get to say it HERE or not. In your case, I’ve been decidedly … liberal. That is, you show up, you comment for awhile, then at some point you turn on the Stormfront firehose and I ban you. You change your IP and show back up a day or a week later, and instead of re-banning you immediately, I leave you alone until you start in with the Jew-baiting again, and we rinse and repeat. If you’d rather just be banned on sight, I’m open to that, but like I said, I try to err in the direction of letting people have their say – TLK]
Value of the fine: $29,000. Value of the above poster: priceless.
What would Lenny Bruce say?
Such a horror should be an open discussion with all the facts investigated and the opinions of those who feel strongly expressed. When they try to limit the debate them make one wonder why? I love to see more debate and location of those who suffered. Get and record all the facts while they can be found.
I think this story has it backwards. What may be meant is that anyone other than the Israel firsters who uses the holocaust in any context without checking with the ADL is guilty of copyright infringement.
What I'm curious to see is how long it takes the Congress to make this law apply to the US if it doesn't already.
Werner you are right on. All history is subject to continual reappraisal as new information is forthcoming and old information is found false. Further, alternate theories in such things as the origins of the Vietnam War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, 911, and the Kennedy assassination, are legitimate and have contributed greatly to our collective knowledge. people question the truth of the moon landings. The only history that is closed from any reappraisal or scrutiny is the holocaust. Any questioning of the holocaust in something like 16 countries is an offense that can send the questioner to prison. Now, it a huge fine to make any comparison with any of the holocaust verbiage, such as Gaza and the West bank to the Warsaw Ghetto, or “chosen” and the master race, or Eretz- Israel with liebenstraum. What are they so afraid of???? This site, Antiwar, is becoming a place where this thought police is in force in the comment section.
[moderator’s note: Yes, he is so “right on” in falsely claiming that comments on this story were censored. And you are so “thought policed” that your comment doesn’t appear here … oh, wait … – TLK]