It is not antisemitic to advocate for Palestinian human rights and respect. It is not antisemitic to protest war against Gaza. It is not support of Hamas, a terrorist organization, to object to bombing Gaza. It is not antisemitic to object to Israeli settlements on the West Bank in violation of international law.
It is not antisemitic when U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar writes “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.”
That comment does not equate atrocities committed by the United States, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban. It clearly states those countries and organizations have violated human rights, but it does not state those violations are in equal measure.
It’s disappointing to read about outrage among some members of the U.S. House of Representatives who label Omar’s comment “as offensive as it is misguided” and “The United States and Israel are imperfect and, like all democracies, at times deserving of critique, but false equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups.”
There is no false equivalency in Omar’s comment. There is no ranking of degree of human rights violations. She cites a list of countries and organizations that have violated human rights.
Omar and her family fled Somalia to escape war and spent four years living in extreme poverty in a refugee camp. She understands better than most what it means when the world turns its back on human rights violations.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, wrote of Omar’s comment “She has the courage to call out human rights abuses no matter who is responsible.”
Righteous indignation stokes division and violence, not respect and understanding. Righteous indignation muzzles discussion that could lead to understanding. It states some criticism is too politically sensitive to even explore.
Instead of demanding an apology from Omar, members of Congress could engage in discussion.
Noam Chomsky has written: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Free speech v. hate speech
America’s stalwart free speech organization, the American Civil Liberties Union, is embroiled in its own internal debate over free speech. The ACLU defended the right of Nazi protesters in the 1970s to march in Skokie, a community with many Holocaust survivors. It defended a Nazi protest march in Charlotteville that resulted in a violent clash killing a counter protester. But a recent New York Times article shows the organization’s defense of free speech today predominantly tends to coincide with progressive, liberal causes, not with speech it considers right wing conservative and odious.
Michelle Goldberg wrote in The New York Times “Maybe every generation has to learn for itself that censorship isn’t a shortcut to justice.”
Both the article and the Michelle Goldberg column generated a flurry of letters. One letter writer stated continual analysis of free speech versus hate speech is an essential, ongoing, often uncomfortable process. Some letter writers stated they gave up their memberships in ACLU and others affirmed the value of their memberships.
The letters highlight the complexity of the issue. One stated the ACLU’s support for Citizens United v. F.E.C. was the reason for terminating her membership because that decision does not protect free speech, it drowns out the free speech rights “of ordinary Americans whose voices can never compete against the megaphones of moneyed interests.”
Another letter stated college students who protested campus talks by Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopolis and Charles Murray and their unrestrained bigotry and hate should be balanced with recognition of the harm their speech inflicts on minorities. Little was lost, the writer states, by “not hearing Ann Coulter once again say of Muslims, ‘We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
What provokes that kind of racist, hate-filled thinking? Learning through a discussion does not condone that thinking, it helps identify it and counter it.