Israeli Ambassador wants to outlaw criticism of Jews - in Eu

[Totalitarian]

http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/conference_vienna.asp

The OSCE conference on antisemitism was called in response to what is supposedly a "new wave of antisemitism in Europe".

There was contributions from the EU, Israel, UN, International Human Rights organisations, and European national governments.

The overwhelming verdict? Criticism of Jews (and according to the Israeli ambassador, of Zionism as well) must be censored, outlawed and punished.

Scary stuff.

All speeches can be found here:
http://www.osce.org/events/conferences/ant...itism/index.php (http://www.osce.org/events/conferences/anti-semitism/index.php)

Israeli ambassador speech below:
http://www.osce.org/documents/sg/2003/06/257_en.pdf

[sc4r]

"The overwhelming verdict? Criticism of Jews (and according to the Israeli ambassador, of Zionism as well) must be censored, outlawed and punished. "

That not what he said. He said that antsemitism masquerading as 'antizionism' must be outlawed. He focused very heavily on hatetalk.

Although he is obviously concerned in particular with amtisemitism he makes enough references to prejudice in general to make it very plain that he is speaking in general and is merely himself more aware and concerned with one particular form of prejudice.

Distinguishing between hate talk and criticism is admittedly a difficult thing at times; but to me it is plain that one can often clearly into which category a particular speech falls. The amabssador perhaps does not spell out the difficulties of classifying but nothing in his speech suggests to me that he proposes obliterating the distinction.

In fact to me the only irony here is that he is a member of a society which routinely does indulge in hate talk concerning Arabs.



(Edited by sc4r at 10:50 am on June 29, 2003)

[Red Comrade]

Bleah, the ADL is a Zionist controlled site.

Although I am against hate speech, it is only a matter of time before they make anti-Israel speech illegal, anti-Zionist speech illegal, pro-Palestinian speech illegal, etc. You don't understand the power some of the Zionist Jews really have.

[Reuben]

as do the many zionist evangelical christians who have alot of poer in the bush administration.

THE ADL are a bunch of shuits. However hey are right to try to outlaw general attacks on the jewish people. THis is osomething most leftists would gree with in the same way most left wingers would oppose any ethnic group being collectively attacked. However the ADL have no moral authority to attack such a bll given there support for racist states such as israel


Having said this i would argue that the zionist movement in iscredited by people who simply use the word zionist as an acceptable euphemism for jew. This does go on where old lies about the jews ar put out with the word simply replacing the term jew. THis however does not justify attempts to ban genuine and extremely necessary criticism of the zionist state

[Totalitarian]

Quote: from sc4r on 10:48 am on June 29, 2003
"The overwhelming verdict? Criticism of Jews (and according to the Israeli ambassador, of Zionism as well) must be censored, outlawed and punished. "

That not what he said. He said that antsemitism masquerading as 'antizionism' must be outlawed. He focused very heavily on hatetalk.

"Hatetalk?" I haven't heard that Orwellian-sounding phrase before.

I'm quite disturbed that these people are seriously considering banning antisemitic speech. I support people's right to criticise Jews if they want.

Although he is obviously concerned in particular with amtisemitism he makes enough references to prejudice in general to make it very plain that he is speaking in general and is merely himself more aware and concerned with one particular form of prejudice.

Well, he did say that there should be laws specifically banning antisemitism.

Distinguishing between hate talk and criticism is admittedly a difficult thing at times; but to me it is plain that one can often clearly into which category a particular speech falls. The amabssador perhaps does not spell out the difficulties of classifying but nothing in his speech suggests to me that he proposes obliterating the distinction.

Who should make the distinction? Once certain types of political speech can be banned, what is there to stop these powers from being abused further? The powerful Jewish lobbies could simply use these laws to imprison their political enemies.

In fact to me the only irony here is that he is a member of a society which routinely does indulge in hate talk concerning Arabs.

Yes, it is extremely ironic. And they do a lot more than say nasty things about Arabs, they also regularly torture and kill them.

[Totalitarian]

Quote: from Reuben on 8:34 pm on June 29, 2003
THE ADL are a bunch of shuits. However hey are right to try to outlaw general attacks on the jewish people.

I agree with outlawing attacks in the sense of physical attacks.

If someone got up publicly and said something like "Jews have too much power in this country" would you think that is something which should be banned?

If so, then surely you would have to say that a lot of rap music should be banned because some rap lyrics advocate the killing of whites.

[Red Comrade]

If so, then surely you would have to say that a lot of rap music should be banned because some rap lyrics advocate the killing of whites.

They're probably talking about Vanilla Ice and Feminem.

[Ymir]

"Europeans and Americans must come together at Vienna to denounce such activities. A common understanding should emerge that at the root of these anti-Jewish efforts is the same kind of extremist thinking that lies behind the international terrorism that is threatening our civilization.

Manifestations of this thinking include: blaming the Jews for committing the terror of 9/11; labeling Zionism, the National Liberation Movement of the Jewish people as racism, as was done in at the U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001; spreading Holocaust denial throughout the Middle East; supporting the deliberate murder of Israeli men, women and children, as well as targeting of Jews around the world; boycotting of Israelis by all kinds of international institutions."


There you have it, anyone who says anything about Jews is a terrorist. Anti-Semetism includes anti-Israeli behavior. -A load of crap to give the Israelis more power.

[Zombie]

A load of crap to give the Israelis more power

yep :-(

[RedComrade]

Sounds like some Zionist pigs could use a good dose of intifada to shut em up. What in the hell is this ridiculous talk about outlawing "rascist" speech? how can we logically support outlawing speech for a specific group that is infamous for its own rascist/nationalist tendacies, not to mention the scope any potential legislation could have on dialogue. Leftists should be for free speech before we support any race favoring or 1984ish regulations on the diatribe of our citizens. If someone carries out a crime that is already illegal against Jews prosecute em! But dont add burecratic legislation that gives them an elevated status above other groups, why is it ok to badmouth christians but not Jews? What a ridiculous idea.

[Just Joe]

THE ADL are a bunch of shuits. However hey are right to try to outlaw general attacks on the jewish people. THis is osomething most leftists would gree with

Most would also agree with the right to free speech. Anti-Semitism will not go away just because you ban people from speaking there minds.

[Reuben]

Agreed Just Joe.

What i do see as indefensible is the idea that it should be illegal to collectively attack some ethnic groups but not others (and in europe and the west jews do consider themselves as, and constitute an ethnic group).