Not in Our Name
Politicians are using the rise in antisemitism as an excuse to curtail free speech and expand their own power. Jews must not let them.
by The Editors, May 03, 2024

Free speech is not a divisible concept. Either everyone is free to say what they want, no matter how noxious others find it, in order to create and sustain the free market of ideas—or else speech isn’t free.

Institutions that curtail speech—that make people’s social media postings grounds for expulsion, that ban or suppress speakers they disagree with, that penalize dissenting opinions in classrooms and workplaces with bad grades and HR reports—should not be allowed to then turn around and invoke the principles of free speech to defend problematic speech with which they happen to agree, let alone disruptive or illegal behavior.

And yet, recent years have seen the emergence of two different speech regimes, one for alleged oppressors and one for the allegedly oppressed. Huge swaths of often innocent speech by the former is deemed out of bounds, even criminal, whereas any speech coming out of the mouth of someone with a claim to victim status—including speech that actively incites violence—is considered sacrosanct.

As a result, there is now a great deal of confusion about freedom of speech, which is a very basic—and very central—principle of American history and society. For those interested in being de-confused, which we humbly submit should be all thinking American citizens, herewith: a primer.

Let’s begin with some basic facts.

There is no exception for hate speech in the Constitution. It is not, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, illegal to misgender someone, or call them a dirty kike or a pig, or tell them you want them to be shipped back to Africa, or say that the State of Israel has “no right to exist,” or that all women are nasty hookers who play men for money. Those statements might rightfully earn you the disgust of those around you, as well as exclusion from any number of personal and professional opportunities, or access to private institutions and spaces. But they are not unlawful, and no governmental authority has the standing to penalize you for making or believing them—in the privacy of your home, in the public square, or on the open internet.

That includes Congress, which is made up of elected officials. Americans have radically lowered our standards for what we expect of this class of people, but we think we can all draw a line at a basic understanding of the Bill of Rights. The fact that a word or idea is annoying or upsetting to you—or us!—does not make it illegal.

As soon as the heavy hand of the government enters the game, it can easily turn into a fist.

This includes the phrase “From the river to the sea,” which the House of Representatives voted to condemn last month. This is wrong. No citizen of America, Jewish or not, should support the condemnation of speech by those whose conditional authority is entrusted to them by the people. You are American citizens! However noxious your beliefs, as long as they stay beliefs, they should be none of the business of the government.

H.R. 6090, the bipartisan bill that passed the House of Representatives this week, is technically more sound—and a lot of the emotionally unstable criticism of the bill (hi, Tucker) appears to come from people who haven’t bothered to actually read it. If they had, they would understand that the bill mandates that, in investigating complaints against universities accused of antisemitism under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Department of Education should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of “antisemitism.”

This does not, as keyboard warriors would have it, expand the definition of antisemitism to include any and all criticism of the State of Israel. Instead, what the bill establishes is that—in the context of guidance in the enforcement of current anti-discrimination laws, to help assess discriminatory intent—simply substituting the words “Zionist” or “Israel” for the word “Jew” or “Jews” when making insane accusations about harvesting the organs of children or controlling the international banking system does not prima facie absolve someone of accusations of antisemitism. This is a semantic move used mainly by antisemites who attend, or who graduated from, fancy universities. Here’s the situation this bill prevents:

“Jews control the world and want to kill all people of color” = bad.
“Zionists control the world and want to kill all people of color” = fine. ...