The erosion of free speech

You've got to fight. It's the only conclusion I can draw as I see the renewed erosion of our freedom to discuss the Middle East. The most recent example - and the most shameful - is the cowardly decision of the New York Theatre Workshop to cancel the Royal Court's splendid production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie.

It's the story - in her own words and emails - of the brave young American woman who travelled to Gaza to protect innocent Palestinians and who stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer in an attempt to prevent the driver from destroying a Palestinian home. The bulldozer drove over her and then reversed and crushed her a second time. "My back is broken," she said before she died.

An American heroine, Rachel earned no brownie points from the Bush administration which bangs on about courage and freedom from oppression every few minutes. Rachel's was the wrong sort of courage and she was defending the freedom of the wrong people. But when I read that James Nicola, the New York Theatre Workshop's "artistic director" - his title really should be in quotation marks - had decided to "postpone" the play "indefinitely" because (reader, hold your breath) "in our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities (sic) in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas. ... we had a very edgy situation", I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

...

I better remember what I wrote in this newspaper just over six years ago, that "the degree of abuse and outright threats now being directed at anyone ... who dares to criticise Israel ... is fast reaching McCarthyite proportions. The attempt to force the media to obey Israel's rules is ... international". And growing, I should now add.

I disagree with Mr Fisk's assessment of Rachel Corrie as well as on many other issues. However he is certainly correct in noting that the pressure being exerted by the Jewish groups he writes about essentially creates a climate of censorship. This censorship is politically correct and thus generally accepted as a norm. Much akin to the David Irving case we are forced to accept that certain forms of free speech are not acceptable. Whatever the justification - the plight of Jews during the Holocaust, the modern threats Israel is facing - we are essentially told that the list of acceptable topics is limited to what self-appointed judges (Jewish leaders, in this case) deem appropriate. It is no more appropriate than the timidity the French security forces had demonstrated during the 2005 Muslim riots - timidity which from what I know was also caused by politically correct considerations. Essentially this practice undermines the universality of freedom in a secular society where laws and regulations are expected to apply equally regardless of one's religious or ethnic background.

And just one more point: personally, I can hardly think of a better way for any ethnic or religious group to generate hatred towards itself than by trying to establish this sort of censorship regime. That especially applies to minority groups.

tags: jews  irving  france  holocaust  corrie  pc  censorship  fisk