Hate crime laws, which proved such a rip-roaring success recently in Scotland are proving popular on the other side of the Atlantic. This week the US House of Representatives has passed legislation which will extend hate laws specifically related to Jews, Jewishness, Judaism and the state of Israel.
We often hear people in the UK lamenting that we do not have a First Amendment here (which I have considered in this context elsewhere), the amendment to the US Constitution that enshrines freedom of speech. However, it seems that everything has a limit when it runs into the powerful lobby that supports Israel and all things Zionist.
It should be noted that the same lobby does not seem to show the same care for individual Jewish people, Israel having such lax security on 7 October 2023 that Hamas terrorists were able to cross the border and kill over 1000 Israelis. Likewise, it does not show the same care for the Jewish population of Israel who continue – with the support of that lobby – to be exposed to the danger of missiles and drones as Israel prosecutes a prolonged and bloody war against Hamas in Gaza.
Few who are sane and sensible would support antisemitism. This is not a new phenomenon and Europe has witnessed pogroms against Jews in many countries for centuries. However, antisemitism put its best foot forward and showed us the very worst of which it was capable in the run up to and during the Second World War in National Socialist Germany.
It matters little whether six, six hundred, six thousand or six million Jews died (it has never been clear who was keeping the tally) during that period. If only one person was forced to inhale Zyklon B gas on account of their race or religion (which also included Catholics, Protestants and gypsies) it is widely agreed among the sane and sensible that this is a truly terrible thing.
One the other hand, how many more holocaust memorials do we need and how many times must Schindler’s List be shown in schools across the world? This has clearly not eradicated antisemitism and the possible exception to the sane and sensible referred to above are a section of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators sporting Nazi insignia (albeit to compare Israel with the Nazis) but actively calling for the elimination of Jews, and probably not only from Palestine.
But will an extension of hate crime laws to encompass, as the definition used by the House of Representatives says, ‘a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews’ make the slightest difference to people who genuinely hate Jews? That is most unlikely; however, the new law will succeed in snaring and punishing anyone – whether antisemitic or not – who dares to criticise Israel.
The world, and probably the pro-Zionist lobby, have been taken aback by the extent of support for a free state of Palestine and the extent of the hatred towards the Israeli regime. This is understandable amongst ex-patriate Palestinians and the Islamic diaspora where feelings against the State of Israel have always run high. But the protesters seem to have caught the zeitgeist and an astonishing array of groups including, for example Queers for Palestine (not that they’d last long in Gaza), has come out in support of a Free Palestine.
Feelings have run high on both sides. Some call for the marches in the UK to be banned while police threatened a man – albeit for a deliberately staged act of provocation – for being ‘openly Jewish’. Gideon Falter should possibly have been given the opportunity to fill his boots but probably knew that he would be ‘protected’ by the police. There has been some balance. For example, Toby Young head of the Free Speech Union, while proclaiming in an episode of the Weekly Sceptic podcast that he is ‘fanatically pro-Israel’, and who has been reluctant to publish articles critical of Israeli ‘above the line’ in the Daily Sceptic, has also stated unequivocally that neither should the hate marches be banned nor should protestors who happen to be immigrants be deported.
But things have taken an extraordinarily nasty turn in the US. The amended law will use the definition of antisemitism provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (so co conflict of interests there) which, while making some reasonable points that are, at least worthy of consideration even under the First Amendment, also includes explicitly criticism of the State of Israel and also drawing comparison between the actions of the State of Israel and Naziism.
The precise wording outlaws ‘targeting of the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity’. But what is the State of Israel, by its very creation and existence, but a Jewish collectivity? It does permit criticism of the State of Israel along lines that could be levelled at any other country but not criticism of Israel per se. US courts and lawyers ought to be tied up for decades straining the gnats out of that one.
The clauses about specific criticism of the State of Israel or any comparison with Nazi Germany have really struck a blow in favour of the suppression of freedom of speech and ensured that the said State of Israel can continue to act with impunity regardless of the severity or extent of its actions, much as it is doing now.
This correspondent does not believe that we are witnessing a genocide in Gaza and, thanks to the absolute take on free speech by UNN, has been allowed to say so here. But, surely, when an ethno-state essentially subjugates a large portion of its own population who are largely of a different ethnicity (whatever the reason and including both Christians and Muslims) people should at least be able to say, ‘hold on a minute’.
This is, surely, an historic and depressing occasion. Not only does one country merit special protection in law from legitimate criticism; it will be offered this protection within another state and one which wields huge influence across the world. Presumably any foreign secretary raising doubts about Israeli tactics in Gaza at the UN in New York would fall foul of the new hate law.
How long before the US try to influence the relevant legislation in other countries? Those of us who voted for Brexit will look back fondly on the days when we were only upset that the EU could dictate to us which potatoes and apples we could grow in our own soil.
Roger Watson is a retired academic nurse who lives in the UK.
He is currently engaged in a range of professional consultancies in the UK, Europe and China. He writes regularly for several outlets including The Daily Sceptic, The European Conservative, Country Squire Magazine and The New Conservative.
