[Previous entry: ""We who dominate the world economy may become irrelevant""] [Next entry: "Georgia's Saakashvili Seeking U.S. Weapons to Deter Russia"]

07/24/2009: "UK government considers making it ILLEGAL to call Jews "Nazis""

Using Nazi analogies to criticise Israel and Zionism is offensive, but should it be banned, criminalised or branded as antisemitic?

I also believe that there should be no place for Nazi analogies in public debate, but in my view, the argumentation and recommendations in this report are deeply flawed. And when you dig deeper into the reasoning, it seems confused, muddled and contradictory.

While the principle that freedom of speech is not absolute is accepted in English law, not all offensive speech is criminalised. So, merely showing that comparing Israeli behaviour to the Nazis is offensive is no reason to outlaw such discourse. The authors try to get round this by arguing that such comparisons are especially offensive to Jews, because of their history. They say: "Most people would accept that it's completely unacceptable to call a Jewish person a Nazi." The implication here - that it may, therefore, be acceptable in some circumstances to call a non-Jew a Nazi - is unfortunate to say the least. If one is against the use of Nazi comparisons in public debate, it's unacceptable to call anyone a Nazi. In which case, the argument of exceptional offensiveness for Jews doesn't hold.

[ Ethno-nationalists are eqally sick of being accused of being "Nazis" by people who have a perception of what a Nazi is that is offensively inaccurate and illogical. Criminializing speech is fascist insanity. ]



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/24/israel-nazi-analogies-ban

Replies: 3 Comments

on Saturday, July 25th, mj said

banning speech is oppressive and fascist.

freedom of speech now!, fight censorship or youll have your head handed to you on a silver platter.

on Saturday, July 25th, nationalist said

I agree with you for the most part FascistBlackShirt except for that Jews are in fact highly Nationalist. And they are Socialist in the way they express that Nationalism - as in fact Nationalism and Socialism are inextricably linked. Socialism starts with the family and extends to tribe and Nation, causing the community cohesion that ethno-nationalism implies. The Communist Jews merely use Communism as a weapon. And yet, as you correctly say, they are also capitalists - ie exploiters.

on Friday, July 24th, FascistBlackShirt said

I wish people would stop calling this or that Fascist or "Nazi". Most people today have no education in such matters and know very little about history. The western world is full of idiosyncratically defamed nonsense. I have studied and researched this time period and ideologies for 16 years and have read over a thousand manuscripts and literary works on the subject. It is silly to call a Jew a National Socialist or a Fascist. Those movements are from Germany and Italy respectfully and no one outside of those original ultra nationalist movements has any claim to be so. I have met several people who were in fact a part of those movements over the years and I find this "neo" stuff to be ridiculous and asinine. Jews today are not fascists or National Socialists but in fact they are marxists/communists and radical leftist liberals and capitalists. Lets please stick to the facts and not resort to the same uninformed name calling that the scrupulous enemy resorts to out of idiocy and even purposeful distortion of historical facts.