Second, is there anyone who seriously
believes that the murderer would not have
carried out this crime if every single
demonstrator at every single anti-Oslo
demonstration had spoken with restraint and
expressed his criticism of the government in
eloquent and civilized words?
Third, if ''vile speech'' causes
assassination, then Israel should have had an
endless carnage of its political leaders ever
since independence (if not beforehand). Israeli
political discourse is and always has been
characterized by rhetorical overkill, ad
hominem slander, and unrestrained high-
decibel shrieking.
Anyone with any doubts should go read
the protocols of the Knesset from the 1950's,
when even back then, in the pre-television era,
Knesset debate was constantly peppered with
cries of ''Fascist,'' ''Traitor,'' ''Dictator,''
''Criminal,'' etc., coming from all sides of the
chamber. David Ben-Gurion himself frequently
referred to his chief ideological opponent,
Vladimir Jabotinsky, as ''Vladimir Hitler.''
Perhaps it is Israel's proximity to the
Mediterranean, but political discussion here is
and always has been uncivilized. (Any doubters
should watch the weekly political barroom
brawl on Israeli television, Popolitika.) Yet
until this crime, no political leader was ever
assassinated in Israel. That is because vile or
angry speech does not cause assassination.
The orthodoxy regarding the Rabin
assassination was in part motivated by the fact
that a handful of Israeli fanatics expressed
public approval when they heard of the
assassination. But if that?s against the law,
will it also become a crime to say, ''I believe
the government is betraying Zionism,'' or ''I
believe certain politicians are collaborating
with Arab murderers,'' or ''I believe the Israeli
Labor Party is pandering to those who wish to
destroy Israel,'' or ''Mitzna is betraying the
country's interest''?
Will all these statements become grounds
for prosecution? Where will the criminalization
of dissent stop?
Vile speech is not a monopoly of hotheads
of the Israeli right, as the anti-Begin
demonstrators in 1982-83 proved during
Israel's ''Peace in Galilee'' campaign in
Lebanon. Their slogan was ''Begin and Sharon
are Murderers and War Criminals.'' No one
was assassinated as a result of this.
I myself was present in many a
demonstration against the Vietnam War (yes,
we all have skeletons in our closet over which
we wince) in which the president of the United
States was called a murderer and worse, and
where people openly called for the
assassination of both the president and vice
president. The anti-Bush demonstrators before
and during the Gulf War were no less vile, as
are the pro-Saddam campus demonstrators
this year. But no political assassinations
followed.
Every year, on the anniversary of the
Rabin assassination, Israel's leftists and their
captive media recite the accusations over and
over again: that Rabin was really murdered by
the exercise of free speech by the Likud and the
opponents of Oslo. This is nothing but leftist
McCarthyism, of course. The Likud had
nothing to do with the crime of Yigal Amir.
Why are the calls for suppressing ?vile
and incendiary speech? limited to restrictions
on the vile statements and behavior of
extremists from the Right? Why the arbitrary
and selective bias? Are vile and fanatic and
tasteless statements a monopoly of the Right?
And is there any shortage of criminals who
sprang up from the fringes of the Left?
It is enough to recall nuclear traitor
Mordecai Vanunu and the espionage/terror
ring led by Udi Adiv, all black sheep from the
far left. What about the countless leftist
statements justifying Palestinian terrorism in
general and especially when targeting settlers?
How do we know that these did not inspire
murders and bombings?
Leftists insist that only rightist speech
stimulates violence, not leftist speech. Their
''proof'' consists of a single example: Yigal
Amir holds rightist views, no doubt listened to
such views expressed by others, and killed
Rabin. Of course, Yigal Amir was also a law
student, but no one has asserted that it was
the studying of law that caused him to murder
Rabin.
And what about the countless calls by
Israeli Arab politicians and leaders for Israel to
be annihilated? What about Arabs who said
''Good'' after the Rabin assassination? What
about Arab college students who chant ''In fire
and blood we will redeem Palestine!'' or who
decorate their subsidized dorm rooms with
photos of suicide bombers and Hizbullah flags?
What about Arab Knesset Members and
other politicians who called on Saddam
Hussein to exterminate the Jews of Israel or
who call for escalating intifada violence? What
about Arab demonstrators whose standard
chant is ''Butcher the Jews!''?
The proponents of the politically correct
theory of free speech and incitement have
always argued that these forms of speech by
Arabs should be tolerated with equanimity. In
post-Rabin Israel, these are all forms of
protected speech. How many Jews have been
murdered by terrorists inspired by these forms
of expression?
Finally, it is conceivable that abridging
the freedom of speech of extremists could
inflame violence rather than suppress it. In
recent years it has been hypothesized that
some extremists in the U.S. were driven into
the violent neo-Nazi militias by the FBI?s
actions in Waco, Texas and in Ruby Ridge,
Idaho. The Oklahoma City bomber claimed he
was inspired by those FBI actions.
