More free speech follies

Jonathan Rosenblum
Think Again/JPost
19 February '10

Many on the Left employ a double standard concerning free speech. They want their own advocates immunized from criticism yet have an elaborate set of rules to disallow the speech of others as incitement, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, or McCarthyism.

Fast and furious was the reaction to the recent accusation by Im Tirtzu, a Zionist student group, that 92 percent of the Goldstone Report’s citations came from 16 NGOs funded by the New Israel Fund. David Newman described Im Tirzu’s efforts, in these pages, as “the latest campaign to trample freedom of speech and political activity within our dying democracy,” pure McCarthyism (“The politics of delegitimization,” February 10).

That statement was typical Left-academic fare, both in its casual dismissal of Israel’s “dying” democracy and in its misunderstanding of free speech.

In his classical defense of free speech, John Stuart Mill imagined a free marketplace of ideas, in which truth will usually prevail. But Newman could not be bothered to respond to a single item in Im Tirzu’s meticulously documented report on NIF funding. Instead of refutation, he offered only name-calling.

Free speech presupposes criticism, without which there can be no marketplace of competing ideas. It does not mean that no one who has won in the battle of the marketplace of ideas will ever act upon their perception. Free speech is precious precisely because ideas have consequences. The NIF would prefer its donors to think that it is involved in social welfare projects or pushing religious pluralism. It tells donors that it does not fund groups that call for disinvestment or boycotts of Israel, or who negate the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, or which advocate the Palestinian right of return, or which engage in propaganda. Each of these claims is false. Im Tirzu shone a light on the activities of the NIF that the organization would rather hide. But increasing public knowledge is precisely what the marketplace of ideas is supposed to do.

Many on the Left employ a double standard concerning free speech. They want their own advocates or professors immunized from criticism – thus Prof. Newman’s outrage at groups, such as Campus Watch, which publicize what professors say in and outside the classroom. On the other hand, they develop an elaborate set of rules to disallow the speech of others as incitement, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, or McCarthyism.

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