I hate hate speech laws

I originally intended to observe that American universities’ anti-Israel protestors and Hamas terrorists deserve each other, because they’ve so much in common. They’re both vicious, authoritarian, fanatical, powered by antipathy and focused on either unachievable or pointless aims (even if Columbia did divest from Israel, the pittance withdrawn would have no effect on financial markets, much less on Gaza). But many commentators have decried the protestors chanting ‘From the Mississippi to the Pacific!’ as poorly informed, faddish, spoilt, pathetic and anti-Semitic. So rather than assess the logic of what I’d have called ‘woke-lam’, we’ll pivot elsewhere.

On 1 May, the US House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Bill by 320 to 91. After the chorus of ignorant, mindless and overtly anti-Judaic vituperation on American campuses, isn’t this bipartisan gesture of opposition to anti-Semitism refreshing? Well… no.

The Bill’s new definition of anti-Semitic speech is disturbingly broad. It includes: ‘targeting of the state of Israel’; ‘accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations’; ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour’; ‘applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’; and ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’.

To clarify: the US does not, and constitutionally cannot, permit laws against ‘hate speech’, which would violate the right to freedom of speech in the First Amendment. Should the Bill pass in the Senate, the above definition, which arguably extends to legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government, would be installed in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Department of Education.