Zionists fail in attempt to block criticism of Israel on Facebook

Shurat HaDin fail in latest lawfare attempt to silence Israel’s critics

Mike Cushman

Surat HaDin describes itself as  working “with Western intelligence agencies, law enforcement branches and a network of volunteer lawyers across the globe to file legal actions on behalf of world Jewry” and is presumed to have close links with Mossad, the Israeli spy agency. It has a record of pursuing aggressive, and fortunately usually embarrassingly unsuccessful, lawsuits to silence critics of Israel. They have pursued charities, churches, journalists and academics who do not adhere to their apologias for Israeli crimes and of course presume an identity between their sponsors, the Israeli state, and “world Jewry”.

They appear well-funded and setbacks do not halt their efforts to exploit US claims that their courts have worldwide jurisdiction in the USA’s ever expanding and morphing ‘war against terror’.

Their most recent failure was when US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis threw out their billion dollar suit against Facebook. Shurat HaDin claimed that the social media corporation was assisting Hamas (in violation of the US Anti-Terrorism Act) in “recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fear and carrying out attacks.” They claimed that, therefore, Facebook was liable for the exaggerated compensation that US law provides to ‘victims of terrorism’.

Billion-dollar Israeli lawsuit against Facebook thrown out
Shurat HaDin versus Facebook: Vexatious Litigation as Warfare
Zuckerberg don’t kill us!’ Facebook incitement battle heats up

The suit failed because the US law clearly states “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The US has a long standing commitment to freedom of speech under the First Amendment but current and recent administrations express strong interest in curtailing  this protection in pursuit of America’s self-identified ‘enemies’.

Shrat HaDin took advantage of First Amendment rights themselves to post large billboards outside Mark Zukerberg’s home.

Billboard outside Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's home
Billboard outside Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s home

Threat is worldwide

Law in other jurisdictions, including the UK and Europe, is more cautious in claiming global scope but protection of free speech is also less robust.

Current debate on the responsibility of Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies for content posted on their platforms gives rise ot concern. How the line is drawn between the unacceptable and the merely unwelcome to some sectional interests is going to be highly contested and crucial to maintaining space for promotion of Palestinian rights. We can expect Shurat HaDin and others to exploit any opportunity t drive critics of Israel off of social media with devastating impact on our ability to inform and organise.

The UK Government’s adoption of the IHRA (mis)definition of antisemitism, and the drive to get the EU to adopt it, expands the definition of antisemitism to embrace legitimate debate on Israel’s actions. It is essential to prevent the IHRA definition being used as the benchmark for permitted speech in public meetings, on broadcast media or the internet.

Three “Wise” Monkeys Throttle Palestinian Hunger Strikers off the Airways

Glyn Secker

There has been an unprecedented blackout by the British broadcast media on the Palestinian Hunger Strikers and their protest against detention without trial, rigged courts, their illegal deportation to prisons in Israel, the denial of family visits and food parcels.

On 17 April 2017 the Palestinian leader Mawan Barghouti, from his prison cell, issued the following statement to the NY Times:

The eldest of my four children in now a man of 31. Yet here I am, pursuing this struggle for freedom alongside with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world.

 

Even the Apartheid Wall says Free Marwan Barghouti
Even the Apartheid Wall says Free Marwan Barghouti

Continue reading “Three “Wise” Monkeys Throttle Palestinian Hunger Strikers off the Airways”

Pro-Israel Interference in Free Speech in the UK

How a Zionist campaign of distortions stopped audiences hearing Tom Suarez speak about his book State of Terror

Tom Suarez

State of Terror cover
State of Terror cover

Note: In late 2016, my work State of Terror : how terrorism created modern Israel was published in hardcover in the UK (Skyscraper Books) and paperback in the US (Interlink). This book was the culmination of several years’ research based primarily on British government source documents held by the National Archives (Kew), relating to Palestine during the four decades between the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the Suez Crisis (1956).

Book talks that were affected

1. SOAS (3 Nov)

My first publicised book talk was to students at SOAS. This was sabotaged by a handful of non-student outsiders, principally by well-known activists Jonathan Hoffman and, less flamboyantly, David Collier. Security was called, but Mr. Hoffman yelled “assault” when he was approached by a guard (who had done nothing), at which security declined to intervene. The student organisers were unable to control the situation and the Q&A was soon abandoned. The saboteurs had recorded the talk and uploaded out-of-context video snippets, labelling me as an anti-Semitic hate speaker.

A video of the talk that Tom managed to give in Cambridge despite harassment
Continue reading “Pro-Israel Interference in Free Speech in the UK”

Israel’s New Cultural War of Aggression

A Small Battleground in a Large Culture War

Richard Falk

This article first appeared on the author’s blog Global Justice in the 21st century and is reproduced by his permission

Cover of Palestine’s Horizon: Toward a Just PeaceA few weeks ago my book Palestine’s Horizon: Toward a Just Peace was published by Pluto in Britain. I was in London and Scotland at the time to do a series of university talks to help launch the book. Its appearance happened to coincide with the release of a jointly authored report commissioned by the UN Social and Economic Commission of West Asia, giving my appearances a prominence they would not otherwise have had. The report concluded that

Cover of suppressed UN report
Cover of suppressed UN report

the evidence relating to Israeli practices toward the Palestinian people amounted to ‘apartheid,’ as defined in international law.

There was a strong pushback by Zionist militants threatening disruption. These threats were sufficiently intimidating to academic administrators, that my talks at the University of East London and at Middlesex University were cancelled on grounds of ‘health and security.’ Perhaps, these administrative decisions partly reflected the awareness that an earlier talk of mine at LSE had indeed been sufficiently disrupted during the discussion period that university security personnel had to remove two persons in the audience who shouted epithets, unfurled an Israeli flag, stood up and refused to sit down when politely asked by the moderator. Continue reading “Israel’s New Cultural War of Aggression”

Church of Scotland must be Fearless against the Bullying Board of Deputies

Robert Cohen
Republished from Patheos by permission of the author

Once again, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has shown itself to be a bully when it comes to interfaith dialogue on Israel/Palestine. This time its victim is the Church of Scotland. It’s all depressingly predictable and immensely tiresome for anyone who cares about justice in the Holy Land and indeed the future of Jewish-Christian relations in the U.K.

Balfour centenary

Later this month (20-26 May) the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly will consider a new report advising the Church on how to mark this year’s Balfour Declaration centenary. Balfour was a member of the Church of Scotland and the Church has a long association with the Holy Land through schools, projects supporting Christian Palestinians and partnerships with organisations promoting justice and reconciliation. So it has plenty of reasons for taking an active interest in the anniversary. Continue reading “Church of Scotland must be Fearless against the Bullying Board of Deputies”

Don’t mention Apartheid

Richard Kuper
This article is reprinted from Open Democracy by permission of the author

The attempt to outlaw the use of the term “apartheid” in relation to Israel and its occupation has to be recognised as carrying dangers of effectively stifling debate on an issue of great importance

The checkpoint to exit Hebron Old City
The checkpoint to exit Hebron Old City (photo Mike Cushman)

We are faced with an increasing onslaught on criticism of Israel with attempts being made to drawn the lines ever more narrowly.  There are accusations that any singling out of Israel is antisemitic: so, for example, calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions in Israel’s case but not in others is prima facie evidence of antisemitism, as is using the word apartheid to characterise any aspect of Israeli society.

What I would like to address here is the use of the concept of ‘apartheid’ to compare South African and Israeli society, and the dangerous suppression involved in outlawing its use. Critics say the analogy is plain wrong and therefore its use can only be malign: an attempt to delegitimate, demonise and apply double standards (to use Sharansky’s 3-D test of criticism of Israel – see the discussion Is criticism of Israel antisemitic?) about what it is that goes beyond what is acceptable. Ultimately, for many of these critics, the use of the term “apartheid” is antisemitic.
Continue reading “Don’t mention Apartheid”

A Socialist Approach to Free Speech

Samuel Farmer, reprinted from Jacobin by permission of the author

Following the Obama administration’s historic suppression of government whistleblowers, Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the media, and controversies on college campuses nationwide, Timothy Garton Ash’s Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World is well-timed.

Timothy Garton ash: Fre Speech - coverGarton Ash offers a wide-ranging exposition on the right to self-expression and a coherent defence of free speech from an explicitly liberal point of view. Socialist theory and practice has never satisfactorily established the place of free speech in the struggle for social transformation and in a future socialist society — all the more reason to seriously grapple with the challenge posed by Garton Ash’s new book.

Free Speech’s Foundations

Garton Ash’s analysis of free speech has two primary sources: Isaiah Berlin, who proposed that free expression is founded on empathy with and tolerance for multiple and conflicting values, and John Stuart Mill, whose defence of free speech primarily stressed its beneficial consequences instead of its intrinsic value as a right. Neither of these perspectives constitute a solid foundation for a defense of free speech. Continue reading “A Socialist Approach to Free Speech”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s dark side – censored

Michael Lesher
Reprinted by permission of the author

This article was originally published in the Times of Israel but was pulled from their site within 24 hours

April 18 would have been the 115th birthday of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Schneerson, who took over a struggling Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect in 1951, was by his death in 1994 arguably “the most influential Jew since Maimonides” and it is about that influence I wish to write — particularly because, in the 20-odd years since his death, recollections of the Rebbe’s personal charisma have largely eclipsed the record of his actual teaching.

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson
The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson

I note at once that I have neither the expertise nor the desire to try to analyze the whole range of the Rebbe’s religious doctrine. Of his role as clergyman and community leader I have little to say, never having lived in a predominantly Lubavitch enclave. Moreover, since I had no contact with him, I am clearly unequipped to write about the Rebbe’s personal qualities; I am prepared to grant that these were impressive.

I am more concerned with the darker side of what the Rebbe taught. Continue reading “The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s dark side – censored”

The Orwellian defenestration of David Ward

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

The Orwellian defenestration of David Ward

It was inevitable that antisemitism smears would be deployed against supporters of Palestine at some point during #GE17. Even so it was a surprise to hear Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat party leader, cornered by pro-Israel lobbyist Eric Pickles in the House of Commons on Wednesday, appeasing the witch hunters by declaring that one of his own parliamentary candidates would be banned from standing.

The language used to denounce David Ward, former Lib Dem MP for Bradford East, as in so many of the cases we have seen in the Labour Party, the National Union of Students and elsewhere, takes us deep into Orwellian territory.

David Ward
David Ward

While Ward could probably sue the Jewish News for calling him “the Israel-hating, Jew-baiting former MP David Ward”, other media have been less hysterical but equally dishonest. Continue reading “The Orwellian defenestration of David Ward”

When Gags aren’t that Funny – a Christian view

“Those who were behind the [censorship] demands didn’t … care what I was going to say. They just wanted to stop me saying it.”  

After an Edinburgh church cancelled a Palestine solidarity meeting, Sharen Green urges Christians to stand up for their right to speak out for Palestine. 

They wanted to shut me up. I was due to give a talk at a famous public school on my time working as a human rights monitor in Palestine. It was titled “Occupation: up Close and Personal”.

Every school governor got emails – some from as far away as Australia – demanding that my talk was cancelled. The local police took notice after the organiser found a threatening message on her answerphone. Sniffer dogs searched the school grounds on the day and special branch made an appearance.

The head teacher posted a message on the school’s website, standing up to the bullying and the evening passed off without incident: a full hall, a warm and engaged audience and me on top form (though I say so myself).

Those who were behind the demands didn’t even turn up. Because they didn’t really care what I was going to say. They just wanted to stop me saying it and calling me antisemitic was a way to do that – or so they hoped. There was even a report on the front page of the Jerusalem Post. I was fascinated that I was targeted before I’d even opened my mouth. Continue reading “When Gags aren’t that Funny – a Christian view”

Show Buttons
Hide Buttons