ISRAELI DEMOCRACY (Continued from p.5) 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 main opponent Jabotinsky as "Vladimir Hitler." Perhaps it is our proximity to the Mediterranean, but political discussion in Israel 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 speech does not cause assassination. The definition of "incitement" has been growing in Israel by the day. Meretz backbenchers have called for including in the definition anyone who considers it undemocratic or objectionable that the Labor government relied on the anti-Jewish Knesset members from the Arab anti-Zionist and Communist parties to pass Oslo II. A Labor Party backbencher proposed prosecuting as inciters rabbis who protest against archaeological digs. Labor leaders have called for coercing rabbis into submitting to a state-dictated "code of ethics" and attending "political re-education" programs. In one of the most comic battles of these political crusades in post-Rabin Israel, an advertisement was placed in the newspapers by a group called the Professors for a Strong Israel, a right-leaning group of Israeli academics. The advertisement featured a photograph of a 1982 demonstration by the Israeli left against the Likud government and the "Peace for Galilee" campaign in Lebanon. In the photo are clearly seen Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid and Yair Tzaban, all cabinet ministers in the current government, like Rubinstein, all leaders in Meretz, and among the main initiators of the moves to suppress dissent in Israel and to jail "inciters." They are standing next to signs calling the Likud government leaders war criminals and murderers. When confronted with this additional piece of evidence of cognitive dissonance, the Meretz leaders dismissed the photograph as irrelevant, defending themselves with the decidedly original argument that incendiary and tasteless agitation by leftists is okay, because it does not stimulate acts of violence. Only incitement by rightist dissidents needs to be suppressed, they argue, because only it produces violence. The main rationalization used by the left for its assault on dissent and democracy* is what might be called the Doctrine of Asymmetry. True, concede all but the most dishonest of these leftists, both right and left in Israel have always exercised tasteless rhetorical overkill. Moreover, Israeli "manners"--especially, although not exclusively, in matters of political discourse--stand in relationship to manners as Israeli driving stands to driving. But rightist incitement is unique because it alone (supposedly) produces violence.

Vile speech is not a monopoly of hotheads of the Israeli right, as the anti-Begin demonstrators in 1982-1983 proved during Israel's "Peace for Galilee" campaign in Lebanon. I myself was present in many a demonstration against the Vietnam War (yes, we all have skeletons in our closet over which we wince) where Lyndon Johnson was called a murderer or worse, where people openly called for the assassination of Vice President Spiro Agnew "first" so Nixon could then be eliminated. The anti-Bush demonstrators during the Gulf War were no less vile. Yet, in spite of all this, the only assassination attempt was of Reagan, by a man trying to prove his love for Jodie Foster. Vile speech does not cause murder. Will the Labor government also prohibit the screening of Jodie Foster movies? "Speech codes" have been widely used in recent years on American campuses, where they have been frequently abused to suppress the expression of unfashionable and politically-incorrect ideas. On many U.S. campuses, expressing disapproval of homosexuality, radical feminism or Afro-Fascism could result in persecution Both right and left in Israel have always exercised tasteless rhetorical overkill. and sanctions against the speaker by university authorities, even if he is a professor. Is Israel about to become a giant PC campus where legitimate dissent and democratic opposition is to be suppressed through codes that criminalize tasteless speech? If the reactions of the past days are any indication, the answer is yes. The same people who are so convinced of the truth of the new orthodoxy, holding that speech causes violence, have been screaming that the Likud murdered Rabin. The widow Rabin herself has repeatedly said as much, but may perhaps be forgiven because of her trauma. Not so the leaders of the Labor and Meretz parties. Especially since these are the same people who cheered on the Hebrew University professors who compared Jewish "settlers," "settler" children, and Zionists in general with Nazis, who demand that their (Continued on p.7) * The Israeli left was not alone in its calls for suppressing the right. It was joined by leaders from the left within the Jewish communities in the United States and in other countries. Moreover, in one of the more frightening manifestations of this "internationalization" of the assault on dissent by the left, Labor Party Knesset Member Eli Dayan told a Boston rally that Israeli intelligence would henceforth collect dossiers on "inciters and agitators" among Jews in America, in order to prevent them from coming to Israel as tourists or immigrants. Meretz leaders also called for such espionage among American Jews and for altering the Law of Return to deny the right to immigrate to Israel to American Jews who were opposed to Israeli governmental policy.

Outpost               - 6 -               February 1996