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Jewish World Review April 03, 2000 / 27 Adar II, 5760
People of faith are always telling the ACLU "where to go." Perhaps, it should be to a place that's a tad less hot --- Israel.
WORDS KILL. That is the great lesson of the
Rabin assassination. Or so the mantra goes. As a
consequence, our enlightened brethren tell us, Israel
cannot afford too much freedom of speech --- at least not
too much by the wrong kind of people.
Not a shred of evidence exists (as former
attorney-general Michael Ben-Yair found), however, that
Yigal Amir was influenced by anyone other than GSS
agent provocateur Avishai Raviv. Yet Attorney General
Elyakim Rubinstein has not shown the slightest interest in
prosecuting Raviv for incitement, despite the fact that in
Raviv's case the link between words and deeds is not
merely hypothetical.
The free marketplace of ideas ceases to exist when the
media are fully mobilized on one side of a fateful public
debate, and the political echelons act to ensure the
continued monopoly of those voices sympathetic to them.
Roiling anger among those shut out of participation in the
marketplace is the result. And when those shut out of the
debate are dissed as "propellers" whose opinions are
unworthy of note, temperatures rise even further.
Finally, when representative democracy itself is subverted
by the purchase, with government ministries, of the votes
of two right-wing MKs to pass Oslo II, a crisis of
democratic legitimacy ensues.
Rubinstein's decision last week to open an investigation
against Rabbi Ovadia Yosef demonstrates that the wrong
lessons continue to be learned from the past.
Laws prohibiting insulting elected officials who knowingly
make themselves targets of the public's vituperation are a
civil libertarian's nightmare. Such statutes will inevitably be
employed discriminatorily, and can be used to shield
elected officials from public scrutiny, an essential element
of democratic government. Moreover, the ability to
criticize one's elected representatives protects democracy
by allowing citizens to let off steam until they can throw
the rascals out in the next elections.
The application of slander and libel laws to statements of
opinion about public officials is fraught with potential for
discrimination and stifling public debate. So the US
Supreme Court recognized over 30 years ago, when it
limited its application to statements of fact made with a
reckless and malicious disregard for the truth.
Characterizations like "self-hating Jew" or "worse than
Pharaoh" are matters of opinion that inevitably depend on
one's definitions. For that reason, they cannot serve as the
basis for criminal prosecution, especially when directed at
public officials --- or at least they could not until
Rubinstein's ruling.
Rabbis crying "the vengeance that was done on Haman,
so will vengeance be done on [Sarid]"
merit criminal investigation; those chanting "murderer" at
Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon do not. (Nor should
they.)
The most serious charge against Yosef, of course, is that
of inciting others to physically harm Sarid. Yet nothing he
said could be construed as a call to violence. For more
than 30 years, Yosef has been famed (and sometimes
defamed) for elevating the preservation of Jewish life over
every other Torah value. And he twice stated explicitly
and unambiguously in public, after his attack on Sarid,
that the Torah does not countenance violence against
Sarid.
True, he does not wish Sarid well. That may not be nice --
traditionally we pray for the return of the sinner, not his
demise -- but it is not a crime. Yosef spoke only of G-d
exacting vengeance.
That is no small point. Religious Jews, as Rubinstein
should know, regularly leave to G-d that which they have
no right to do themselves --- including, for instance, the
punishment of criminal behavior where the strict
evidentiary requirements are not met.
Those who smell racism -- albeit unconscious -- in the
decision to investigate Yosef are on solid ground. Such
investigations never ensue when Yonatan Geffen calls for
a "secular intifada" or Amnon Dankner expresses the wish
to set aflame the beards of those "weird Shas rabbis" or
Uri Avinery savors the thought of machine-gunning
fervently Orthodox Jews in Me'a Shearim, or Yigal Tumarkin begins to
understand the Nazis whenever he sees large haredi
families. Everybody knows that they, and their friends,
are "elevated spirits" and so their remarks are not to be
understood literally.
Yet when Yosef hurls imprecations and calls for Divine
wrath, that is incitement. Why? Because "everyone
knows" that his followers are primitive, violence-prone
thugs who cannot distinguish themselves from G-d.
Rubinstein has become the national scold. But he is not
Miss Manners, whose task it is to teach Yosef etiquette.
He is the attorney-general, charged with determining
legality.
Were he to spend less time burnishing his credentials as a
philosophe - he should stop worrying, he's a shoo-in for
the Supreme Court - he might have avoided triggering the
latest polarization of Israeli
Welcome to 'democratic' Israel, where speaking your mind can land you in jail --- especially if you are religious
By Jonathan Rosenblum
A far more plausible case could be made for the
proposition that too little freedom of speech, not too
much, is what made assassination thinkable.
Rubinstein ordered an investigation of Yosef on three
grounds: encouraging violent acts that could lead to death
or injury (under a statute leftover from the British
Mandatory period, when it was used against Jewish
civilians) against Education Minister Yossi Sarid; insulting
a public figure, and slander. That investigation will have a
chilling effect on the freedom of political expression that is
a necessary condition of democratic government.
Tellingly, the only journalist ever socked with a civil libel
judgment for such characterizations was Rabbi Yisroel
Eichler, for calling Shulamit Aloni an "anti-Semite."
(Meanwhile, Aloni gets the Israel Prize although she
compared fervently Orthodox Jews to Nazis and described Binyamin
Netanyahu as "a good student of Goebbels.")
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He can be reached by clicking here.
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