Tag Archives: poison gas

Why The ADL Is Wrong

Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, is an activist who participated in last year’s pro-Palestinian campus protests. He was arrested by U.S. immigration agents on March 8 as part of the Trump administration’s pledge to deport anti-Israel student activists. Khalil is of Palestinian descent; he grew up in Syria, and is a permanent resident of the United States. He is married to an American.

His arrest was hailed by some sectors of the American Jewish community, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights antisemitism. The ADL released a statement applauding the “swift and severe consequences for those who provide material support to foreign terrorists”–this, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that Khalil provided such support.

Other Jews understand what the ADL does not– that “defending” Jews and other minorities requires support for an open society where individuals are free to voice any and all opinions, even those we may find offensive. Jews are far less safe when those in authority are free to punish people who express ideas with which they disagree. And that is clearly what this Trumpian assault on the First Amendment is all about. 

As Rolling Stone has reported,

The Trump administration has provided no evidence supporting a link between Khalil and Hamas — which is a U.S.-designated a foreign terrorist group — or documentation of Khalil advocating violence. Khalil has not been charged with any crime. Trump and his administration are nevertheless openly bragging that the activist was being forcibly deported and separated from his pregnant wife because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy, and that more arrests will follow.

As I’ve previously noted, the sudden concern over anti-Semitism being expressed by far-Right politicians is jarring to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the GOP fringe’s historic hatred. When Christian Nationalists suddenly express a desire to “protect” their Jewish neighbors, it’s not just disconcerting–it’s ominous. MAGA’s sudden, pious concerns over anti-Semitism are anything but good-faith. Large numbers of the prominent Republicans who have labeled campus protests “Leftist anti-Semitism” have, like Trump, mainstreamed anti-Jewish rhetoric for years.

And by the way– those pious folks claiming to “protect” us are evidently unable to distinguish between opposition to Israeli policy and anti-Semitism. Plenty of Jews–including the one who writes this blog–oppose Netanyahu and his horrific actions in Gaza. We also oppose the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

As an in-depth article in The Guardian documented, “Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about anti-Semitism – but they’re part of a rightwing plan.” The article acknowledged the legitimate discomfort of Jewish students on campus, but noted that it has been used to justify “a powerful attack on academic freedom and First Amendment rights that long predates the student encampments – part of a longstanding rightwing project to curb speech and reshape the public sphere.”

The arrest is a flagrant and unprecedented attack on the First Amendment. Trump’s version of the federal government is claiming the authority to deport people–to revoke their green cards– for the “crime” of advocating positions that the government opposes, actions that are very obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate.

Amy Pitalnick of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs–who identifies as a Zionist–understands why the ADL is on the wrong side of this debate. The New York Times quoted her as saying “Any Jew who thinks this is going to start and stop with a few Palestinian activists is fooling themselves, Our community should not be used as an excuse to upend democracy and the rule of law.”

This is not the first time the ADL has failed to understand that Jews ultimately depend for our safety and well-being on the  protection of an open society that honors and respects the civil liberties of all its citizens. 

There’s a great adage I once heard from Ira Glasser, who led the national ACLU for many years. It is particularly pertinent here: Poison gas is a great weapon–until the wind shifts.

The government that can shut down Mr. Khalil today can shut down the ADL tomorrow–and given the documented anti-Semitic background of Trump and his base, it wouldn’t take much of a wind shift. 

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Free Speech

“Cancel culture.” “Political correctness.” “Hate speech.” Americans have been arguing about free speech since passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Recently, there have even been reports of disagreement within that bastion of free-speech defense, the ACLU.

As we all know, no one is trying to shut up people with whom they agree. The First Amendment was designed, as Justice Holmes memorably put it, to “protect the idea we hate.” In an effort to explain why that insight is so important, I often shared with my students a personal experience from “back in the day”– early in my long-ago tenure as Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU.

Members of the KKK had applied to use the steps of the Indiana Statehouse for a rally. Then-Governor Evan Bayh (who surely knew better) refused to allow it. The Statehouse steps had routinely been used by other organizations, and despite Bayh’s posturing, the law clearly forbid the government from allowing or disallowing such use based on the content of the message to be delivered.

So the Klan came to the ACLU.

At the time, the people who ended up representing the rights of these odious people included the Jewish Executive Director (me), the affiliate’s one secretary, who was Black, and a co-operating attorney, who was gay.

Each of us knew that if the Klan ever achieved power, we’d be among the first to be marginalized or even eliminated–so why on earth would we protect the organization’s right to spew its bigotry? Because we also knew that– in a system where government can pick and choose who has rights– no one really has rights. The government that can muzzle the KKK today can muzzle me tomorrow–and as we have (painfully) learned, we can’t assume that good people will always be in charge of that government.

As one ACLU leader put it, poison gas is a great weapon until the wind shifts.

As with so many other misunderstood elements of the Bill of Rights, the issue isn’t what you may say or do– it is who gets to decide what you say or do? And right now, at the same time state-level Republican legislators are accusing the left of “canceling” their messages and “censoring” Dr. Seuss, they are waging a determined war on protesters’ and educators’ right to say things with which they disagree. 

As Michelle Goldberg recently reported,

In a number of states, Republicans have responded to last year’s racial justice uprising by cracking down on demonstrators. As The Times reported in April, during 2021 legislative sessions, lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills. An Indiana bill would bar people convicted of unlawful assembly from state employment. A Minnesota proposal would prohibit people convicted of unlawful protesting from getting student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance. Florida passed a law protecting drivers from civil liability if they crash their cars into people protesting in the streets.

Meanwhile, the right-wing moral panic about critical race theory has led to a rash of statewide bills barring schools — including colleges and universities — from teaching what are often called “divisive concepts,” including the idea that the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist. Even where such laws haven’t been passed, the campaign has had a chilling effect; the Kansas Board of Regents recently asked state universities for a list of courses that include critical race theory.

As Goldberg says, there’s nothing new about the left growing weary of sticking up for the rights of reactionaries. Personally, I would find it really satisfying to shut down Faux News, or to tell the My Pillow Guy to go stuff a sock in it. The problem is, satisfying that urge won’t take us where we need to go. Goldberg’s last sentence is worth contemplating.

 Maybe every generation has to learn for itself that censorship isn’t a shortcut to justice.

To which I would just add: and criticism of your position by people who aren’t using the power of government to shut you up isn’t censorship.

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