Douglas Murray
"Does anyone think that if there had been anti-Muslim or anti-Arab demonstrations on the streets every week for the two years following the 2019 attack—expressly celebrating the attack and calling for it to happen again—that the Australian authorities would have stood by, or actually placated the mob? To ask the question is to answer it."
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| One more Jew... |
"Do words have any meaning? Most people think so, which is why there is an endless debate about which words should be permitted by law, which should be a matter for the law, and which words should be debated in the realm of manners.
"Where does “Gas the Jews” fit into that? There are contexts where those words could be in the realm of manners. For instance, somebody might use them in a comedy club, doing a routine about forbidden statements. But how about using them immediately after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? How about if the words are used on the streets by a mob—not in a spirit of jest, but of intent?
"That’s what happened outside the Sydney opera house on October 9, 2023—two days after Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists invaded Israel, slaughtered 1,200 people, and took another 250 hostage. The people in the mob outside the opera house that night were not objecting to the war that resulted from that massacre. They were not trying out some new comedy material. They were using the massacre of Jews as the impetus to stand in their own city, oceans away, and advocate for the gassing of Jews.
"Of course, the Australian authorities did not take any meaningful action regarding that protest. No more than they chose to take action against the numberless protests in major Australian cities since October 2023 in which protesters have chanted “Globalize the Intifada” and much more.
"Which is not to say that the Australian government are free-speech absolutists. They are not. Nor does Australia have an equivalent of the First Amendment which strictly protects Free Speech, even up to the point of incitement. On the contrary, the Australian authorities are among the toughest in the world when it comes to policing speech.
"Just this past June, Australia barred an Israeli called Hillel Fuld from coming into the country. Fuld is a pro-Israel activist whose brother Ari Fuld was stabbed to death by a jihadist terrorist in 2018. Ari Fuld was a hero in his life and in his final moments when, taking on the terrorist, he saved many more lives. But the Australian authorities were persuaded that the brother of the slain Ari could cause a risk to “health, safety or good order” in Australia. And so, he was barred from entry.
"It is worth digesting that for a moment. A man whose brother was killed by a terrorist should not enter Australia because he could potentially alert people to the threat of Islamist terrorism. Which could in itself cause public disorder." . . . Full article here...
