Israel Disloyalty Speech Could Become Illegal With New Legislation

Jerusalem Post:

The Knesset plenum on Wednesday passed a preliminary reading of a bill that would mandate the imprisonment of anyone who calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Read the whole story: Jerusalem Post

Comments

[LeeCalif]

Isn't Israel the only country in the world that is set up around a religion.

[Aziat]

You would be right in assuming that if you ignored the 22 Arab countries surrounding it. Plus Iran, Plus the Vatican. Also the United States is set up around the Christian religion. So if you ignore those other countries, than your statement would make sense.

[jwcmass]

Let me make this very clear -- America Is NOT set up around the Christian religion (despite the fondest wishes of many on the religious right that it was)

Here's the relevant text: From the First Amendment to the Constitution "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

There is also a clause in the Constituion that prohibits a religious test for public office.

The US was actually founded on the principles of the 17th and 18th centuries Enlightenment movement-- a philosophical movement that was NOT based in "revealed truths" (or Sacred texts if you prefer)

The idea was the use of reason, and the two most influential philosophers were probably John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, with their powerful (and revolutionary ) arguments of liberty and natural rights and government existing only by the consent of the governed (a thought that didn't sit well with the crowned heads of Europe-- at the time, only England's --after the Glorious Revolution in 1689-- accepted this limit to his power.


Now the free exercise clause was, like so many other things , a briliant compromise. Most of the colonies had their own churches--as varied as they were. In forging a nation, the Founders borrowed the idea of having no established religion, and allowing freedom of worship (or not to).

Remember the brutal religious wars were very much in the minds of the Founders,--and they didn't want a repeat here.

[gbrooks]

Fascinating.

Will it also be illegal to say "death to Arabs" or write it on a wall in an Arabs house that you've invaded, as is so often done? Will it also be illegal to call Jordan "Palestine," thus denying that the Palestinians exist? Will it also be illegal to deny a future Palestinian state, both in words and actions?

Not a chance.

[alexa07]

Totalitarian abuse. Most decidedly un-American. President Obama, are you attending to this as well as the proposal to give any Palestinian who observes the Nakba,. three yrs. in prison? Do the Israelis really need another excuse to detain, imprison & besiege Palestinians?

[max08]

Israel under Netanyahu and Liberman is turning Fascist. The USA needs to disengage from this right-wing extremist government.

Objections from Ynet yesterday:
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3722439,00.html

MK Meretz Chairman Chaim Oron: "Have you lost your confidence in the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? This crazy government – what exactly are you doing? Thought Police? Have you lost it?"

MK Jamal Zahalka, Balad party: "Many intellectuals in the academia who talk about a country belonging to all its citizens belong in prison, according to MK Orlev. Arab and Jewish leaders who seek real democracy in Israel also belong in jail, according to Orlev… He wants to put anyone who doesn’t agree with him in jail."

Ronnie Bar-On (Kadima): "What is there in your proposal that it not covered in Basic Law: The Knesset or in the Penal Law? You want to punish people for speaking? Soon you'll want to punish people for thinking."

[Paulo1]

Now lets see how I do with my Chrystal Ball

1) The bill will be withdrawn or defeated after international outrage. Israel will then claim a triumph of democracy while ignoring the fact that the bill made it to the floor without being laughed out of existence as would happen in any sane country

2) Some Pro-Israeli hack will trot out all of the usual mantras: It is the fault of the non-Loyal Arab Israeli's. We Are doing this only in self defense, Iran is a danger. We can never allow another Holocaust. There will obviously need to be some mental and verbal miracles worked to do it but I have confidence on this one.

3) Some Anti-Jewish idiots will start ranting about the impending fall of Israel. American being a stooge of Israel, the noble and peaceful goals of Hamas and of course that all time favorite: A wickedly bizarre plot against Islam.

4) This will be gone within a week and we will be off to the next stupidest thing to happen in the middle east story

[SonnyBono]

Ah the great Israeli democracy - following in the footsteps of the US yet again - anybody here remember the Alien and Sedition Acts, okay so it was 1798 and before your time (mine, too) but the purpose of the act was to "made it a crime to publish ' "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" ' against the government or its officials" as well as allow the president to have extra legal power to detain and deport individuals.

They were enacted by the Federalists at a time that their grip on government was slipping and they used the excuse of an undeclared war with France to try to overpower opposition. It didn't work because at the end of the day, you can't outlaw thoughts.

This proposed law in the Knesset is aimed not at enemies of Israel but at Israeli Arabs and their political organizations. It is designed to limit the already limited political influence of the Arab community in Israel and probably to eventually force them out of the country. Next thing you know Bibi and Lieberman will be proposing laws that prohibit Israeli Arabs from certain occupations and professions.

[joeinvt]

Next thing you know they will bring back stoning and legalize honor killings.

[jwcmass]

Those two acts were the two biggest mistakes of John Adams career-- and probably were the final blow to his hopes for re-election.

They also were not too good for the Federalists, who never gained power again.

[arvay]

A convincing sign that Zionism is doomed.

Once you have to pass a law that forbids questions and disagreements about fundamentals, you've already lost the battle. Israelis, especially the young ones with a future, will vote by relocating.

Unless, of course, Israel imitates the old USSR regulations that forbade Jews to emigrate. Maybe they'll need to post armed guards on BOTH sides of their new ghetto wall.

Jewish emigration is already on the rise in Israel. Places like the US beckon, places where the anti-Semitic threats of the 1930s have long ago evaporated. Jews are welcomed in Germany and Poland. There are no rocket attacks in Seattle.

The whole foundational concept of a threatening world is collapsing. Israel, it turns out, is the most dangerous place on the planet for Jews.

Zionist fanatics try to position "assimilation" as some kind of threat -- as though vanishing prejudice constitutes some kind of plot.

[mommadona]

YEP...they remember what the WHITE ROSE MOVEMENT did...shoe on other foot

The White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to German dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

[MemoryAlpha]

From the article:
"The nature of the State of Israel as Jewish and democratic..."

Observation:
These two features seem to be increasingly, mutually incompatible.

[naschkatze]

And we're probably next. Don't they realize that Putie the ex-KGB has done that already in Russia?

[understandtheissues]

Yeah, that is democracy. Israel now has things in common with Al Quaida and the Taliban. What progress and free thinking!

[nowarpleez]

Sounds like something that would happen in Iran.

[yappnmutt]

its a democracy and not a theocracy because our democratically elected representatives of the state formed for members of a specific religion says so.

[NourCA]

Wow, looks like an awesome western democracy at work.

[Spencaa]

Why are all of you so pissed? You spend all your time defending Iran and other countries that have laws that put you to death for things like this.

[naschkatze]

That doesn't mean we have to emulate them. We have to do the opposite and show that our countries don't operate on fear and suppression of free speech. Well, they didn't used to.

[MajorKong]

Just because I don't want to bomb Iran back to the stone-age doesn't mean I like them.

[alexa07]

American tax dollars fund & enable what are fast becoming OFFICIAL Aparthied & totalitarian policies of the Israel govt. We have a right & a responsibility to do far more than complain. Washington is being put on notice that an increasing nIumber of us don't want to keep getting our hands dirty by backing whatever the Israelis want.