Freedom of speech? In Israel, apparently, not so much.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is promoting regulations that would allow him to direct police to arrest civilians, remove them from their homes, or seize their property if he believes they have spread information that could harm national morale or served as the basis for enemy propaganda.
According to draft emergency regulations titled "Limiting Aid to the Enemy through Communication" drafted by the communications minister after consultation with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the jurisdiction to impose limitations on publications will be sweeping.
It will apply to both the general public and the media, as well as both local and foreign media (in contrast to the stated objective to limit Al Jazeera). It will also apply to the publication of factually correct statements, at the minister's discretion.
There's more at the link.
It's not unexpected, of course. Authoritarians, autocrats and statists all try to use any excuse to increase their control of the people at the expense of individual rights and freedoms. Looks like Mr. Karhi is no exception.
His proposals are not (yet) law in Israel, of course: yet they show clearly the authoritarian instinct of the present government there. They try to dictate solutions, to impose them on the people, rather than persuade them that they're necessary and implement them in a way that minimizes damage to rights and freedoms (and is preferably only temporary, until the crisis passes).
Beware a power grab in a time of crisis. We saw it in our own country during the COVID-19 crisis. Even today, some states persist in using that crisis as an excuse to perpetuate their crackdown on civil rights and liberties. They'll do it again in a heartbeat if the opportunity arises.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Now more than ever, we need to heed his words and be alert to the danger of those who want to force us to give up "essential Liberty", using current events as an excuse, a fig-leaf, for their assault on our rights.
Peter
7 comments:
That’s what lack of a First Amendment gets you.
Impetus was Al Jazeera publishing the location of IDF staging areas. Woulda’ been simpler to leave the law as is, and just hang the Al Jazeera “reporters” for espionage.
It will be interesting to read the cross comments from say, the earlier post on demographics. Governments and crisis or wars always offer lessons on pretzel logic.
I am beginning to think that the idea of 'democracy' is not so great when more than half of the people are blithering idiots. When this happens, you must institute, by force if necessary, common sense laws to preserve the freedoms we cherish. A look at the history of our own country will show we have done this before. Do you really think the US population would be OK with the rationing like we had in WW2? Would they be OK with imprisoning a race of people that worshipped as a deity the leader of the country we were at war with? Our enemies (and even our own home grown thugs) have learned how to turn our freedom against us. The problem we face now is that, back then, our leaders were God-fearing men; today they seem to revere Satan.
The Constitution is also notably not a suicide pact.
With both points being true, explain please where exactly the line is.
There really is no such thing as 'freedom of speech' anywhere and it takes a naif to think that there is. That was so 19th century. Simply look at our own country where speaking up at a school board meeting that actually invites public input gets one arrested by the police at the whim of the school admin or the cops in the room.
It makes me wonder if we are going to be a samizdat republic or simply let it all go.
The government needs the support of their people, especially in wartime. This is not how to get it.
Governments need to be much smarter, much quicker to adapt to conditions on the ground, and much more practical. Doing stupid stuff like this merely makes the government another potential enemy of the population. It does the complete opposite of boosting morale.
As JCS said, if the problem was the Al Jazeera reporters, just taking them out would have been sufficient. Don't try to leverage it into muzzling any criticism from your own people.
And I used to think the Israelis were smart.
We tried this formally once -the Alien & Sedition Acts, during the reign of John Adams, around 1789 I think- and it didn't go over well with newly minted Americans.
Now we have it in place informally, by a gov't that hates us.
Post a Comment