Troublemaking Dissenters at Palestinian Solidarity Week
Does showing the face of Hamas to university students represent "hate speech"?
“Christians, Jews, and Muslims have a right to live in equality. But Israel has no more right to exist than the apartheid [had].”
These words were spoken by Mauri’ Saalakhan, the author of the book The Palestinians’ Holocaust: American Perspectives. Saalakhan was invited to speak at the University of Maryland’s Palestinian Solidarity Week last month. Jewish students, supporters of Israel, and rational Americans in general may justifiably find these words inflammatory, hateful, or even morbidly ironic, yet it was not Saalakhan’s speech that earned the condemnation of the university administration along with a criminal investigation instigated by the university’s president. Rather, it was the fliers posted protesting Saalakhan’s appearance that caused such an acute disturbance.
A member of the Muslim Students Association called the posters “Islamophobic” and other students described them as “menacing.” The university’s Diamondback newspaper characterized students who were unfortunate enough to lay eyes on the “propaganda” posters as “victims,” yet this was the scariest description they could muster:
One such flier depicted a woman, wearing a traditional Muslim burqa and holding an AK-47 in one hand and a bomb-toting baby in the other. “What did she teach her child today?” was written above the picture.
Note that no one is disputing the authenticity of the photograph’s content. Sadly, images of Palestinian parents grooming their children for resistance and “martyrdom”are widely accessible on the Internet. Apparently, the disturbing aspect of this flier was not the scene itself — a mother shamelessly using her child as political fodder — but that this authentic image was allowed to confront the sensitive university students with some of the less noble aspects of the Palestinian resistance during the sacrosanct Palestinian Solidarity Week.
University of Maryland police halted their investigation after determining that no crime had been committed, with a police spokesman calling the fliers “free speech … plain and simple.” Despite this legal exculpation, the fliers were declared to be in violation of the university’s free speech policy, with Vice President for Student Affairs Linda Clement saying, “There’s such a thing as free speech, but when you post things anonymously and make others feel threatened, that’s not free speech.”
Yet this university condemnation was not sufficient for the students behind Palestinian Solidarity Week. They said they were shocked by the amount of hate the fliers emitted even if they weren’t against the law. One organizer, Sana Javed, promised to keep up the pressure on the university to “make sure it’s not put on the back burner.”
“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,” said Ms. Javed. “They [the fliers] were an irrelevant commentary on Islam, but we were talking about politics.”
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Adam Savit is a research fellow for the International Free Press Society.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
17 Comments
1. Ken Besig:Societies rise and fall into oblivion, often through outside factors like population movements such as the Mongols, but often more because the society itself no longer has the desire to continue. America and the West has not only debunked it’s own myths of morality and greatness, it has created new and not so nice ones which depict it as mortally tainted from the first Pilgrim to set foot on American soil to the present day. The important, influential, and ruling segments of American society are not even raving Leftists, they are far worse, they are nihilists who not only do not know the price of anything but also do not know the value of anything, indeed, they are so vitiated by ennui, they don’t care about values at all. Apart from the temporary feeling of aliveness which they get from alcohol or drug abuse, or modern sports, the Hollywood elite, the media, the intellectuals on the campuses, and even most American politicians see life as some sort of repetitive video or computer game, not a life and death reality. The Moslems, at least the more radical ones, see life as a war to be fought and won, by them.
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:19 am 2. Dodo Bird:The posters should make people uncomfortable. They depict the truth behind Hamas, Hezbollah, etc…
Apr 24, 2009 - 5:05 am 3. patsw:Remember, everything before the “but” is BS.
Linda Clement, appeaser, has less will to promote the Bill of Rights on campus than these Hamas advocates have the will to suppress campus speech. Clement can’t handle the truth, so she appeals to “feelings”. I can imagine how the feelings of tories were hurt by the pamphlets agitating for independence in the 1770’s.
Regardless of the West’s technology and wealth, the jihadis think they are going to win because they have the will to win.
Apr 24, 2009 - 5:42 am 4. LynnS:“[The posters] made a number of our students feel very uncomfortable,” Clement said.
Hmmm… Truth tends to do that.
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:31 am 5. Alex Bensky:There must be some Israeli students on campus. I realize a lot of them don’t want to incur the harassment and all, but it would be interesting to get some of them, or even American Jewish students, to file a complaint against the organizers of Palestine Solidarity Week; some of their activities must make Jews and Israelis uncomfortable.
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:32 am 6. Pete:Not truth, FACTS. I want to hear the facts, not someone’s version of the truth. The truth is what someone believes, not always what the FACTS are. This is where the news media has lost their journalistic merit; they started printing truths instead of FACTS.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:22 am 7. AlanABQ:“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,”
It’s true. You see, free speech is all well & good, so long as it’s not offensive to anyone…unless it’s speech against Christians, conservatives, whites (particularly white males), and minority Republican voters; in those instances, all bets are off – there’s nothing too outrageous that may be uttered about them.
Free speech becomes “hate speech” when it exposes them for who they are. Most of the time your speech becomes subversive, not when you lie or spew invective about the left, but when you tell the truth about them in reasoned tones. Apparently, the First Amendment only applies when people say things they don’t disagree with.
In this scenario, it’s kinda funny how the Palestinians & their liberal lapdogs complain about their rights always being violated while denying Israelis & Jews in general the right to even exist.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:01 am 8. Professor Guvinoff:Any code of political correctness is necessarily a miniature protopype of the great ideological instruments of tyranny, like nazyism, communism, or islam.
Submitting oneself to a code of political correctness, and responding to the peer pressure of chanting slogans elevating Hamas to a presumption of moral respectability, is like dipping a toe in the waters of slavery.
At the age when one is in the grips of existencial anguish, why not? Can we really expect young people to be devoid of curiosity, and well guarded against trying anything in a supposedly “safe” environment? One rarely grows into adulthood in response to a wink and a nod.
In the midst of this intellectually toxic atmosphere, some students still manage to exercise adult judgment and courage, like the young man who challenged Barney Frank recently.
People capable of leadership are rare, and always have been. Thanks God, some of them become teachers, and do in fact lead the next generation into the exercise of rational thought, to which children take as easily as a duckling takes to water, if given a chance. Wisdom is not as noisy and boisterous as idiocy, but it’s still around, and there was plenty of it at the tea parties.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:56 am 9. karstro1:The Muslum must come to the understanding that their beliefs are not mine or other beliefs and never will.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:51 am 10. Dave:It is a good thing they didn’t post this video at the University:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-MnAYiEWk&feature=related
It could be very “threatening” to the Palestinian Solidarity Week cause of spreading lies, propaganda and Jew hate. It might even open the eyes of some “useful idiots”, that is the true reason why it is “threatening” and “hate speech”, it must be blocked to avoid hurting the solidarity with peace loving Palestinians like these in the video above and below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G74yu8zna5o
It is like PBS, isn’t? very educational
Apr 24, 2009 - 3:48 pm 11. Oscar the Grump:Universities the bastion of free speech, only if they believe in it.
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:41 pm 12. Bob Smith:Islam – the death cult.
Don’t say anything – or someone will kill you.
When someone tells you not to talk about something.
Talk about it.
Apr 25, 2009 - 7:26 am 13. David P:A bunch of heavily financed savages funded by Oil revenue revise history on university campuses that whore out tenured middle east studies positions to the highest donors.
Apr 25, 2009 - 7:28 am 14. Paul M Hupf:Militant Islam still exsts. It has existed since the 8th century when it swept across Asia Minor, North Africa and into Spain. There is no room for Chritianity or Judaism in the mind of militant Islam. Even if that were not true why is it that proIsrael, proAmerican values are prohibited speech whereas proIslam speech is not? The First Amendment is color blind and issue blind. Isn’t it?
Apr 25, 2009 - 2:29 pm 15. Chileno:Let’s compare Israel and Hamas
Imagine two drivers barreling down a street. The first sees a boy playing on the road, swerves away, but still strikes and kills the child. This is Israel. The second driver also sees a boy playing. He smiles as he guns the engine, and rams the car into the child. This is Hamas. They have both killed a child, a reprehensible act for which they should be held accountable. But one committed manslaughter, the other committed murder. Hamas has not killed as many civilians as Israel, not for a lack of a will to do so, but for a lack of better weapons. Given Israel’s war machine, it could have killed thousands more civilians in Gaza. They didn’t, not for a lack of weapons, but for a lack of a will to do so.
Intentional or not, the Palestinian civilians have suffered greatly. The killing of civilians by Israel is not welcomed. It is usually regretted, regarded as a mistake, and usually brings protests and calls for accountability. For Hamas, however, the killing of Jews is seen as a victory, and usually brings cheers. Who holds them accountable? I do feel sorry for the misery the Palestinian people have suffered. But it’s hard to empathize with a people who show no remorse at their own acts of cruelty.
Israel’s objectives in Gaza and the West Bank may at times be suspect. But Hamas’ objectives are always clear: the destruction of Israel as well as the Jews. Israel’s actions, however reckless, respond to a desire to protect its citizens in Sderot, or any other Israeli town. Hamas’ actions respond to a desire to protect its military hardware, irrespective if this places its citizens in harms way. So while Israel builds bomb shelters to protect its citizens, Hamas builds tunnels to protect its fighters, its leaders, its weapons. Hamas leaves its citizens to be killed and later paraded in front of the cameras.
Israel has spent its resources in building a modern society. Hamas has spent what little resources it has into building a war machine. Israelis, like any in the West, promote hope for a future in their children. Hamas promotes children becoming “martyrs.”
In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza. Hamas would pull into Jerusalem. If Hamas laid down its weapons, there would be a chance for peace. If Israel laid down its weapons, there would be no chance for Israel. Because in the end, Israel does go to war, but would rather live in peace. Hamas would simply rather Israel die.
Apr 27, 2009 - 1:29 am 16. fred suggs:Here’s the letter that I sent to Linda Clement (lclement@umd.edu), educating her about the SCOTUS rulings that absolutely verify that anonymous speech is indeed protected.
Ms. Clement,
You were quoted as saying:
“There’s such a thing as free speech, but when you post things anonymously and make others feel threatened, that’s not free speech.”
Simply put, you’re 100% wrong. Not because I say so, but because the Supreme Court of the United States says so.
The Supreme Court of the United States in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission said:
I think it could be easily and persuasively argued that on a campus like yours that essentially endorses the Palestinian point of view (instigating a police investigation of their critics), expressing a view critical of the Palestinian agenda is indeed unpopular. In fact, that the University instigated such an investigation shows the wisdom of the SCOTUS ruling because your university indeed tried to retaliate against those “unpopular individuals.” That the Muslim Student Association has demonstrable ties to violent Muslim jihadis makes a compelling case for anonymity when criticizing them.
McIntyre was a relatively narrow ruling focusing on political speech. A broader 1960 ruling, Talley v California
It’s pretty clear that the University’s actions to investigate the publishers of the fliers that you find to make Muslims “feel threatened” runs afoul of Talley. One might think that the intended victims of the people pictured on the poster have a more immediate sense of danger, but what are a few more dead Jews to folks in the ivory towers of academe?
Since you instigated a criminal investigation, perhaps you should be reminded of another bedrock constitutional right, that people are innocent until proven guilty and that criminal intent must be proven. As such, the fact that some others “feel threatened” has no bearing on free speech rights. The intent of the speaker is critical, not the subjective reaction of those who hear/read the speech. I’m sure there are plenty of Jewish and other students on campus who “feel threatened” by the Muslim Students Association, what is effectively the campus organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, but I strongly doubt your office would be sensitive to their fear.
I wonder, before you expressed yourself about the limits to free speech, did you even bother to see if anonymous free speech is protected? It took me less than a minute to find those SCOTUS rulings. One would hope that a university would be more devoted to free inquiry and free speech, but at the very least you should have checked what the law really is, as opposed to your own politically motivated and politically correct desires to suppress speech you find offensive.
Apr 27, 2009 - 12:50 pm 17. DoubleTapper:Here in Israel, where we deal with radical Islam and Terrorism daily,
this is the best weapon!
DoubleTapper
Apr 29, 2009 - 10:50 pmDoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on Guns Politics Defense from Israel