Noteworthy Headlines

The Torah contains many prohibitions against speaking derogatorily of others. When it comes to the laws of lashon hara - bad mouthing - even truth is not a defense, except in certainly narrowly defined circumstances.

WHILE AS a Torah Jew I attempt to maintain a degree of restraint in my own speech, I do not want the secular Israeli state to attempt to impose a regime of restraint through the law.

Experience has shown that legal prohibitions will too often be applied in a highly selective and discriminatory fashion. And the resulting perception that the legal rules are manipulated on behalf of one side of the political or religious spectrum undermines the legitimacy of Israeli democracy in the eyes of the public.

Nadia Matar's current trial on charges of "insulting a public official" is a case in point of selective enforcement, as this paper pointed out this week ("Noxious speech," editorial, June 12). No doubt Yonatan Bassi was insulted by a letter from Matar likening the Disengagement Authority to a modern day "Judenrat."

But I suspect that Supreme Court President Aharon Barak was no less hurt to read his colleague Mishael Cheshin's characterization of his legal position on the citizenship law in Haaretz: "Justice Aharon Barak is ready for 30, 50 people to be blown up, but we will have human rights."

And doubtless IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz took umbrage at signs carried by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's daughter Dana and her fellow Machsom Watch demonstrators labeling him a "murderer," at a demonstration protesting the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Gaza Beach last Friday afternoon.

Matar, Cheshin and Olmert were all making a political point, and as with much political speech, they chose the sharpest possible imagery to do so. (Only Olmert's charge can be objectively refuted, if, as now appears clear, the IDF bore no responsibility for the explosion that killed six members of one family.) The only difference between them is that there is absolutely no chance that Cheshin or Olmert will ever stand trial.

Continue reading Think Again: Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee