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Free Speech Is Being Threatened — and Jews Will Pay the Price
Facebook policy director Neil Potts testifies before a Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee hearing titled “Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse.” on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, April 10, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon.
In my youth, I always regarded free, reasoned, civilized speech to be one of the most important and positive features of Western societies. My education at school, university, and beyond, was always predicated on the freedom of expression and listening to another point of view. These days, you can offend people or make them feel insecure simply by expressing a different opinion.
This is a world that I neither recognize, nor feel comfortable in. Ever since Spinoza and then Karl Marx attacked religious dogma, I sympathized with their critiques. But Marxism in particular, so innovative in its day, introduced just as much dogma and intolerance as religion ever did. The pious certitude of this dogma became just as much a threat to society as did any other form of totalitarianism. Karl Popper’s magnificent book, The Open Society and its Enemies, became one of my seminal texts at a time when we were recoiling from both fascism and Stalinism, then as now.
An earlier influential book was The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, who showed how an advanced great society could rise and fall when it lost its moral compass. A period of phenomenal rise is often followed by a dramatic decline. It happened to Rome, it happened to Spain, and unless the current trends are reversed, it could happen to both Europe and the United States.
Indeed, one can see similar cycles in Jewish history. Periods of growth, expansion, and cultural and spiritual Jewish flourishing, were interspersed and often destroyed by corruption and ignoring criticism, rebuke, and blaming others instead of looking internally.
In Judaism’s case, catastrophic failure led in turn to a reappraisal of values and methods that encouraged Talmudic discussion and encouraged disagreement. It was said of the great disagreements between the schools of Hillel and Shammai that arguments never got personal, “That did not stop them from marrying each other “(Yevamot 14 a&b).
Listening to another point of view, respectfully, and allowing them to finish without interruption is lauded in the Mishna.
I recall a debate at YAKAR in London over 25 years ago, when civilized disagreement was sometimes possible. Two Israeli reservists, typically secular, who refused to serve in the West Bank, were putting their point of view in a forum for discussion. And I agreed with some of their points.
The opposing point of view was ably and forcefully put by a representative of the Israeli right wing. Occasionally he had to be brought to order for his excitability.
But his arguments were impressive, too. I found myself, as I often do, in the middle. As often happens, there was neither consensus nor agreement.
But we now inhabit a different world. One in which intellectually blinkered cliques call for the destruction of Jews, and no one bats an eyelid. We expect nothing from politicians — and Lord knows Israeli politics is no paragon of good practices — but almost everywhere, hatred of Israel as a political tool is now the norm.
Thanks to the technological progress we have, such as the Internet and social networks, we have more access to ideas than ever before, and yet there are more closed minds and less of an ability to hear, let alone consider, another point of view.
We are regressing towards chaos. Will the so-called civilized world now sink back to totalitarianism or barbarism? There is a real danger. I pray we see the signs and do something before it is too late.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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Body of Mohammed Sinwar Recovered from Gaza, Taken to Israel
A screengrab shows according to the Israeli Army, Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, taken from a handout video, released Dec/ 17, 2023. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – During excavations carried out recently in the area of the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, several bodies were found – i24NEWS learned on Sunday that one belonged to late Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, which is now being held in Israel.
On Saturday night, the Israel Defense Forces published documentation from the underground space located under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis. The tunnels include a command and control complex from which the fighting was conducted by senior Hamas commanders. During the scans, several additional bodies of terrorists were found.
About three weeks ago, Israel heavily shelled the hospital area, targeting the underground space below it, where the terrorist organization’s headquarters was located. In recent days, Israeli forces have been operating in the area, with an emphasis on underground tunnels, and have located the body. The IDF’s recovery of Sinwar’s body contradicts a previous report, according to which Hamas recovered his body from the tunnel under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, and buried it in a tunnel in the Deir al-Balah area.
Sinwar was one of the senior and veteran figures in Hamas’ military wing, and took a significant part in the planning and execution of the murderous massacre on October 7, 2023, in which he served as head of the operations headquarters. After the assassination of military commander Mohammed Deif, Sinwar was appointed by his brother, late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, to the position. He was an influential and central factor in the organization’s decision-making, promoting Hamas’s effort to rehabilitate after IDF operations.
Now, Israel possesses the bodies of both Sinwar brothers, with much of the Hamas leadership eliminated in the more than 600 days since the war began.
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Hamas Militants Kill Gaza Civilians, Publicly Asserting Brutal Control
A drone view shows buildings lying in ruins, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Jan. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
i24 News – The Israeli army released footage from the Gaza Strip on Sunday showing a Palestinian brutally shot dead in public by what the military claims is a Hamas militant.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, General Ghassan Alian, released the footage via military channels. According to the official statement, the brutal execution took place last weekend in a Gaza City square, in front of witnesses. Israeli military authorities described the footage as “exceptional documentation” illustrating the Islamist movement’s methods against its own population.
General Alian addressed the residents of Gaza directly in a statement – “Hamas, terrorists, and criminals are killing you and do not care about your lives,” he said. “There is no difference between a dictator who kills in silence and a terrorist who massacres openly. Both are your enemies and the enemies of life.”
Alian described the act as “a desperate, further, and failed attempt to sow public fear in order to preserve Hamas’s rule, power, and governance, while cynically trampling on and exploiting the residents of Gaza for the survival of the Hamas terrorist regime and the preservation of its rule.”
Meanwhile, the IDF is intensifying its operations in key flashpoints in Gaza, particularly in Jabalia and Khan Yunis. Military forces continue to reach areas where they were not previously present.
The post Hamas Militants Kill Gaza Civilians, Publicly Asserting Brutal Control first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Two of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Building Collapse Identified
Tom Rothstein and the late Uri Jonathan Cohen / Photo: Israeli army spokesman
i24 News – Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Friday in the collapse of a building in Khan Younis during a military operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The incident occurred during an offensive by the 98th Division targeting Hamas infrastructure in northern Khan Younis, near Bani Suheila.
The fallen soldiers were identified as Staff Sergeant Tom Rotstein, 23, from Ramat Gan; Staff Sergeant Uri Yehonatan Cohen, 20, from Neve Yarok; Reserve Staff Sergeant Chen Gross, 33; and Staff Sergeant Yoav Rovor, 19. All served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
According to IDF sources, the soldiers were part of a mission to secure a Hamas compound believed to contain underground tunnels. A powerful explosive device detonated during the operation, causing the structure to partially collapse and trap the soldiers inside.
Five additional soldiers were wounded—one seriously and four moderately. They were airlifted to hospitals, while search and recovery teams from the Home Front Command worked for hours to extract the bodies from the rubble.
This latest incident brings the total number of Israeli military fatalities to eight this week alone, raising the overall death toll to 424 since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza.
Earlier this week, three soldiers from the Rotem Battalion of the Givati Brigade were killed by an improvised explosive device in the northern Gaza Strip. Reserve Staff Sergeant Alon Perkas, 27, also died during separate combat in the Shejaiya neighborhood.
The IDF continues its operations in Gaza as military and political leaders navigate the high costs of an enduring conflict with Hamas.
The post Two of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Building Collapse Identified first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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