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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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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
The post Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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