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In Orban’s rule, Israelis saw a model for their own country. Will he also be one in defeat?
(JTA) — For years, critics and supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alike have seen Hungary’s Viktor Orban as a model for his politics.
Netanyahu long called Orban a “true friend” who consistently backed Israel against criticism in Europe, and his allies said Orban’s policies kept Hungarian Jews safe amid increasing danger. His critics say he followed Orban down a dangerous path of democratic backsliding.
Now, in the wake of Orban’s spectacular defeat in Hungary’s election earlier this month, the comparison has taken on a different cast.
“Israel, soon,” Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi and member of Knesset from the liberal Democrats party wrote as he published a photo on his social media page of vast crowds gathering in Budapest to celebrate Orban’s defeat.
The election in Hungary comes as Israel looks ahead to an election in the next six months, with polls showing Netanyahu facing an uphill battle to retain power. For his many critics, the results are fueling optimism for an Orban-like upset in Israel.
“Congrats Hungary. A new chapter is on the horizon for Israel too. It’s time for everyone who believes in a Jewish and democratic Israel to stand together and commit to that shared vision,” wrote UnXeptable, the Israeli opposition movement that launched in response to Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the judiciary’s independence. “A brighter future is possible.”
On the right, too, the comparison was clear. In the hours after Orban’s defeat, one of the anti-Netanyahu protest movement’s most recognizable slogans, “Israel will not become Hungary,” was repurposed, ironically, by voices on the right as reassurance that Israel would not follow Hungary’s political trajectory.
Olga Deutsch, vice president of pro-Israel watchdog NGO Monitor and a researcher at the right-leaning Misgav Institute, said the discussion in Israel has been overwhelmingly inward-looking.
Israelis “view news from abroad through very local lenses,” she said. “There is much less debate on whether Orban had an amazing human rights track record inside of Hungary, or even about the Russia versus Ukraine discourse in the context of the EU. Rather, they debate his loss in the context of what that will mean for Israel.”
One strain of implications revolves around whether Magyar will be as supportive of Israel and its leader as Orban was. Early indications suggest that the answer is no. After Netanyahu suggested that Magyar had invited him back to Hungary this fall, Magyar announced that he would abide by the compact creating the International Criminal Court, meaning that Netanyahu cannot visit without facing arrest.
Tom Gross, a journalist with expertise on Middle East issues, said in an interview that he believed Israel was functioning as an “easy sacrificial lamb” for Magyar as the new Hungarian government seeks to unlock frozen EU funds.
“Even though Magyar may not personally have animosity towards the State of Israel, Israel — and in particular Bibi — will be the easiest sacrificial lamb to offer up to win over Brussels on other issues,” Gross said.
Yonatan Levi, a researcher at the London School of Economics and a fellow at Molad-The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, a Jerusalem-based policy group focused on democratic institutions, said the “intense public attention” to the Hungarian vote among Israelis was unusual for reasons going well beyond the Hungary-Israel relationship.
“I don’t remember any elections in a foreign country in recent years, except for the United States, that Israelis followed as closely as the Hungarian elections,” he said.
He attributed that focus to the widespread perception that Hungary has seemed like a blueprint for Netanyahu and his partners.
“Many of the laws and reforms that allowed Viktor Orban to take control of the courts, eliminate the free media, and completely politicize the public service have also been promoted in Israel in recent years,” Levi said. “So until now, Israelis have looked at Hungary to understand what might happen in Israel if it continues on its current path of democratic retreat.”
Suddenly, they have been given a glimpse of a different future, he said.
“Now, thanks to the dramatic developments of recent weeks, Israelis are examining Hungary closely precisely to understand how populist leaders such as Netanyahu and Orban, who are gradually eroding democracy in their own countries, can be defeated,” Levi said. “From a threatening model from which to learn what to be wary of, Hungary has become a source of hope.”
Exactly how Israel might replicate Hungary’s results is less clear. The two countries have different electoral systems, such that Orban and the man who defeated him, Peter Magyar, together garnered about 85% of the vote, with Magyar’s Tisza party drawing an absolute majority.
In Israel, there are 18 political parties, with most polls showing 11 currently polling at the level that they would achieve seats in parliament if the election were held today. No party comes close to a majority and while polling currently shows the opposition bloc likely to be able to form a majority coalition, it would do so only narrowly. The pool includes not just right, center and left but religious Jewish parties and an Arab party — a much wider span than in Hungary.
Various opposition leaders have taken the opportunity to suggest that they are Israel’s version of Magyar, a conservative who came up in Orban’s Fidesz party and broke with him only in recent years.
“I see that all the trumpeters and conspiracy enthusiasts are now explaining that Orbán lost in Hungary because of the ‘global left.’ They missed the fact that the election winner, Péter Magyar, is far from left-wing,” tweeted Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party who was briefly prime minister after negotiating a deal to seize power from Netanyahu’s Likud party in 2021.
Lapid went on: “The man grew up in Orbán’s party and defines himself as a ‘conservative liberal’—which is the Hungarian version of center on democratic issues and economic right-wing (yes, like Yesh Atid).”
Yair Golan, who leads the liberal Democrats, which is heading toward its first election, said he, too, saw hope in Hungary.
“Orbán tried everything: he took over the media, weakened the judicial system, and tried to create a reality in which he couldn’t be replaced. But in the end, the Hungarian people had their say at the ballot box. The citizens proved that no poison machine and no cheap populism can defeat the simple human desire to live in a free society, clean of corruption and functioning,” he tweeted. “For us, this is a living reminder of what’s about to happen right here.”
For some Israeli observers, the lesson from Hungary is that Netanyahu’s opponents should look to his own camp for a candidate to unseat him. Gross said that when it comes to Orbán, Magyar “shares his political outlook and comes from inside the Fidesz party establishment.”
That, he said, points to a similar dynamic in Israel. Israelis may be tired of Netanyahu because of the longevity of his time in office, Gross said, but he has already “won the battle of ideas in the sense that the only likely successor to Netanyahu would be somebody who shares those ideas.”
For the opposition, he said, “their best bet of unseating Netanyahu is finding someone else such as Naftali Bennett and rallying around him,” rather than trying to challenge those ideas directly.
Perhaps the closest cognate to Magyar in Israel, Bennett was the other half of the power-sharing arrangement that briefly knocked Netanyahu out of power, but unlike Lapid, he started his career in politics in Netanyahu’s party — and while he left it sooner than Magyar left Fidesz, he remained in Netanyahu’s coalition until 2021.
Bennett is a center-right politician who aligns with Netanyahu’s outlook on some major policy issues but distances himself from Netanyahu’s politics, which he says are filled with “poison” and cronyism. He has been hiring technocrats who say they can build a government without the corruption that Netanyahu has been accused of fostering. And like Magyar, he has been stumping across his tiny country, working determinedly to build support for an election in which he is rising in the polls.
Bennett did not publicly comment on Orbán’s loss — but he sent a powerful signal the same day when he announced the recruitment of two prominent women who previously served as government ministry director-generals, Keren Terner and Liran Avisar Ben Horin, to his party.
The comparison has limits. Bennett has already served a term as prime minister, giving him a track record and public perception far more fixed than Magyar’s. Unlike with Magyar, Bennett’s break with his political mentor required allying himself with ideological enemies, making it far less likely that he can peel off votes from Netanyahu.
“Right now it seems like Bennett is able to take a lot of votes from the center left but not necessarily a lot from the right wing,” Ofir Gutzelson, a founder of UnXeptable, said during the group’s webinar last week unpacking the election results.
The Israeli journalist Yair Navot said on the webinar that Bennett could take a page from Magyar and negotiate with other parties to form an informal coalition ahead of the election, which is not yet scheduled but must take place before the end of October.
That way, Israelis would be able to vote for their own preferred parties, rather than have to compromise on their beliefs, even as it would be clear going into the election that Bennett would be the prime minister if the coalition prevailed. But he said he understood that such an arrangement would be challenging in Israel, with such a wide range of ideologies at play.
Navot offered the example of Gadi Eisenkot, the former IDF chief whose son was killed in Gaza, as another figure who could potentially play the same role — without the added baggage of a previous term.
But Navot said he thought Israelis should be focused on tactics as much as who is running. “If there is one important lesson to learn from Hungary for Israelis, for Israel, it is first of all the importance of the turnout,” he said.
Hungary’s turnout was historically high, near 80%. Turnout in Israel’s 2022 election, the most recent, was about 70%. Since then, emigration has spiked, particularly among young families and more liberal Israelis who have felt alienated by years of war and the country’s internal political fights. Unlike Hungary, Israel does not allow absentee voting, so those voters will need to fly back to Israel — buying historically expensive tickets in the process — if they want to participate in the coming election.
But some who want to see Israel pull a Hungary say there’s no need for left-wing voters to get involved.
In the Facebook group Right-Wing People Against the Conduct of this Government, the psychologist Chen Herman drew approval with a video in which she proclaimed that the Hungarian election results were “a celebration, not in a mystical sense but in the most practical sense.”
She said Hungarians had not gotten carried away in their vision for what the election could accomplish — and in doing so had been able to deflect the same criticism that anti-Netanyahu Israelis tend to face from his party acolytes.
“The voters in Hungary chose between right and right. They understood that to beat the system, they needed to step outside themselves and vote strategically. What were people trying to say about them? That they’re traitors to security? That they’re ungrateful? That their leader is Trump’s best buddy? … Sound familiar?” Herman said.
“But they decided to choose a government that isn’t corrupt, and that’s why it worked. They didn’t get scattered. They didn’t ask for too much. Simple,” she went on. “So if there’s anything to learn from the Hungarians, it’s to get grounded, to understand reality. If there’s a majority here holding right-wing views, and it might affect the elections, you just need to choose: corrupt right-wing or non-corrupt right wing.”
With at most six months to go before Israel’s election, it’s not clear how shaken Netanyahu himself is. He waited hours before congratulating Magyar, but some of his ministers embraced Magyar sooner.
“Netanyahu’s worst nightmare is not losing a friend in Budapest,” Jonathan Meta wrote on Substack. “It is watching Hungarian voters do something he has devoted considerable energy to making sure Israeli voters never quite manage to do themselves.”
Netanyahu and Orbán were more than just leading avatars of the global right, along with Trump. They also share staffers and even a pollster, the conservative American John McLaughlin.
The night before the election, the Israeli journalist Amit Segal, who is seen as close and friendly to Netanyahu, invoked past Israeli elections in which media polling — long criticized for being out of sync with voter behavior — failed spectacularly in capturing the final result.
He noted that McLaughlin had defied the consensus of mainstream Hungarian media by projecting a victory for Orbán’s Fidesz party. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Segal said during a broadcast in which he indicated both that he believed Orbán could prevail but that if the Hungarian leader did not, it could bode poorly for Netanyahu this fall.
As it became clear that McLaughlin had indeed misjudged, the clip circulated widely in Israel, with comments piling up. A typical one: “If it can happen there, it can happen here.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Some named names, some didn’t, but it’s not just a story of good guys and bad guys
It was written in 1972 and takes place between 1947 and 1959. It consists of testimony given before the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities, which damaged or destroyed the lives of many people in the entertainment world during the Communist scare and the blacklisting of the 1940s and 50s. But for its Tony-winning director, Anna D. Shapiro, Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, a docudrama that is being revived at New York City Center, is relevant today — in more ways than one.
“I think that everybody will enter this play from a different perspective, because it’s in conversation with things that we’re dealing with as a country right now,” Shapiro told me over the phone. “For instance, my producer, Jeffrey Richards, who is of a certain generation, for him, it’s just deeply about freedom of expression. He has spent his whole life making art, championing artists, and the idea that he feels like we’re moving towards, which we clearly are, is a more fascist behavior around freedom of expression. He wants to remind people how dangerous some of these moves from the current administration are.”
“But I’m just a little bit younger than Jeffrey,” Shapiro, 60, continued. “I did the play when I was in college. So I was probably 22, 23, actually, just finishing college. And it was very clear then, right? It was about good guys and bad guys, and it was very easy to demonize the people who named names and champion the people who were brave enough not to name names. And now, as I’m older, I realize there’s a lot more complexity when the entire system is coming after you in a way that makes you feel like your entire livelihood is threatened. So on one level, it’s one thing for Arthur Miller not to name names. It was Arthur Miller. They weren’t going to be able to destroy Arthur Miller. But it’s another thing for an actor whose career is fading and who doesn’t have any control over his destiny to be kind of pushed into naming names. And I think that that’s what interests me, which is how difficult it becomes to be good in America, how difficult that is becoming, how terrifying and terrorizing the current administration is.”
The play, by Eric Bentley, highlights testimony by some of those — Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Larry Parks, Abe Burrows — who named names of Communist Party associates and some of those who didn’t, such as Arthur Miller, Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Lionel Stander. It features a rotating cast that includes Steven Pasquale, Molly Ringwald, Santino Fontana and Bob Odenkirk.
Bentley, who died in 2020 at age 103, taught dramatic literature at Columbia University during the 1950’s and 60s. He was a champion and translator of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Shapiro won her Tony for Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County and is a former artistic director of the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. Most recently on Broadway she directed the Tony-winning revival of Eureka Day.
‘Of course they were antisemitic’
Six of the Hollywood Ten screenwriters and directors who were blacklisted and sent to prison for their refusals to testify were Jews. In the Bentley play, Miller, Robbins, Hellman, Stander and Burrows are Jewish.
As the play records, one key committee member, John E. Rankin of Mississippi, a known racist who was called out for his antisemitism, insisted on reading out the birth names of actors who he presumed to be Jewish, such as June Havoc (June Hovick), Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminsky), Eddie Cantor (Edward Iskowitz), Edward G. Robinson (Emanuel Goldenberg) and Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Hesselberg).
“Of course they were antisemitic,” Shapiro said. “One of the things that they went out of their way to point out was how many of the actors and directors in Hollywood had changed their names and that their original names were so clearly Jewish. For them, this exposed a kind of nefariousness. They assumed a nefarious intent, as opposed to being what it really was, which was a way for Jews to defend themselves and keep themselves safe from antisemitism by changing their names, to be able to be in the public eye in a way that was less dangerous for them.”
The committee, she said, “twisted that and said, see, all these people, all of these people in Hollywood, are pretending not to be Jews, but they are, and they’re the problem.”
Actually, though, she said, “when you really look at what being a quote-unquote Communist was in this time, for the most part, these were essentially Democratic socialists. They were people who had gotten a little lucky, were making a little money. Many of them for the first time in their families. And they wanted to help the underdog. They wanted to look at what was corrupt in the system and make things better for people. They weren’t ‘burn the system down.’ They weren’t those people.”
Many Jews were victims of blacklisting, but many top executives in Hollywood who perpetrated or supported blacklisting were themselves Jewish. One reason, of course, was fear of the committee and other anti-Communist zealots like Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But there was another.
“I think that’s our complex history, isn’t it?” Shapiro said. “And we’re in a complex moment as Jewish people. We have been in such a conversation with our existential threats. And what we think of as the solution to that very, very real historic and current threat. And what I appreciate about you bringing that up is that Jews are not a monolith. Right now, that’s happening again, right? I disagree actively with my older brother, right? Now, what we don’t disagree with each other about is that we’re Jews.”
Making an impact
Although Shapiro says her family were not practicing Jews, she said she is very conscious of her Jewish heritage. “My mother didn’t practice primarily because she was a Marxist and she didn’t believe in God. And also, quite frankly, she was raised in a very conservative Jewish household. And the sexism of her day, of when they were in shul, the women were upstairs. Every Friday night, her grandmother would cook everything and eat in the kitchen. So she saw a lot of the sexism. And that really made her walk away from her Judaism. But with both of my parents, whenever Judaism was being attacked or somebody wanted to take it away from them, they would fight for it.”
“What I’ve realized, Shapiro went on to say, “is how without practicing, without going to shul, without even celebrating Passover, my Judaism is in my body, and it informs decisions I make. I think it’s the reason that I’ve done so much work around equity and systemic racism and systemic sexism. I think I essentially understand that part of my task is to seek justice, and to make an impact in the world.”
So what impact would she like the play to make on audiences?
“I always say that I direct plays really for one reason, and that is to make the audience’s world bigger. And that really only happens two ways, right? You go into a theater and you either see something familiar and you go, wow, there’s other people like me, or you go into the theater and you see something so different from your own experience and you think, my God, the world is so much bigger than I know. In this play, based on the way that you calibrate the performances, you can either make a very black and white statement, or you can make more nuanced and ambiguous statements.”
She agrees with the philosophy, she said, that every society’s survival is based on its ability to embrace ambiguity.
“And where we are right now — and I’m not even talking about on the right, because I don’t have anything to say about the right. They’re very confusing to me. So I can only speak to the people with whom I share essential beliefs. I think that we are not talking to one another well. I think we are looking at black and white and good and evil, and it’s way more complex than that. So I hope people come away going, wow, I really thought it was just going to be like the good guys who didn’t name names and the bad guys who named names.”
‘Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been’ runs through Sept. 11 at City Center in New York.
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Israel dominates debate as Rep. Dan Goldman defends seat in referendum on Zionism
American support for Israel and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict emerged as a central point of contention during the first televised Democratic primary debate between Rep. Dan Goldman and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander on Tuesday night.
Lander, who identifies as a liberal Zionist, is challenging Goldman with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in a campaign that has gone after Goldman as allegedly out of step with Democratic voters who seek change in Israel.
Recent events in and near the 10th Congressional District, in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, provided plenty of fodder. The Celebrate Israel parade, the vote by members of the Park Slope Food Coop to boycott Israeli products, military assistance for Israel and investments in Israel bonds made up the first 15 minutes of the one-hour debate, hosted by Spectrum News NY1.
The exchange highlighted growing divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel and the war in Gaza.
“With all due respect, we’re now 10 minutes into this, and we’ve only spoken about Israel,” Goldman, a two-term incumbent, complained. “Israel is not the most important issue in this district.” The district voted heavily for Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel. Jewish voters make up an estimated 20% of the electorate.
“This is one of the significant moral and humanity challenges of our time, and our representative failed,” Lander pushed back, citing Goldman’s support for U.S. aid to Israel and refusal to call the war in Gaza a genocide. In his opening remarks, Lander criticized Goldman for accepting donations from AIPAC, the U.S. campaign fundraising group allied with the Israeli government.
The Goldman-Lander contest is expected to serve as an early test of Mamdani’s political influence following his upset victory in the mayoral race. Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed each other in the mayoral race, and Mamdani made his endorsement of Lander for Congress along with democratic socialists in two other congressional primaries. Recent polling has shown Goldman trailing Lander.
Both candidates, who describe themselves as liberal Zionists, drew sharp contrasts over their approach to the conflict in the Middle East and the movement to boycott Israel.
Lander defended his decision not to march this year the annual Israel parade by pointing to the participation of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition who has made past controversial statements, including advocating for the displacement of Palestinians. “We shouldn’t be marching with war criminals,” Lander said.
However, Lander announced he would not attend the parade before it was publicly known that Smotrich would participate in the event, and shortly after Mamdani announced that he too would skip. Smotrich’s appearance drew little attention during the march itself. The Israeli minister joined the march at East 63rd Street along the route and walked primarily with a delegation of Knesset members. His participation sparked backlash afterward, with prominent Democrats condemning his appearance and critics of Israel excoriating Democratic elected officials who marched along the same route.
In an interview on Monday, Mamdani said he’s “offended” by the participation of Smotrich, saying he represents “a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide, and frankly a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza.”
Goldman defended his march. “I was unaware” of Smotrich joining the parade, he said. “And I am incredibly disappointed that that occurred.”
Israel appeared again in the cross-examination period, with Goldman asking Lander to explain why he left the Democratic Socialists of America after Oct. 7, 2023 — with Lander citing a “heinous” rally DSA promoted on Oct. 8 cheering on the attacks.
In the debate Lander emphasized his support for Israel as a Jewish state that is also one where Palestinian rights thrive.
In remarks on Sunday, ahead of the parade, Goldman spoke about the stakes of the race in an appeal to Jewish voters. “It’s a difficult time for many of us, but what we need is more than anything is moral clarity,” Goldman said at the Met Council annual legislative breakfast. “We need to stand for what we believe in, and I will do that right through the tape with the support of many of you.”
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Canada ‘is failing Jewish Canadians,’ prime minister says as he unveils effort to address antisemitism
(JTA) — Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney announced on Monday a new government body to combat racism, saying its first priority would be tackling antisemitism.
Carney addressed Canada’s surge in antisemitic hate crimes during a speech at Holy Blossom Synagogue, Toronto’s oldest Jewish congregation. He said the government had to “start with clearly admitting that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.”
Carney referenced the wave of attacks on Canadian Jews since Oct. 7, 2023, including bullets fired at synagogues and Jewish schools and attacks on Jewish businesses, community centers and Holocaust memorials.
Over two-thirds of the country’s religion-motivated hate crimes last year were directed at Jewish Canadians, who make up only 1% of the population, he said.
Carney said the government was responding by launching the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, with the mission of advising Canada’s government on combating all forms of hate.
“I am directing that the first responsibility of that council is to address antisemitism,” he said.
The council will be chaired by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Marc Miller. Carney also announced that Marc Gold, a lawyer and Jewish community leader who retired last year from the Senate of Canada, will join the council.
Carney said the council will be tasked with reassessing the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism, developing a whole-of-government approach to align federal policies and public safety programs, improving the collection of data on hate incidents, and measuring the impact of government efforts.
Several Jewish organizations are likely to be disappointed that Carney’s announcement did not include more sweeping enforcement measures against antisemitism.
Rich Robertson, the director of research and advocacy at B’nai Brith Canada, said the speech was a “missed opportunity.” The organization was advocating for a task force that could respond immediately to antisemitic incidents and a commission of inquiry to identify their root causes, he said.
“We were hoping for true tactical changes that could positively be actioned to change the lived experience of Jewish Canadians, and unfortunately, that is not what we received today,” Robertson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Pressures on Carney were mounting ahead of the speech. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, an advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada, pushed for him to strengthen law enforcement.
“Government and law enforcement must address the drivers of this crisis, including radicalization, promotion of terrorism, and terrorist entities operating here in Canada,” CIJA said in a statement shortly before Carney’s address.
The group added, “The Prime Minister has an opportunity to set the tone from the highest office to make clear that nothing can justify the hatred, intimidation, and violence Jewish Canadians are experiencing and that every tool at the government’s disposal will be used to confront it.”
Carney’s messages about Israel, Gaza and antisemitism have divided Jewish voters. In September, he led Canada to officially recognizing a Palestinian state. He said in October that he would fulfill the commitment of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited Canada. (The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza in 2024.) Last week, he spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog about the experiences of Canadians detained after trying to sail to bring aid to Gaza.
But Carney, the leader of Israel’s Liberal Party, has also introduced public safety legislation supported by national Jewish organizations, including CIJA and B’nai Brith Canada. Most significant among them is Bill C-9, which would strengthen Canada’s criminal code by creating new offenses for intimidation and obstruction at houses of worship, schools and community centers used by religious groups.
That bill has also faced backlash from free speech advocates, including both Jewish conservatives and progressives. Pro-Palestinian Jewish groups say that it would wrongly criminalize protesting against events like real estate sales for Israeli settlements in the West Bank if they take place in synagogues.
Carney appeared to acknowledge those criticisms in his announcement of the new ministerial council.
“I want to be clear about what these measures are and what they are not,” he said. “They are not curtailments of freedom of expression. They are not constraints on legitimate criticism of any government on any subject anywhere. But they are the basic standards we owe one another in our shared public institutions.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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