Thursday, July 20, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
By Daled Amos
A Muslim activist who had received permission to burn a Torah and a Bible outside the Israeli embassy in Sweden on Saturday appeared to back off from his plan, saying he only wanted to draw attention to the recent burning of the Quran in the country.The Swedish police had given Ahmad Alush the OK after he decided this was all part of his protest against the burning of a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque last month, by an Iraqi Christian immigrant. The police at the time permitted burning the Quran as an example of free speech after a court overturned a ban on Quran burning.
Pity poor Sweden. On the one hand, the Swedish foreign ministry condemned the original Quran burning:
The burning of the Quran, or any other holy text, is an offensive and disrespectful act and a clear provocation. Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in Sweden or in Europe
while at the same time pointing out that Sweden has
constitutionally protected right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration.Luckily, Alush backed out and claimed he never intended to burn the Torah and was just trying to make a point about the limits of free speech.
Still, the idea of burning Jewish books is not new and reminded more than one person on Twitter about Jewish history:
Some background:
A Jewish apostate, Nicholas Donin, told the Pope that the Talmud contained insults to the Christian religion. In France, on the order of the Pope, many volumes of the Talmud were seized. In 1240, King Louis IX ( later St. Louis) ordered the Talmud put on trial. Jewish representatives were permitted only to defend themselves, not to advance positive proofs for their position. Not surprisingly, the Talmud was declared guilty, and in 1242 24 wagonloads of Talmudic volumes were publicly burned in ParisJust as Alush got his idea from a previous burning of the Quran, in 1290 France there was also a precedent that inspired Church to burn Jewish books:
Sadly, Jewish infighting regarding Rambam's works also played a major role in this tragic event. Some overzealous Jews denounced the Rambam's writings to the Church, and once the Church determined that his books should be burned, it was only a small step until all Jewish books were consigned to the flames.Of course, history shows that the world does not need Jewish in-fighting in order to get ideas.
This week a German regional court ruled that the 2014 firebombing of a synagogue in Wuppertal, a region just east of Düsseldorf, was an act of criminal arson, but not anti-Semitic. Instead, the court found it was a protest against Israel, even though the synagogue was obviously not in Israel and those who worship there are Jews, not Israelis.
The decision upheld that of a lower court, which stated the perpetrators, a trio of Palestinian-born German residents, wanted to “call attention to the Gaza conflict” when they prepared and then lobbed Molotov cocktails at the synagogue one July night in 2014. No one was injured, but the attack caused €800 in damages. The men were ultimately given suspended sentences. [emphasis added]
Isn't it amazing the destructive, intolerant and downright racist things that can be excused in the name of protest and free speech?
You can destroy the religious holy books of other people and excuse it as an expression of your opinion
You can firebomb a synagogue in German, and by claiming to protest against Israel, get a suspended sentence.
The German court bought into the argument that if you want to protest against Israel, but you are living in Germany -- no problem: go find yourself the nearest synagogue and terrorize some Jews.
And Europe isn't the only place where you can get away with this. You can get away with this in the US as well. In the US, a synagogue and its congregation have been singled out for abuse on Shabbat for 20 years:
On every Saturday morning since September 2003, a group of protesters has gathered in front of the Beth Israel Synagogue in Ann Arbor during Shabbat morning services with signs reading "Jewish Power Corrupts,” “Resist Jewish Power,” “End the Palestinian Holocaust,” “Stop Funding Israel,” and “Fake News: Israel Is A Democracy.”
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But US District Judge Victoria Roberts was unimpressed and ruled that the protests were protected by the First Amendment.
Peaceful protest speech such as this – on sidewalks and streets – is entitled to the highest level of constitutional protection, even if it disturbs, is offensive, and causes emotional distress.
This is an expansion over what we have seen for years on university campuses, where speakers were prevented from speaking. After all, once you start targeting someone's words to prevent speakers from being heard, you can also take the next step by targeting their words to try to prevent them from being read -- including by burning the books themselves, even a Torah or a Quran. And if you can burn their books, you may be tempted to try to burn the places where they are read.
And you can demonstrate outside a synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath, claiming this is your constitutionally protected way to protest against a country half a world away.
Starting on college campuses, we see that it is not so much that free speech is defended -- rather free speech is prioritized. Some are more entitled. Others have their speakers disinvited or just shouted out.
And just like on college campuses, we see that elsewhere, Jews still end up holding the short end of the stick.
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