If Only The Holocaust Weren't So Jewy

First, an employee at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam was told to stop wearing a kippah -- on the grounds that it might violate the museum's "neutrality" policy (neutrality as to what? Between having Jews and not having them?).

Then, a Quebec parliamentarian attacked a Jewish colleague for wearing (you guessed it) a kippah ... on Holocaust Remembrance Day (did you guess that part, wise guy?). The aggrieved legislator complained (I swear I'm not making this up) that it was unfair for the Jewish man to wear a kippah in session when he wasn't allowed to wear his political party's lapel pin.

#AllAccessoriesMatter

The Natural Interpretation, Part II

Last year, I reported on Ismo, a Dutch rapper whose lyrics included the lines "I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis” and “don’t shake hands with faggots.” His story was notable less for the specific lyrics than for his amazing defense that "By ‘faggots’ I didn’t mean homosexuals and by ‘Jews’ I didn’t mean all Jews" (the Jews he had in mind were the "Zionist" ones, naturally). In any event, Ismo complained bitterly about people "twisting his words" so that "I hate those fucking Jews" and "don't shake hands with faggots" somehow got misinterpreted as something prejudiced.

Anyway, apparently Ismo just was acquitted of charges of hate speech in a Dutch court, which found the lyrics to be offensive but protected as artistic expression. Anti-discrimination advocates are urging the prosecution to appeal the verdict.

Since I'm an American lawyer with the usual set of free speech commitments that identity entails, my thoughts are the following:

• Under American rules regulating free speech, this is obviously the right outcome, as American constitutional jurisprudence does not allow the proscription of "hate speech" per se.
• The Netherlands, like most European countries, has a considerably less speech-protective legal regime that does permit hate speech bans.
• As a matter of policy, I generally support the American free speech position over its European competitors.
• That said, where a country does have a legal regime akin to that of the Dutch, I want it to be enforced evenly; Jews and gays should be able to claim its protections to the same degree as anybody else.
• I have no knowledge of the general contours of Dutch hate speech jurisprudence so as to speak to whether this case deviates from the norm.
• Regardless of the proper legal resolution of the case, there is no question that Ismo's lyrics were homophobic and anti-Semitic and his protestations to the contrary are laughable.

The Natural Interpretation

As Clive Bundy has made clear, there is no limit to how racist one's words can be while still being able to claim -- apparently with a straight face -- that it is entirely unreasonable to claim the words are racist. Over in the Netherlands, we have possibly the platonic ideal of that formulation as applied to Jews:

The rapper Ismo, whose real name is Ismael Houllich, included the text in his first single. The official video clip for the song titled “Eenmans” (or “One Man’s”) shows Ismo singing: “I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis,” “don’t shake hands with faggots” and “don’t believe in anything but the Koran.”

The clip, which was filmed in the southern border city of Breda, had received 125,000 viewers on YouTube before a 19-year-old homosexual resident of the city, Lars Hobma, filed a complaint with police against Ismo for alleged incitement to hatred, the news site of the Algemeen Dagblad daily reported Friday.

Hobma has received death threats on Facebook after filing the complaint, the daily reported.
In an interview for Omroep Brabant, a regional radio station, Ismo denied Hobma’s allegations.

“They are trying to twist my words against me,” he said. “I don’t hate all Jews. I hate only Zionist Jews that made Palestine smaller than my neighborhood.”

He added: “It all depends on how you interpret the song. By ‘faggots’ I didn’t mean homosexuals and by ‘Jews’ I didn’t mean all Jews. My fans realize that.”

One can't help but feel for Ismo. It's getting to the point where one can't even say "I hate those fucking Jews" without someone calling you an anti-Semite. What a ludicrous world we live in.

Grouchy V-Day Roundup

Jill and I typically don't really celebrate Valentine's Day (coming so soon after my birthday, we're all celebrated out). But I'm feeling a little bit grumpy this week, so I think snuggling up with some candy and a movie might be just what the doctor ordered.

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Bill Russell gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Justice Thomas' silence on the bench reaches 5 years. While my feeling going into the article was that I didn't really care whether Justice Thomas felt compelled to speak or not (viewing much of oral argument as a bit of a charade), I did think one attorney had a point when he noted the unfairness of Thomas deciding cases on grounds not briefed or argued, yet not giving lawyers the opportunity to at least respond to his concerns.

Two posts at TNC's place on Black people getting away with things.

Maryland Democrat joins the state legislative Tea Party caucus, chaos ensues.

Scott Lemieux on the individual mandate and federal power.

Dutch parliament voices opposition to unilateral Palestinian statehood, urges Palestine to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a final peace agreement.

Jordan's Justice Minister calls for a pardon of a Jordanian soldier who murdered 7 visiting Israeli schoolchildren. The Minister previously served as the convicted criminal's defense attorney.

The Iranian government is vigorously suppressing Egypt-inspired protests cropping up in Tehran, Hillary Clinton remarks that Iranians and Egyptians deserve the same rights.

CPAC in a nutshell: "I witnessed someone calling Ron Paul people a 'cult' while eating a cake shaped like Reagan's face."

Let That Be a Lesson For You

#45 on the list of things not to do as an evil overlord reads as follows:

I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.

I kind of got that feeling while reading this article about a Dutch prosecution of a Muslim group for hate speech. The Arab European League had published a cartoon on its website insinuating that the Holocaust was exaggerated. It did this, it claimed, not because it subscribes to Holocaust denial, but in order to draw attention to the dropping of charges against Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders, whose film they claimed insulted Muhammad (the charges were dropped after authorities decided the film was targeted at Muhammad himself, not Muslims as a group). There's a solid case to be made against hate speech laws in general because of line drawing problems like this. But as Ronny Naftaniel of the Center for Documentation on Israel, who filed the complaint, pointed out, engaging in counter-hate speech against Jews, even to "make a point", is not justifiable, particularly when Jews had nothing to do with the film you're protesting. Even if you are pissed that Jews seem to be getting protections that you're not (and don't we all love the crabs-in-a-bucket mentality that evinces), there is something deeply immoral about claiming that person A wronged me, so I'm going to abuse innocent group B over there in order to draw attention to the injustice of it all. This is what happens when you're cast as history's scapegoats. Every situation, every context, every gripe, every misfortune -- the first thought of some people is to take a whack at the Jews. Forget the cartoon -- that's the real insult to Jews as a group.

On Holland

Why isn't this in my quote books?

Holland is an extremely neat and well-ordered mud-puddle, situated at the confluence of the English, French, and German languages.

-- W.E.B. Du Bois