Australia and Freedom of Speech

Who can and who cannot? It's all over the Jewish news this week, and the results may be very long lasting. Is there a content-test for freedom of speech? Should there be a muzzle on sportspeople who want to talk about what they believe or don't believe? 

From the get-go, let me say forthrightly, NOT! Freedom of speech must allow for speech with which I seriously disagree. 

Case in point: A visiting professor at University of Sydney

Peter Kohn writes in the AJN this week, "Jewish communal leaders are concerned about plans for Richard Falk, a US academic who has endorsed conspiracy theories and who is widely accused of antisemitism, to visit Australia to speak at the NSW Parliament and at the University of Sydney." Their concerns have to do with the content of his speech and the effect he might have on the conversation.

Lesli Berger is the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. She says Falk's judgments on the Jewish people "make this function offensive in the extreme."

Case in point two: The continued fallout from Tim Anderson

Joshua Kirsh wrote last year about the sacking of Tim Anderson, and this week in the AJN again wrote about Anderson with "The use of the swastika sends a tacit message to Jewish students: do not presume to talk about these issues. It encourages Jewish students to keep their mouths closed and their eyes on the door." In other words,  what Prof. Anderson did had an impact on Jewish students which was out-of-bounds and thus warranted his being sacked.

Kirsh said, "Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences; nor does it mean the freedom to belittle or degrade students because of their background."

Is that true? I disagree with Kirsh. It is exactly that freedom which both he and I and Prof Anderson continue to have in Australia. 

Case in point three: Wollongong Uni

National Tertiary Education Union branch president Georgine Clarsen said she was "astounded" workshop organisers invited a "fundamentalist" to represent a Muslim point of view. She said, "There is a big difference between free speech and hate speech and this particular man that was invited was on the record as saying very hateful and inflammatory things about gay people."

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David Ould is an Anglican minister in Parramatta who tweeted today, "Freedom of speech must include objectionable speech in order for us to have a free non-coercive society. That's why I support @IzzyFolau - not because I agree with everything he says or how he said it but because each and every one of us depends on that same freedom."

Others tweeted about Ould earlier: "I remember Christian leaders like @davidould and @MurrayJCampbell defending Roz Ward, the Marxist co-founder of Safe Schools (which they opposed), when she was suspended by her employer, LaTrobe Uni, for embarrassing the university by her speech."

Case in point four: Israel Folau

Ould mentions Israel Folau, about whom I've written before as has just about everyone, in his now-legendary fight with Rugby Australia. The issue of contract breaking and homosexuality are not relevant to this post. What IS relevant is that Rugby Australia put into Folau's contract from last year something which prevents his freedom of speech. According to reports, Folau may have his own opinion about his religion and about atheists and adulterers not getting to heaven, but his term of employment prevents his speaking or tweeting about that in public. That's a muzzle which seems out of bounds with anyone in a free society. I wish him luck in this matter.

I'm so glad the thought police are not preventing my speaking out here.

I'm so glad you and I both have a right to speak freely in Australia. Imagine if we disagreed with a totalitarian regime in Saudi Arabia or China, or anywhere for that matter. And we were prevented from speaking out. No employer, no government, nobody should prevent our freedom of speech. Human decency will prevail, as honest-to-goodness people will disregard the nonsense of those who peddle hate or demeaning bullying talk of demigods.

While we still have the rights, let us use those rights.

While we still have the rights, let us defend those, even those with whom we disagree.

Use wisdom in challenging them but let them speak.

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King Solomon gave some advice to humanity about fools and speech. With these I leave you today, to ponder, and to respond.

Prov. 18:2   A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.

Prov. 12:23   A prudent man conceals knowledge, But the heart of fools proclaims folly.

Prov. 15:14   The mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge, But the mouth of fools feeds on folly.

Prov. 13:16   Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool displays folly.

Prov. 15:2   The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable, But the mouth of fools spouts folly.

Prov. 18:6-7   A fool’s lips bring strife, And his mouth calls for blows. A fool’s mouth is his ruin,          And his lips are the snare of his soul.

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What do you say?

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If you have time read the articles by Peter Kohn about the American anti-Semite Richard Falk here and Tim Anderson's being fired by the University of Sydney here. or this one from University of Wollongong about an anti-gay Muslim speaker in the Mercury here. 

BDS...in Australia ....again

The national executive of the Health Services Union will consider taking up support for hurting people next month. But the executive might be going a bit too far. It's not the first time in Australia that an agency has extended care to the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza or in the West Bank as a specialised campaign. Back a few years ago the Council in Marrickville took on BDS in chambers, but then after reconsidering the issue and its serious implications backed down. Why did they back down? Why should the HSU do the same?

The Australia Jewish News today published an editorial which says it so well; I will quote it.

"Next time someone goes to the chemist to get vital medication for multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's they could be refused because both were developed by Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals." The AJN goes on to list bandaids, bay soap, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRI. And "if a person contracts AIDS or HIV they won't be able to access Israeli development treatments, the most effective tools for fighting the diseases."

For those who don't know, BDS stands for "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions." It is designed to be a financial punishment on the land and people of Israel for the occupation. HEre's what they say on their own website: "BDS is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law."

So note that the divestment part of BDS as they cite on their website: "DIVESTMENT campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from all Israeli companies and from international companies involved in violating Palestinian rights."

To include 'all' Israeli companies must include loads of high-tech companies. (Note this photo from this website from Israel or What's App founder. Social media was abuzz after Jan Koum, the co-founder of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp, commented on a Facebook post by pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, which attempted to demonstrate the "foolishness" of the BDS campaign.
The post article goes on, "The StandWithUs post included a photograph taken on Britain's renowned University of Oxford campus of an Apple laptop computer laden with pro-Palestinian and "Boycott Israeli Goods" stickers. On top of the computer a hand-written note is seen with a message pointing out Apple's use of certain Israeli technology.

"Hi there! Just thought you should know the flash-storage inside this computer was designed and built by Anobit, an Israeli technology company! If you don't want it any more, please pass it to the desk behind you," reads the letter. From University of Oxford: Boycott Israel stickers on Israeli made technology - only a BDS supporter would be so foolish."

Imagine being mocked as foolish also by London Mayor Boris Johnson during his trade mission to Israel back in November.
Johnson arrived in Israel with an official trade delegation, mainly to promote bilateral trade in technology between the cities of London and Tel Aviv. His mission was to promote the British capital’s high-tech sector, in a bid to get more Israeli companies to expand to London and make IPOs (initial public offerings) on its stock markets.

London is currently home to 141 Israeli high-tech firms, according to London & Partners (the mayor’s promotional agency) and the IVC Research Center. There are currently 16 Israeli tech firms listed across London Stock Exchange’s markets with a combined market value of £3.7 billion ($5.6 billion). Johnson was also very critical of the movement to boycott Israel, deriding them as “a bunch of corduroy-jacketed lefty academics.”

“I cannot think of anything more foolish than to say that you want to have any kind of divestment or sanctions or whatever or boycott, against a country that when all is said and done is the only democracy in the region,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 and recorded on this website in the UK

So hopefully the Health Services Union will take care of patients and reject this foolish and counterproductive resolution. But you never know.

Boycott, Divest, Sanctions(BDS): Consider the down side

BDS is an acronym for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. Some churches even joined this noisy global movement which seeks to stall Israeli life. In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner..
A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.
Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil.
If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.
Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.
Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the “Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.
Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

 Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts. In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

 Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

OTHER NOBEL CONSIDERATIONS (Compare and contrast):
Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made?"
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.
They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:  1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:  1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics:  0
Physics:  0
Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar and 1998 - Ferid Mourad
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Nobel Prize is an annual, international prize first awarded in 1901 for achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. An associated prize in Economics has been awarded since 1969.Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 850 individuals,of whom at least 20% were Jews, although Jews comprise less than 0.2% of the world's population (or 1 in every 500 people). 

Overall, Jews have won a total of 41% of all the Nobel Prizes in economics, 28% of medicine, 26% of Physics, 19% of Chemistry, 13% of Literature and 9% of all peace awards.

Jews have been recipients of all six awards. The first Jewish recipient, Adolf von Baeyer, was awarded the prize in Chemistry in 1905. As of 2013, the most recent Jewish recipients were James Rothman and Randy Schekman (Medicine); Arieh Warshel, Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus (Chemistry); and François Englert (Physics), all in 2013.

Jewish laureates Elie Wiesel and Imre Kertész survived the extermination camps during the Holocaust, while François Englert survived by being hidden in orphanages and children's homes. Others, such as Walter Kohn, Otto Stern, Albert Einstein, Hans Krebs and Martin Karplus had to flee Nazi Germany to avoid persecution. Still others, including Rita Levi-Montalcini, Herbert Hauptman, Robert Furchgott, Arthur Kornberg, and Jerome Karle experienced significant antisemitism in their careers.

The oldest person ever to receive a Nobel Prize was Leonid Hurwicz, a Polish-American Jew who received the 2007 prize in Economics when he was 90 years old.

Other issues of comparison and contrast:
The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.
The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.
There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.
Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

 Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Otherwise all you have is #OneWayReligiousTolerance and that’s not going to help anyone.