The spate of racist anti-Muslim/pro-Israel ads that have sprung up throughout New York’s subways have been widely condemned but permitted on on the grounds of freedom of speech. The ads which had previously appeared in San Francisco were taken out by the American Freedom Defense Initative (AFDI) who are spearheaded by notorious Islam-bashers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who had personal contact with Morris Sadek, the Egyptian-Copt behind the “Innocence of Muslims” film.

However, “freedom of speech” for all it’s unquestionable merits has been abused by the gatekeepers to villify “the savage” and “support the civilized man” – the Arab/Muslims semitic cousins.

Case in point being the contrast between the courts acceptance to display Spencer and Geller’s hate-filled message in the public transport system with an anti-Israel ads which were to appear in King County with the tagline “Israeli war crimes, your tax dollars at work”. The respective judges ruling on:

Anti-Islam Ad:

The judge, Paul A. Engelmayer of Federal District Court, ruled that the rejected ad was “not only protected speech — it is core political speech,” Source

Anti-Israel Ad:

The Court also determined that in light of the undisputed facts regarding the purpose of the forum and the factual basis for King County’s application of its policy in this case, King County’s decision to cancel the SeaMAC Ad was both reasonable and viewpoint-neutral. Source

Charlie Hebdo and The Sine Affair

The hypocrisy on display is undeniable though far from unique and not exclusive to the USA. Another to pour fuel onto the flames of the already raging inferno of Islamic-Western tension was the French Magazine Charlie Hebdo who decided to run provocative cartoons of a turbaned, naked Mohammed.

The magazine defended it’s right to publish the caricatures on the grounds of “freedom”

He says nothing wrong has been done, and that his magazine has not infringed French law, as a publication has the right to use the freedom to run critical or satirical cartoons. Source

The French magazine clearly has the freedom and desire to insult Muslims yet the same “freedom” evidently didn’t apply when the criticism is focused on Jews.

Maurice Siné had been a contributor to Charlie Hebdo for twenty years when in 2008 he published an “anti-semitic” comment in his satirical column suggesting that Jean Sarkozy, the son of the former French President was set to convert to Judaism prior to his marriage to his fiance; a Jewish heiress, to improve his career prospects.

Sine’s offending comments:

‘He’ll go a long way in life, this lad!’ Source

Sine was then ordered to apologise by the magazine but he refused and was duly sacked. The Guardian reported:

The piece was published without controversy – until several days later, when a radio presenter referred to it as anti-Semitic. The families of those concerned were said to be ‘sickened’. Val, who took the controversial decision to re-publish a Danish newspaper’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed two years ago in the name of freedom of the press, agreed that the piece was offensive and told its author to apologise. Siné refused, saying he would rather ‘cut his own nuts off’ and was, more or less, fired. Cue outrage, argument, counter argument, argument. Was the original statement anti-Semitic? For Val, there was no doubt. Siné’s statements, he said last week, ‘could be interpreted as making a link between conversion to Judaism and social success’ and that they spread the old stereotype associating Jews and money. Source

Max Blumenthal, Death Threats and The Hypocrisy of Google.

Proving that Islam is not uniquely prone to violence Sine, 79, was targeted with death threats by the terrorist outfit the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Who threatened:

20 centimeters of stainless steel in the stomach, it could well teach the bastard to stop and think.” Source

Another to receive death threats was Jewish journalist/filmmaker Max Blumenthal who received numerous death threats for being a “self-hating Jew” after producing a film critical of the attitudes of Israelis.

(You can watch the film here: Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem — The Censored Video from Max Blumenthal on Vimeo. )

Blumenthal’s film went the way of The Palestinian Media Watch who had their account banned for “hatespeech” while Blumenthal’s film was banned from Youtube due to “innapropriate content”.

And Google/Youtube’s response to the “hatespeech” and innapropriate content” contained in the Innocence of Muslims trailer?

They denied a White House request to take down the film – all in the name of “freedom” of course.

Jyllands-Posten

A final example of the hypocrisy at work is the original spark in 2006 of the Mohammed cartoons hysteria; that of the 12 cartoons published in Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten including the infamous image of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. They were the brainchild of editor Flemming Rose, a keen admirer of leading Islamophobe Daniel Pipes.

The newspaper again defended it’s decision to publish the highly offensive images to Muslims on the grounds of “freedom” yet the very same hypocrisy was exposed when it was revealed that in 2003 they refused to publish satirical cartoons of Jesus on the basis that they were offensive to Christians and later in 2006 they point-blank refused to publish satirical cartoon relating to the Holocaust.

While freedom of speech is an absolute requirement of every truly open, free and just society it is also a double-edged sword. A sword that is only sharpened on one side to hack at Muslims while the other is intentionally left blunt.