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These protesters could be sent to prison for up to 7 years. (AP)
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03/17
Arutz 7 |
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Future interns? Under legislatioon proposed by Labor MK, they and their parents could be sent to "camp." (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 16, 2005 |
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| Soup Nazi: like Elaine, Israelis will need to be careful to "follow orders" |
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Labor Knesset Members are pushing legislation which, if passed, would bring Israel to a new nadir in suppression of free expression and dissent.
According to bills offered by MK Colette Avital and another Labor MK, a person using Nazi terminology or symbolism "lightly" would face a prison term of up to seven years.
That could include calling someone a "Nazi," a "kapo" or acting like the "Judenrat," or wearing an orange patch in the shape of a Star of David.
The legislation would limit the use of Nazi words and symbols to studies, historical research or reports on Nazism. Nazi symbols may also not be used in a manner that is not fitting to the memory of victims of the Holocaust, according to the bills.
Presumably references to "Nazi" and "Shoah" and "Holocaust" would be forbidden in film, fiction and on websites, except those officially sanctioned to use them.
Avital's bill passed a Knesset committee by a vote of 14-3.
Aryeh Eldad of the National Union party, strongly opposing the legislation, said that it places unreasonable limitations on freedom of speech and is intended to intimidate and "silence" legitimate freedom of expression such the orange Stars of David to symbolize their intense disapproval of the government's plan to destroy 21 Jewish towns and villages and expel the residents from their homes in Gaza and Northern Samaria.
MK Eldad suggested that Abba Eban's famous comment about making sure Israel doesn't return to "Auschwitz borders" would have landed him in the clink. But even references to "clink" may land one in prison for seven years, since it may remind someone of Colonel Klink, the comic POW camp commandant in the American comedy, "Hogan's Heroes."
MK Avital said that freedom of expression should "have its limits," pointing out that Israel has backed similar legislation in other countries. But the European Union recently refused to ban Nazi symbols such as swastikas, seeing it as a counter-productive and unenforcible restriction on freedom of expression.
MK Yuli Tamir, who drafted one of the bills, said that "public discourse must be free of Nazi terminology." This will probably rule out the possibility that the facilities being prepared to detain and imprison those Jews deported from their homes in the communities that are to be confiscated and destroyed by the authorities will be called "ghettos" or "camps." The government will need to find create names for the transport used to transfer the families from their homes.
A reporter for Arutz 7 suggested that Mel Brooks' hit play The Producers would not likely be coming to Israel anytime soon, and that reruns of Seinfeld had better ban the episode about the "Soup Nazi."
It is not yet clear whether "fascist," "repressive," "undemocratic" and "ridiculous" will also be included in the proposed ban.
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