Gal Wettstein is a graduate student at Tel Aviv University. I hope his further studies help him to reach a more advanced level of political understanding than the one he has so far attained. He begins a post at Comment is Free by saying:
Israel is a democracy, we are told. We have freedom of speech to prove it.
From the 'we are told' you kind of know what's coming, and you're right. For what's coming is a piece on 'the unspoken limits of freedom of speech' in Israel. OK, unspoken limits are not to be lightly shrugged aside. In his great work on this subject, J.S. Mill wrote of the need for protection not only against 'the tyranny of the magistrate' but also against 'the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling'. These can indeed be powerful, especially when backed by social coercion, threats and intimidation, the treatment of the dissident as a pariah so that on all sides he or she faces rejection, derision, contempt.
Does Wettstein marshal any evidence to show that this is what he and others have faced? He does not. On the contrary, he tells you that for expressing the sort of views that can be found most days of the week in Haaretz, the price you might have to pay is... the undermining of a 'shaky friendship' or the loss of a 'romantic attachment'. Why, poor boy, he's even had to endure shouting matches with his father, as also with friends and colleagues. On the strength of such things (which have been two a penny in the UK since 9/11 and the Iraq war), Wettstein is willing to conclude:
Even if there is no law to curtail freedom of speech, if we are effectively discouraged from speaking through informal means, then this freedom has no real substance. From there it is only a matter of time before this freedom is gone from the law books, as well as from the talk shows, the water-coolers and the living rooms of the country.
No, Galik, the freedom does have real substance, as you would know were you to study certain neighbouring situations. Not so much Wettstein as just plain Comment is Wet - sorry, Free.
