antisemitism,  Freedom of Expression

Defend the Arab European League

The Arab European League is a vile racist organisation which supports genocidal terrorist movements that target Jewish civilians.

Its founder,  Dyab Abou JahJah, was toured around by the Stop the War Coalition, until he was banned from entering the United Kingdom. He continues to participate in STWC events, via video link.

The AEL published a series of cartoons about the Holocaust a couple of years ago. One pictured Anne Frank in bed with Hitler. That isn’t the one which had got them into legal trouble, however:

An Arab organisation is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon deemed offensive to Jews, prosecutors say.
The cartoon, published by the Arab European League (AEL) on its website, questions the Holocaust.

It said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims.

But Dutch prosecutors said the AEL cartoon was “discriminatory” and “offensive to Jews as a group… because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion”.

Free Born John has  republished the cartoon in question, as do I. This is what he says:

I’m publishing it for the same reasons I published the Danish cartoons. If there’s a controversy over a drawing, we need to be able to see it to judge for ourselves. I’m a strong defender of free expression, and this isn’t limited to the expression of ideas I agree with or like. Attempts to suppress a viewpoint should be met by the wider distribution of that viewpoint than would otherwise be the case.

The cartoon above is plainly a holocaust denial. This is as intellectually negligible and contemptible as the belief that the earth is flat. But neither viewpoint should be illegal. So I publish it not because I agree with it or like it, neither is the case. I publish it because the Arab European League has an absolute right to the expression of its ideas.

I have nothing to add to that, really.