Representative Rashida Talib and Free Speech
By Bruce Fein
Representative Rashida Talib (D-MI) support for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza, precipitated by Hamas’ murderous attacks and kidnappings of Israelis, has unleashed vitriolic denunciations and a censure resolution for alleged anti-Semitism spearheaded by yahoos. As Sir Francis Bacon taught, “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
Representative Talib’s shrill detractors hope to silence her by attacking free speech. United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas elaborated in Terminiello v. Chicago (1949):
“[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.”
John Stuart Mill explained in On Liberty that speech, no matter how ill-conceived, advances the search for truth. It should never be suppressed. Mill noted that most of what we believe consists of exposure to different views which we find less convincing. Our convictions are strengthened by the challenge of alternative perspectives or understandings. Moreover, no one is infallible. Beliefs can be wrong even if held by an overwhelming majority. At one time, the geocentric theory of the universe was gospel, and the heliocentric theory heresy. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed in Abrams v. United States (1919):
“[W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution.”
Representative Talib has eschewed ad hominem attacks or stereotyping in her remarks addressing the Hamas-Israeli war and humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza. The words that have provoked semi-hysterical denunciation may be controversial. They may reflect a minority viewpoint. But they are not incendiary by any metric:
“The American people do not support funding for war crimes—like the use of white phosphorus bombs—and are calling for a ceasefire. As the Israeli government carries out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, President Biden is cheering on Netanyahu, whose own citizens are protesting his refusal to support a ceasefire. We must be laser focused on saving lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity. The number of children killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019—yet instead of helping end this violence, President Biden baselessly casts doubt on the Palestinian death toll. U.S. funding for the Israeli military with no humanitarian conditions will take us farther away from ending the violence and reaching peace. Achieving a just and lasting peace requires lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the dehumanizing system of apartheid.”
Legendary founder and first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, was far more critical of Jews for giving birth to Arab hostility to Israel.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” (Spoken to Nahum Goldman, then head of the World Zionist Organization who included these candid words in his book “The Jewish Paradox” (p.121), published by Grosset & Dunlap, NY 1978.).
I would wager a substantial number of Rashid’s detractors are equally mindlessly critical of Ben Gurion who risked his life that Israel might live. Rashid’s observations and arguments deserve respectful responses on the merits, not epithets, threats, or personal attacks. Free speech is most urgent for speech that is hated, not speech of the majority. We must all think it possible that we may be mistaken. Truth and wisdom will follow.
*Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general and general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan. He is author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy.