Free speech and our right to know

Embed from Getty Images

I’m the owner of a degree from an American university that once celebrated all forms of diversity. As an anthropology student, I understood diversity to mean a great wealth of cultures – of ways of understanding the world and one another – that was open to my curious eyes. You might say I was a bit naïve, but I still believe that the harder you work to understand the other, the easier it will be to hold a real conversation, that there is value simply in learning everything you can about them. Ultimately, the more you delve into the mindset of another culture, the more you must learn about yourself, your own culture and place in the world.

As that former anthropology student, I find Trump’s new assault on universities’ diversity programs and the students’ right to free speech abhorrent. But as an Israeli Jew, I have to stop and wonder for just a tiny second.

Although I enjoy free speech in this country, it is not a given, nor is it limitless. Hate speech and incitement are punishable offences. Demonstrations – yes; calling for the death of someone, or wiping out an entire country – no. I firmly believe that institutes of higher education should be able to draw that line for their student body, to define acceptable and unacceptable means of protest.

The universities mishandled anti-Israeli, antisemitic actions on their campuses, practically inviting Trump to step in. Many of them had never achieved real diversity and inclusion, and I am sure there are deans and university presidents breathing a sigh of relief. Now they can go back to openly taking in entitled “heritage” students without wincing.

What does Trump’s war against Harvard mean for the future of free speech? For the right to education, including the kinds of education that can challenge students and their preconceived ideas about the world? That can take them beyond the simplified tropes of X? In Hebrew, we call these “kitbag” questions. You already know the answers.

At the same time, the lines of acceptable speech in my own country are becoming blurred. If you dare to speak out against this government, for example, for the way it is handling, or not handling hostage negotiations, you open yourself to orchestrated hate and public shaming. If Trump is going after the intelligentsia of his county (a favorite tactic of totalitarian regimes throughout history), Bibi wants to reign in the rights to free speech among the most vehement protestors, including the families of those still held hostage in Gaza.

At the other end of the free speech idea is the public’s right to know. That is now the subject of two separate investigations, one of members of Bibi’s staff, one of a retiree of the Shabak secret service. In the first case, we heard that leaking secret documents to a German newspaper may have impacted negatively on possible hostage deals. In the second, we learned that the head of the Shabak, Ronen Bar, warned Bibi about the growing threat posed by the extreme right in this country. When that second one became public, those on that end of the political spectrum yelled “witch hunt” since clearly, for them, their right to free speech includes the hate speech and incitement denied others. The brouhaha will be used to oust Bar from his position and install someone more to Bibi’s liking, possibly including investigating his political enemies and helping to shut their mouths, something Bar was allegedly asked to do and refused.

Did we really need to know, and what was the cost? That is something we might ask ourselves, but the real question, of course, is not whether we needed to know that precise piece of information, but why that particular item, out of all the secret information held by the army, secret service and cabinet, was leaked to the press. Just as there are things we are not allowed to say, it is a given, especially in a highly-militarized country like ours, that there are things that we, the public, are not meant to know. But we forget to ask: Who decides what the public gets to know, and why? Who is trusted with all those secrets? Who benefits from the leaks?

Beside free speech, we have paid speech, which is muddying the waters on both ends and the middle. Qatar, for example, has been funding pro-Palestinian Jewish groups and anti-Israeli propaganda campaigns in the US for years. Now it turns out they were paying members of Bibi’s staff (yes, the same ones who leaked the classified information) to talk them up as leaders in hostage negotiations. That is the same tiny state that funneled billions into Gaza, funding the building of tunnels and nice homes for the Gaza elite. When Bibi tells us to our faces that the Qataris are our friends, that is paid speech.

The thing about paid speech is that we don’t have to buy it. And we shouldn’t.

Free speech and secrets. Our right to know and things we are told not to know – or even to unlearn. The lies we are told, the ads we are expected to buy because they come to us from our very government.

George Orwell called it “Newspeak.” A language invented to limit one’s ability to discern truth from falsehood, fact from lies, a thing from its opposite. He could not have envisioned the Internet, but he did understand human nature. Our own version of Newspeak enables us to live with half-truths and outright falsehoods. Tell me Zionism is colonialism. I don’t need to know more. Tell me how many were massacred on Oct. 7. I don’t need to know how many Gazans have died since, or how many will die if we cut off all aid.

For universities, especially those with Jewish and Israeli students, I would say they missed a teachable moment. Quite honestly, it’s an opportunity that will not come back, at least in the next four years. Because they are now told to believe: Moslems bad, Jews tolerable for now. And if they don’t buy that one, they’ll have no one to open their eyes to the full complexity or history of the situation.

As for us here in Israel, I see that both the language used to speak to us and the inflated reporting on scandals around information leaks are merely obscuring what is truly happening. Throw in the occasional X from crown prince Yairi Netanyahu (the latest telling French PM Macron to screw himself), and you have a perfect example of the problem with too much free speech.

The thing about free speech is that it is not really free. Our right to chant “death to…” comes at a cost; when we yell “Bring them home, now,” we open ourselves to the horrors we can’t ignore, on the one hand, and a right-wing backlash and possible investigation, on the other. The latter is a price we decide to pay, but for some, the price is steep. When we simply repeat what we hear or read on social media, we are getting off cheap, but we get what we pay for.

Our apparent right to know has consumed our right to be told the truth. The second precept is still legal. Is it too much to ask?