At the height of the American civil rights movement, Southern strategists hit
on a novel strategy to bankrupt civil rights organizations and their leaders:
libel suits to be tried before local juries in states like Alabama. The U.S.
Supreme Court put an end to that strategy in 1964 by making it almost
impossible for a public figure to sue for libel absent a showing of knowing
falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth. (That matters of opinion were
beyond the reach of libel law did not even need stating.)

Protection of free speech in Israel lags far behind the America, especially
when it comes to libel suits. Last year Tommy Lapid was smacked with a 50,000
shekel libel judgment for calling an astrologer a.charlatan. on TV. Lapid was
not making a comment on the professional skill of the astrologer in question,
but rather expressing his opinion that astrology is hokum. He may have been
impolite, but he is entitled to his opinion.

Recently inveterate Israel-basher Niv Gordon succeeded in turning Nazareth
Magistrate.s Court into Israel.s Alabama when he successfully sued Haifa
University economics professor Steven Plaut for libel. Gordon.s choice of venue
was hardly accidental. He lives in Jerusalem and Plaut in Haifa; he sought a
venue with a strong likelihood of a judge who would share his politics. [ SPME Editor’s Note- Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University]

Gordon exercises his free speech rights to the fullest. His attacks on Israel.s
.fascism. and.state terror,. as well as praise for Norman Finkelstein, who has
been dubbed the Jewish David Irving, feature on various neo-Nazi, Islamist, and
anti-Semitic websites. He once wrote a letter to Ha.aretz justifying
Palestinian violence as the only language then Prime Minister Ehud Barak
understands. Gordon has labeled Gaza Brigade Commander Gen. Aviv Kochavi a.war
criminal,. as a result of which Kochavi was advised not to take up advanced
studies in Britain for fear of war crimes prosecution.

Gordon can dish it out, but he cannot take it. And in Judge Reem Nadaff he
found an unwitting accomplice in suppressing the speech of those contemptuous
of his antics. Naddaf found Prof. Plaut.s forwarding (not writing) of a satiric
E-mail of condolence to Gordon upon the targeted killing of Hamas bomb-maker
Mohammed Def. She also found to be libelous Plaut.s description of Gordon.s
academic publications to be paltry, even though it was true at the time of
publication, because he had not removed those articles from various websites.

Most of Judge Nadaff.s opinion was taken up by discussion of the headlines of
two pieces by Plaut. one entitled.Haaretz supports Jews for Hitler;. the
other.Judenrat for Peace.. In the first article Plaut attacked Ha.aretz for
picking Gordon to review Norman Finkelstein.s The Holocaust Industry and then
printing his laudatory review. Finkelstein claims that the number of those
killed in the Holocaust is “grossly exaggerated,” as part of a systematic
manipulation by world Jewry to deflect criticism of Israel.s.racist. and
.Nazi. treatment of Palestinians.

Plaut claimed that the headline in question was tacked on by an editor, and in,
any event, the title does not mention Gordon. The.Jews for Hitler. of the
title most plausibly referred to Finkelstein, as head of a metaphorical club of
Jewish supporters of Hitler.

The second article savaged Gordon for violating army orders by entering Yasir
Arafat.s Ramallah compound, along with 250 members of International Solidarity
Movement to serve as human shields for Arafat. Gordon was photographed holding
hands with Arafat, and quoted as dismissing charges that Arafat ordered and
financed terror attacks on Israel.

Again, the Judenrat title did not mention Gordon by name. Nor could the article
be plausibly read as an assertion that Gordon was an ally of Hitler in his
plans to destroy the Jewish people, as Judge Naddaf seemed to. Rather Plaut
was engaging in a Holocaust metaphor: Just as during the Holocaust the Judenrat
assisted in the killing of their fellow Jews, so do Gordon and his ilk today.

That is no more or less legitimate an opinion than those that Gordon spews
around the world. And the attempt to suppress it reflects the way that free
speech in Israel often applies to only one side of the political spectrum.