THE ADL IS ANTI FREE SPEECH: DIANA WEST
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THE ADL IS ANTI FREE SPEECH
On the one hand, to be smeared by the Anti-Defamation League for combatting the incursions of Islamic law into this country is a badge not just of honor — which it is — but of effectiveness. To be smeared by the ADL as “anti-Muslim” is a sign that your debate is not dead-ending at your office wall, but advancing, catching the ears and engaging the minds of your fellow citizens. To trigger the slander machine of the ADL, which by now surely qualifies as the leading dhimmi organization for Islamic apologetics outside of a Saudi-funded university department, tells you that that your marshalling of the evidence, the facts about Islam — its law (sharia), its culture of conquest, its blood- and tear-stained history of victimization — is actually cutting through the thick and stultifying layer of lies and happy talk which irresponsible leaders have foisted upon us in the place of honesty, in place of reality itself, particularly since 9/11.
The latest such honoree is David Yerushalmi, Esq., and I salute him. Yerushalmi is an exceptional legal mind who has demonstrated his effectiveness in court as a brilliant defender of our Constitution. He is also a friend and co-author of the Team B II report, Shar’iah the Threat to America — for which, as another report co-author, I am delighted to say he is also scored by the ADL. The book, you see, “repeated” Yerushalmi’s “Shari’a-related conspiracy theories.” To the ADL, parsing Islamic law = conspiracy theory.
Meet the ADL, dunderheaded heirs of old-time Soviet infiltration, the anti-anti-sharia-ists. Given the depradations suffered under sharia by Jews in particular, how disgraceful that they be fronted by this noted Jewish organization.
David Yerushalmi’s specialty is freedom of speech, and he has proven his prowess in successfully defeating multiple attempts inspired by Islamic legal prohibitions against criticism of Islam to stymie freedom of speech — freedom to criticize Islam. In our country, our democracy itself depends on expressive liberty — criticism, debate, talk, analysis, thought — with no exceptions.
Just today I received an email from David of another courtroom victory, this one in a free speech case involving Pam Geller, the well-known blogger and activist, whose organization SIOA (another ADL “honoree”) had been blocked by the city of Detroit for taking out the following ad on a city bus: “Fatawa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!” The advertisement also included the following website address: RefugeFromIslam.com.
After receiving the ruling, David wrote:
This is one of our fresh victories for Free Speech and the ability to criticize Islam without having to hide in a bomb shelter. In other words, we’ve prevented what Eugene Volokh properly calls a victory for thuggery.
There is no question that my client, Pam Geller, pushes the social discourse envelope but her speech and her ability to push that envelop must be protected if this nation is to remain free, which is why my firm has represented her in now three separate advertising cases pro bono and have won all three (Miami [settled after threat of suit], NYC [settled after filing complaint], and now Detroit [court issued Prel Inj]).
My comment to the opinion:
While there are technical aspects of FA law in the opinion my co-counsel and I question (i.e., that this was not a case of a “designated public forum”), the result was correct and the judge recognized, as I have highlighted, that our cross examination of Gibbons/SMART resulted in SMART hanging itself (full disclosure: that is the prideful litigator in me coming out).
This is a huge win not just for our client but more so for the First Amendment. …
We may not know it, but we depend on dedicated lawyers such as David Yerushalmi and his colleagues at the Thomas More Law Center to wage these battles in the courtroom for our republic, just as much as we depend on soldiers in the field. His work in furthering anti-sharia legislation, increasingly emerging at the state level, may in the end constitute the most vital bulwark against the kind of Islamization we see advancing in the Europe Union.
I was first alerted to the scurrilous ADL attack — did I mention David was also slandered as “anti-black” and “anti-immigrant” for good, hot-button measure? — by journalist Alyssa Lappen, who has published an impassioned open letter to ADL chief Abe Foxman at Family Security Matters. Jerry Gordon offers his thoughts on the subject at The Iconoclast. FSM editor Adrian Morgan further notes:
It is deeply worrying that a lawyer’s opposition to sharia law — which runs contrary to the principles enshrined in the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights — should be used as a cudgel to attack him. When such an attack comes from a group supposedly aiming to defend the rights of Jews yet is seen to be apparently condoning Sharia, this obviously raises alarms about motive and intent.
The motive and intent is to silence critics of Islam as a particularly perverse, don’t-hit-me form of Muslim “outreach.” This, history tells us, is the slurpy, grubbing work of the dhimmi. Shame on the ADL.
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