Where is that Sharp Witted Defense of First Amendment From NJ’s Editors: I Remember When Editors Used to Defend Speech!
On Monday, March 18, the NJ Senate was attempting to move forward with repressive legislation which would mandate NJ residents and citizens support the state of Israel or be labeled as “Anti-Semitic” . NJ Democrats that control the Assembly and Senate in NJ and the Governor’s seat are trying to impose faulty so-called IHRA guidelines that have 7 points about Israel as suggested examples of anti-Semitism. Such faulty fast and loose conflation of Israel and Judaism if imposed would create a pretext for a crackdown on NJ’s movement opposing the US – Israel genocide.
FightBackBetter.com salutes Star Ledger Tom Moran’s call for a cut to aid to Israel! We might not agree with his full analysis but we agree with the conclusion. This editorial can be considered ILLEGAL if the NJ Democrats pass their repressive laws!
I am publicly asking these questions to the entire staff of chief editors of the NJ news media. I am tweeting and contacting them through e-mail – any way to try to get them to comment on this matter. Why the silence of the media in the face of this attempted silencing of opposition to genocide – not even to be expressing an opinion at all? Is your media outlet of the official editorial opinion that it is ok to consider criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitic? I am asking one and all of the top level NJ editors – are you OK with that? I will even go down the line to the regulars on the media frontlines and even the freelancers and stringers – are you all ok with this silencing of criticism of Israel to be mandated by NJ legislature? All in the mean time of a genocide and thankfully a growing organized struggle in NJ to oppose genocide!
Where are the media voices – the editorial poetic waxing on the importance of free speech and how no level of encroachment upon our free speech rights can be tolerated in a free society?
Where are the explanations by editors with quotes from free speech scholars and Middle East scholars debunking the attempt to establish a political position in support of Israel as a litmus test as to whether someone is anti-Semitic?
Are the leaders of NJ media going to go along with a fallacy that this law attempt is trying to proffer? Is that what you imagined yourself doing when you were studying journalism at university?
There is also apparent media silence in NJ of the editors and reporters over the massive carnage of journalists in Gaza – clearly targeted by US backed snipers and bombs and death operations of every depraved sort.
To my knowledge there has been silence of NJ’s editorial boards and journalists on the slaughter of their fellow reporters – almost 100 killed per this March 20 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists. I guess there are no NJ reporter or editor members of the Committee to Protect Journalists? Maybe a couple of you can sign up?
Why are editors not asking about how convenient it is to protect the Democrats in DC that are waging support – arming genocidal Israeli forces with Democrat sponsored legislation that would be used as a pretense to stop the public from opposing their DC fellow travelers.
But FightBackBetter – is media – and we do not have a problem calling out the slaughter of journalists – in an attempt to murder the truth of the genocide in Gaza – nor calling out of the attempt of NJ Genocrats to shut down our VERY STRONG pro-Palestine struggle in NJ. This is likely the most major frontal attack on journalism and freedom of speech in recent decades of US history.
We won round one on March 18 shutting down the attempt to move the repression forward in the NJ Senate. Maybe now we can get some editors to come forward in NJ to actually show some principle over the matter of free speech in NJ? But if not – we are still here at FightBackBetter to tell the world the depravity of silence in the face of the slaughter – of journalists, children, mothers, fathers and brothers alike – and in the face of these attempts to take our speech rights away! Ron DeSantis move over – you got NJ Democrats – or as they have been rebranded – Genocrats – to tell us that we can’t say genocide and we got the NJ mainstream media to be ok with this drastic assault on free speech in NJ!
Retweet this press release here:
News Release: Jewish, Muslim Organizations Celebrate Failure of Legislation Threatening Free Expression to Move in Senate Committee https://t.co/6aoC7nHX9B pic.twitter.com/tNHogF8noV
— FightBackBetter (@fightbackbettr) March 19, 2024
