That Unfortunate First Amendment

The German public broadcaster ZDF evidently thinks that Americans have too much freedom of speech. The issue in question concerns the famous photo of a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Grand Mufti and the Führer are currently making a joint appearance in anti-Islamic posters on the sides of buses in Washington D.C. as part of the latest bus-ad campaign sponsored by Pamela Geller.

Our Canadian correspondent Rembrandt Clancy has translated and subtitled ZDF’s news report about this egregious abuse of free speech, and accompanies it with his own introduction.

Introduction
by Rembrandt Clancy

“Enemy of Islam” shocks the ZDF — “Tasteless Opinion Making” is the title given to a posting which appeared on the German Internet portal Politically Incorrect (PI) on 21 June 2014.

The article features a news segment by one of Germany’s public broadcasters, the ZDF (20 June 2014). The theme of the newscast is an attack on Pamela Geller’s bus-banner campaign in Washington D.C., which features the collaboration of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, with Adolf Hitler in 1941. What is more striking, however, is the broadcaster’s hostility toward freedom of speech generally and the American First Amendment in particular.

In addition, the PI article draws attention to the following points: the ZDF journalists’ personal, verbal attack on Pamela Geller; the broadcaster’s labelling the ads as tasteless without acknowledging their historical veracity; the implication that Islam knows no Jew-hatred; the oblique call for sabotaging the ads; and, by way of the tenor of the newscast, Germans are fortunate to have no such freedom of speech as in America. Finally, the PI author notes a contradiction: the moderator, Ralph Szepanski, begins by suggesting that “hardly anyone” in America seems to care about what would be “unthinkable” in Germany, and even “punishable” there; but at the end, the reporter, Elisabeth Koblitz, informs the viewer that “…the Islam-hater has started a wave of protest rolling on the Internet.”

The video (translated and subtitled by Rembrandt Clancy):

Video Transcript:

Moderator

The USA is happy and proud to call itself the land of unlimited possibilities. That unfortunately applies to tasteless opinion making. Thus a well-off but not well-meaning right-wing conservative sends Hitler-buses through the American capital.

The advertisement on the vehicles? … Jew-hatred is in the Koran, Islam has always been anti-Semitic. What would be unthinkable and punishable for us, perturbs hardly anyone there. From Washington, Elisabeth Koblitz reports.

Reporter

No! This is not Berlin in 1936, but Washington in 2014: An advertisement with Adolf Hitler in the American capital. On 20 buses, it is a rolling provocation. Many passengers can hardly believe it!

Jewish Man

“I am Jewish myself and I find it hurtful. To see Hitler’s face is always an insult. One cannot simply rub our noses in such a sensitive subject.”

Reporter

Responsible for the campaign is Pamela Geller, an anti-Islam activist. Her message: Palestinians made a pact with Hitler, for that reason, the USA should stop their financial aid to Islamic countries. That her action is being criticised, she does not understand.

Pamela Geller

“I do think it’s wrong. My whole philosophy is based on the rights and freedoms of the individual. I am not afraid of showing Hitler. We do not glorify or praise Hitler — we are damning Hitler. And rightly so. I am not afraid of evil.”

Reporter

In the Islamic community in Washington, they are shocked.

Imam: Talib M. Shareef of “The Nation’s Mosque”

“If you’re making a statement which does not correspond to the truth; that can and will hurt people. All as a result of that statement right there.”

Reporter

Geller’s campaign is controversial in America, but permitted, for the First Amendment of the American Constitution guarantees almost unrestricted freedom of speech and of the press. “Hitler Mein Kampf” [sic] is easily ordered on the Internet. One may show the President with a Hitler-moustache, or on the radio compare Obama with Hitler. The Constitution permits exactly that. Unfortunately many find that fantastic as long as it corresponds to their views.

But freedom of speech simply applies to everyone. The bus campaign of the Islam-hater has started a wave of protest rolling on the Internet. Already there are calls to paste over Hitler images. That too is after all freedom of opinion in the USA.

29 thoughts on “That Unfortunate First Amendment

  1. Very ugly, inciteful and illegal comparison:

    Already there are calls to paste over Hitler images. That too is after all freedom of opinion in the USA

    • What’s the “illegal” comparison you’re talking about? How is it “illegal” to point out similarities between one thing and another, or to point out the indisputable historical fact of Nazi – Muslim collaboration (or Hitler’s high regard for Islam)?

      And, “freedom of opinion” doesn’t guarantee the right to deface and destroy billboards that someone else has paid for, or to shout down speakers you disagree with so that others who wish to listen cannot hear them — though leftists often practice that kind of behavior because they do not believe in freedom of speech for people they disagree with. Nor do Muslims, obviously.

    • “Illegal” comparison? Sorry, the USA isn’t Europe, you can’t go to jail for making “comparisons”.

  2. “If you’re making a statement which does not correspond to the truth; that can and will hurt people. ”
    The Immam should know about that. He and his cohorts have been spreading lies for centuries. Islam itself is just one big lie.

  3. What’s more striking than the broadcaster’s hostility to freedom of speech is that some Americans too will say it’s a “problem” that everyone (not just people they agree with) has the right to freedom of speech.

    What’s weird from a historical standpoint is how Hitler is regularly placed all by his lonesome in the ne plus ultra rank of human evil, as though no other human being ever had such a cruel heart or such evil purpose, and thus it’s impermissible ever to draw comparisons between him and any other person — including those people who kill young children simply because they are Jewish, or those who openly say that the only problem with Hitler is that he “didn’t finish the job.”

  4. It amazes me that these clowns believe that Islam can massacre and hate with impunity… No Kaffir must object or take offence. In the UK and across Europe thousands of killings have been perpetrated by the “Ummah”. One woman in “Islamic clothing” is murdered in Colchester and the atttack may not even be racial at all but committed by another of her faith, or a nutcase who stabbed a Briton a few weeks before.

    Yet on the BBC and London Radio we have had endless liberal self mutilation and execration about “Islamophobia” and racism. If one butchers upwards of 350,000,000 people, including thousands in New York and just look at ISIS/ISIL today, machine gunning and crucifying as they go, what do these people expect? Violence like this begets what it sows….justifiable fear, hatred and logical phobia.

    I believe that Moslems and their “liberal’ maggot apologists are mentally ill…

    We get Scots jailed for a year for simply putting bacon in a mosque. One “offended” Moslem complained. The building was empty. An act of simple non violent protest. Jesus Christ, this is about as peaceful and anti violent as one can get and guaranteed in Magna Carta. Yet they are jailed as heretics. A paedophile, with hundreds of abuse cases behind him, was jailed in the same system for one year as well.

    Moslems demand our deaths on London streets, insult the Queen, establish sharia zones and get simple fines and carry on. This is sharia in practice. the UK now has a two tier law system supported by the stupid Poilce to support it. Lee Rigby is brushed aside like trash.

    In my Parish, I have a large Moslem “Community”. On my rounds last month I was told to “Keep out of Slough, because it was a Moslem town”. The stupid “friggin'”” elite and their clients- soon to be superiors are sitting on a time bomb. Public anger is bubbling to the boil. I have noticed Moslems behaving very arrogantly for months as the so called ISIS groups butchers its way acrosss the Middle East. Boy are they going to get a surprise….

    I am a Churchman but I can see a peed off British population rising in masses if these idiots carry on like this. Enoch Powell warned us years ago. Blood will flow and many will see it as a “just cumuppance” for the violence perpetrated against the UK and those who sucked up to Islam- those in the “Westminster Bubble” who arrogantly ignored the British people. We as a nation are slow to anger- we are not “emotive” but when we do anger- God help any fool in the way….

    My parishoners are seething….Young and old.

    • “I can see a peed off British population rising in masses”–Well, I am afraid I can’t. I am increasingly disgusted by the bovine cowardice of most English, and the ease with which they are having their country taken away from them, for ever. For Pete’s sake, they won’t even VOTE in their own interest, never mind fight back. Frankly, they deserve what they are getting. They deserve to be losing control of their main cities and towns. They deserve the schools where whites are a minority, the packed surgeries, the prison sentences for bacon-related crimes. If I were a Muslim immigrant in Britain, I would see almost nothing to respect, admire or copy in this host community. Any resistance would have happened years ago. We are probably past tipping point now.

      • Unfortunately you are right but we can live in hope…..

      • Your comment is thought-provoking and sad in the extreme.

        A people who prided themselves on their manners and tolerance are in danger of being swept away by those no-longer-serviceable virtues.

        When Tommy Robinson was languishing in prison the first time, being spit on and not allowed to even put up a paper barrier between himself and the vile spittle, I would mentally leave him there and come “upstairs” to the real England, to read the online news, full of famous people whose greatest achievements appeared to be fame itself. The columns of the chattering classes – say, Daniel Hannan or Theodore Dalrymple – so cleverly saying nothing while they shielded their eyes from an increasingly intrusive Reality felt surreal. The luxury of writing was denied Tommy, as voiced complaints were denied to the poor people who had to live cheek by jowl with foreigners whose hatred consumed all the oxygen around them.

        I wondered then, I wonder now, if the pampered had or have the slightest inkling how very like the placid Germans of the 1930s they have become to increasingly resemble?

        When I read the breathless reports – hundreds, even thousands of words – devoted to “Kate”‘s very fashionable, expensive and silly short skirts which display her awkward school-girl knees, I wait patiently for this dubious “fashion” to pass or for her to come to her senses by looking in a full-length mirror. And when a breezy day presents the world with the dubious pleasure of a long look at her bare naked butt (or made to appear so) my heart sinks. What hope is there for England if glimpses of this pampered woman’s not-so-private parts are now de rigeur for public appearances? Is this the kind of thing that is supposed to distract people from the reality of 21st century Britain?

        No wonder the authorities are so anxious to silence Tommy, to create a sound-proof, high cordon sanitaire around his very existence, to grind his daily life down to the nubbins.

        Quick! More of Kate’s a**, less of Tommy’s sass. The country depends on it.

        • Wait, what do you have against Theodore Dalrymple? Agree or disagree with him, but I’ve read quite a lot of what he’s written and I wouldn’t say that “cleverly saying nothing” describes any of it.

      • Unfortunately, that is true about many other european countries too. But maybe France? They have, after all, a tradition for revolution. The rest are just like ignorant sheep. It’s sad but true. What we need to do now is to figure out how to save what ever we can save from the coming catastrophe. How can we minimize the destruction? How can we secure survival for at least some part of our genes, our culture, our tradition? It’s time to switch to survival mode.

    • I am praying for you. You sound like someone who can see the truth. G-dspeed in your quest to rid England of the Burka’d scourge.

  5. And don’t forget those who kill Muslims simply because they are Shia, or should that be Sunni. Sorry, now I am confused

  6. Europeas will never, ever, understand the 1st Amendment. And the 2nd. And all others after that. They simply do not have what it takes to *get it*.

    This is german stupidity at its worst, yet, very clearly shows why Europe is failing, and why there is still hope for the USA.

    I was born in Switzerland and I currently live here again, for another 6 months. My country is failing too. All European countries are succumbing. I can’t wait for the day I will be back on the plane to the US. Where I have a Constitution and Amendments to protect me. Still. To some degree. It’s better than nothing here in Europe.

  7. Hitler has become an icon of everything that is worst about Judeo-Christianity (Western Ideology)solely by his association with ‘racism’. That picture of Adolf was painted by whom one may ask?

    It was painted by his fellow socialist groups (who ‘won’) to exploith the ignorance of us all, and we fell for it; it is now a dominant meme in our societies, and is used to flagellate those who question the high divisive ploy of multiculturalism.

    It was used against UKIP in the recent European elections, and maybe for the first time it backfired badly. The Haj Amin – Hitler tie up exposes the reality of the Middle East conflicts, what still remains hidden is the connection between Haj Amin, Fatah (and the ‘Palestinians’) and the British and French esablishments both pre and post WW2. The hidden objective is genocide of ALL Jews as stated in the Hamas Charter!
    “Toujours le meme chose”.

  8. Pamela is a brave woman, then she tells the world what islam is all about. Islam and nazism is one and the same, except from that kind of god, the muslims has added to their politics.
    As the nazis lost their fight against the good people, the muslims will do the same, when people wake up and find the similitaries. If we start now to get them back to where they belong, we will spare a lot of lifes.

  9. The intellectual level of this news report is utterly appalling, I had no idea that public broadcasting in Germany was pitched at kindergarten grade.

    First, offer the gratuitous opinion that Ms Geller is a “well off but not well meaning right wing conservative”. No basis whatsoever offered to establish she is not well meaning.

    Second, find a Jew who is prepared to find any use of a photograph of Hitler “hurtful” – it must have been quite a difficult search to find somebody Jewish who was so thick they didn’t grasp the point of Geller’s bus poster. Does he object to TV documentaries informing the world of Hitler’s historical role?

    Thirdly, the name and role of the “Palestinian” depicted in the photograph is not even mentioned: the proles are thus given no opportunity to Google him and find out anything about him. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini, got the seventh highest number of votes for the position and, after having a number of those who got more votes than him assassinated, resulting in the terrified surviving contenders pulling out of the race, was appointed to the role by the (Jewish) governor Herbert Samuel – one of the worst decisions in British colonial government. Husseini was a murderous psychopath who killed more Arabs ( Muslim and Christian) than Jews.

    Fourthly, the predictable Washington imam ( boy he must have been hard to find) is wheeled out to be critical of Geller making a statement that does correspond to the truth, but there is no examination of this alleged lack of correspondence. Is it contended that the photograph is not real? No, because the reporters know it isn’t, but it is subtly implied by referring to photos of Obama with a Hitler moustache.

    Fifthly, we have:

    “The Constitution permits exactly that. Unfortunately many find that fantastic as long as it corresponds to their views.”

    The word “fantastic” is misused as it so often is ( like “decimated”), as in “that was a fantastic goal the German striker scored”. Nope, no fantasy involved just sports skill. Who it is that only supports freedom of speech in such a tendentiously qualified way is not identified; no instances of where Geller has complained about freedom of speech are cited. It is just another gratuitous unsubstantiated jibe.

    Sixthly, the report equates illegally defacing private property with freedom of expression and impliedly urges/condones the carrying out of such criminal activity. No wonder Antifas gets a free pass in Germany when a public broadcaster encourages defacing paid for billboards on buses.

    Yes Radegunda, it is weird: Hitler as the ne plus ultra of evil. A Jewish friend pointed out to me in the 1980’s that the personage of Hitler and the phenomenon of Nazism is used as a device, a lightning rod, to have the historically ignorant believe there was no Jew-hatred before him and none after him. Similarly the Left are very, very happy to make Hitler and “Fascism” the focus of c20th evil so that people don’t look too closely at the record of Stalin. As Hitler was our, ie the Anglo-American West’s (and Soviet Union’s), enemy whose regime we destroyed everything is hunky dory.

    • You have to understand that in Germany, ANY mention of anything that happened between 1933 and 145 is taboo. More specifically, it is actually ILLEGAL to depict swastikas (for example) in any way. Like, when I bought plastic models of WW2 aircraft in Germany, there were no swastika decals for them, because swastikas are illegal. In books, where there are photos of swastikas and nazi-saluting germans, these are scratched out, so as to be legal to sell. So, whenever a German sees an image of Hitler or anything Nazi, and if there is ANY implication that perhaps Germany had something infinitesimal to do with Nazism, oh boy, stand by– get ready to get yelled at, snarled at, called a “stupid American”, etc. It’s as if they are in denial, en masse, about WW2. So, I can fully understand why this German is getting so upset by a photo of Hitler being on a subway wall– in Germany, this would be unheard of, because it is actually ILLEGAL to depict Hitler, anywhere, in any way. I will say that this pretty much only applies to West Germans– former East Germany loves Americans for the most part (though few speak English– Russian is the second language of most people over 35 or so), they know what’s what.

  10. Very deceptive indeed.

    From the smarmy TV moderator to the twisted views of the journaillie, they really don’t get it; refuse to get it and deliberately keep looking for Moonbats who also don’t get it. Only to land in some slick imam’s mosque who tells them the lies they want to hear. How’s that for reporting?

    Germany is in deep shiite.

  11. Odd, this is a very minor issue in one American city. What motivated ZDF to run this piece? Maybe the ZDF producers really believe that right-thinking Germans will be disgusted by America’s “tolerance”? Was this meant to be an anti-American piece? Given the latent Hitler “interest”, if not outright sympathy, in a lot of Germany, maybe what ZDF is really trying to do with this piece is reassure the Germans that Muslims are their friends. On the other hand, I can only hope a lot of Germans who haven’t given the Nazi-Palestine connection much thought may take something away from this piece that ZDF did not intend, and start wondering exactly why Germans are not allowed to question the Muslim historical record.

  12. It is no surprise to me that Germans are saying these things. I lived in Germany for 3 years recently, for the most part Germans have no conception of what “freedom of speech” really means. I actually had arguments with my German girlfriend, who was otherwise conservative, about exactly that. She and her family would say “freedom of speech to say the wrong things should be illegal,” with a straight face. That, and other reasons, are why I decided to leave Germany behind, as beautiful as it is, and come back to the US. There is something in the German psyche that just does not understand liberty.

  13. The Euro-clowns and several Americans totally missed the point! What appallingly poor reading and thinking skills on display.

  14. Oh my what a big hooferah about the truth. Where are any real journalists? Did the grand mufti of Jerusalam meet hitler, why yes he did, you know we do have this picture. The German reporter who thinks Americans have too much Freedom of Speech, must have missed the lessons and the Reality of those lessons given by her grandparents. Or her great grandparents or maybe her great grandparents. You, dare to lecture us in the Free World, it seems your great great greats forgot to inform you, that 3 or 4, you may be forgiven, but your ancestor are not. Your ancester conspired with the Muslims and that is why we are in such [odious substance] today..Hitler and the grand mufti joining forces which they did. It is there in black and white. No one has any right to say anything about Pam Geller,w ho shows it to you. No question.

  15. Wolfenberry:
    What??? I taught history in highschool for about 35 years in Germany and I didn’ t see anything you are reporting.Did I miss something there? My textbooks were full of representations of the nazi-iconology, for educational purposes,goes without saying.Not to mention that ” total taboo” .Then what did I teach then? It seems that you are trying to justify that prejudice you mention.Oh, boy, have mercy.Never read such nonsense.

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