There is a law banning Nazi symbols in dozens of countries, but not in Israel?
Photo: AP
'Nazi' an illegal slur? It's about time
Op-ed: Law banning use of Nazi symbols in Jewish state should have been enacted decades ago
When I read the report about the new bill against a person calling another person "Nazi"
and against the use of Nazi symbols, I was really shocked. Not because this law bothers me or scares me, but simply because I had no idea that the State of Israel
in 2014 still didn't have a law banning Nazi symbols and labels of the darkest regime in history.
Well, it turns out that until this very day the only Jewish country in the world doesn't even have such a law. Indeed, it's odd that it has taken so long for some of our lawmakers, led by MK Shimon Ohayon, to correct this outrage.
I naively thought there was such a law, but that it was just not being enforced very well; for example, in cases in which Neturei Karta members and their colleagues use those names against IDF soldiers and police officers.
Anti-Semitism
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In dozens of countries across the universe, including Germany and Austria – there has been for decades a law banning Holocaust denial, incitement on anti-Semitic grounds (including the curse "Nazi") and use of Nazi symbols. You'll probably ask how such a law can be enforced – the fact is that it can be, and that is being done in the civilized world.
As opposed to what some Israelis think, the curse "Nazi" is not like any other swearword. That's because its intention is not just to tease a person, but to compare him to those who exterminated six million Jews, hundreds of thousands of Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and gypsies in death camps, and caused the death of more than 60 million people when they launched a world war. So there is no logical reason to compare between a so-called acceptable curse and the word "Nazi."
Clearly, curses cannot be banned completely (which is a shame), but it's also clear to me that racist curses must be prohibited, and so there is a need for such a law too. I can’t understand how some allegedly sane and normative people in Israel believe there is no room for such a law, which should have been enacted decades ago.
