Weekly Commentary: Confusing bad taste for illegal activity counter
productive

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 5 August 2015

Minister of Justice David Libai (Labor) proposed to authorize all police to
arrest anyone carrying a sign with an inciting message, to bring him before
a judge and immediately take away his sign.
Haaretz 8 November 1995

The following are some of the bumper sticker slogans which Professor Szewach
Weiss, Chairman of the Knesset (Labor) declared to be "inciting" in an
interview with Kol Yisrael on the morning news program on 8 November, 1995:
“Nightmarish Peace”
"Hebron, From Days of Yore and Forever"
"Rabin Does Not Have a Mandate"

OK. So we haven’t gone that far yet this time, but recent moves to
investigate people for criticizing the president and prime minister with
offensive language or with graphics in bad taste are equally counter
productive.

Counter productive because when bad taste is confused for truly illegal
behavior this may serve to actually reduce the degree of unacceptability of
truly illegal behavior.

We have this confusion in the school system. The term "school violence"
applies here equally both to someone yelling at his classmate and to someone
punching his classmate in the face. Now I’m not saying its nice for
someone to yell at a classmate, but as a parent (and now a grandparent!) I
most certainly want children to appreciate that there is a world of
difference between physical and verbal violence.

There is, unfortunately, more than enough truly illegal activity going on to
keep the police busy.

There is no reason to divert these vital resources from dealing with truly
illegal behavior.
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