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Letters They Wouldn't Publish
August 28, 2006
Letters to the Editor
The New Republic
Dear Editor:
Ian Buruma (Sept. 4) greatly exaggerates the response of Mel Gibson's critics to his antisemitic tirade.
He alleges that they "set the terms in which their communities can be discussed by others" and that they engage in "a form of intimidation, which interferes with free speech." In fact, all they are engaged in is expressing their opinions. They are not in charge of setting the terms of public discussion. They are not proposing legislation to outlaw language they dislike. Gibson was charged with drunk driving, not antisemitism.
Buruma believes he has found "an example of this [intimidation]" in a catalogue editor's rejection of an article about Disraeli that Buruma submitted. The editor explained that his board members "are very touchy on this topic" and might object. But does this really demonstrate some sinister conspiracy to suppress discussion of Jewish topics? It sounds more like a case of an editor being overly sensitive to his board members' pet peeves. In a free society, of course, an editor can reject any article, for any reason, and the writer can submit his article to another publication.
For Buruma to compare Gibson's critics to the opponents of Salman Rushdie, the killer of
Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the Mafia is wildly unfair. Opponents of Gibson have not issued an Iranian-style call for Gibson's head; they have not slit Gibson's throat, as the terrorist Mohammed Bouyeri did to van Gogh; they have not engaged in the kind of violent intimidation for which the Mafia is notorious. All they have done is criticize Gibson. And Gibson has certainly done plenty to earn that criticism.
Cordially,
Rafael Medoff
Director
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Melrose, Park, PA
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Letters:
Compassion Fatigue on Darfur?
May 14, 2007
Yes, Let's Be Candid About the Mideast
March 19, 2007
Brandeis and the White Paper
November 14, 2006
Iran and Germany
November 13, 2006
Rescue Was Possible
September 25, 2006
The Jews in Iran
September 13, 2006
The Failure to Bomb Auschwitz
September 3, 2006
Mel Gibson's Critics
August 28, 2006
Jo Davidson: Sculptor and Activist
July 31, 2006
Nazi War Criminals in Arab Countries
May 10, 2006
Israel and Auschwitz
May 9, 2006
William Safire and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
April 22, 2006
Suppressing Holocaust News
April 7, 2006
Betty Friedan and the Nazis
March 13, 2006
Civil Liberties, in Nazi Germany and the U.S.
February 17, 2006
Paul McCloskey and the Deniers
February 11, 2006
Holocaust Denial is Bigotry
February 3, 2006
Not Just "Following Orders"
January 30, 2006
Melvin Lasky and the Holocaust
January 23, 2006
Saudi Arabian Holocaust-Denial
December 15, 2005
Iranian Holocaust Denial
December 10, 2005
Anti-Semitism in Jordan
November 13, 2005
Culture of Hatred in Jordan
November 10, 2005
German Jewish Refugee Children
October 24, 2005
An Earlier Black-Jewish Alliance
October 21, 2005
Treatment of Illegal Aliens Not Similar to Holocaust
September 4, 2005
Hollywood and the Nazi Filmmaker
September 4, 2005
Patton's Antisemitism
August 14, 2005
Sudan, Congress, and the Holocaust
July 25, 2005
Harvard and the Nazis
June 29, 2005
The New York Times and the Holocaust
June 27, 2005
Should the U.S. Have Bombed Auschwitz?
January 29, 2005
Bigotry and Culture
January 26, 2005
Susan Sontag and the Nazi Filmmaker
December 30, 2004
How Moss Hart Alerted America About the Holocaust
November 2, 2004
The Quotas That Kept Out the Refugees
October 22, 2004
Lindbergh and Antisemitism - Then and Now
September 26, 2004
Rationalizing Stalin's Pact with Hitler
September 20, 2004
Turning a Blind Eye to Hitler
September 20, 2004
Truman and the Holocaust
September 1, 2004
FDR and the Warsaw Uprising
August 7, 2004
More on the Nazi Olympics
July 18, 2004
Avery Brundage and the 1936 Olympics
July 07, 2004
Genocide, Then and Now
June 27, 2004
Sudan and the Holocaust
June 22, 2004
Why did the United States turn its back on the Jews of Europe?
June 18, 2004
A Boxer Who Fought for His People
June 17, 2004
A Voice for Rescue
June 11, 2004
Morris Brafman, Soviet Jewry, and the Holocaust
May 28, 2004
An Unsung Hero of the Struggle for Jewish Freedom
May 28, 2004
FDR & the Holocaust: New Evidence
April 23, 2004
Mel Gibson and the Holocaust
April 18, 2004
Was Rescue Possible?
April 11, 2004
A Play That Smashed Racism
April 3, 2004
Hitler's Filmmaker
March 20, 2004
New Biography Wrong About FDR
February 29, 2004
Mel Gibson's Holocaust Problem
February 27, 2004
A Principal Who Stood Up for a Principle
February 8, 2004
Truman's Antisemitism
February 6, 2004
Inappropriate Hitler Analogy
December 18, 2003
George Marshall, Racism, and the Holocaust
November 13, 2003
The Failure to Bomb Auschwitz
December 24, 2002
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