Should Ahmadinejad Have Free Speech?

President-elect Obama says he is willing to talk to any international leader (including Ahmadinejad) if it will make Americans safer. Such openness horrifies tens of millions of evangelicals who unquestioningly accept Israel's "Don't talk. Attack!" mentality toward Iran.

Before Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the United Nations, the International Christian Embassy (a prominent Jerusalem-based evangelical organization) petitioned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. It demanded not only that the Iranian leader be denied freedom to speak to the UN but also that he be indicted for incitement to genocide against Israel. More than 55,000 people from 128 countries signed the petition. (See, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=
1221489063594 Evangelicals to UN: Indict Ahmadinejad")

Are some people so evil they should be denied freedom to speak in the international arena? Almost every evangelical lover of Israel says "Yes!" and believes Ahmadinejad is one of them.

But does God endorse their opinion? Christians, what if we could ask God what He thinks of banning free speech, even for those considered exceptionally evil?

God reveals His point of view in the Biblical book of Job. There we find Satan in the presence of a holy God, free to express any evil or malicious idea (short of reviling God to His face). In this ancient inspired Scripture, God taunts Satan that He enjoys the complete loyalty of a perfect man, Job. Satan audaciously boasts that he can make Job curse his Creator. The wager is laid between God's power to redeem and Satan's to destroy. Job is steadfast. God wins, despite staggering demonic persecution of Job. Through one man's life, God created an eternal testimony to those who trust in Him: although it may seem that He has forsaken us, He is very near and will everlastingly reward.

Could God's faithfulness have been so established if He had not first allowed free speech to Satan? It couldn't. Having created us free will beings, God warns that the wages of sin is death. Yet He defers judgment for periods short or long, respecting our freedom. He may be very angry at what we say, still, He always allows free will and resultant free speech.

Yet that's exactly what most evangelicals and Jews don't want Ahmadinejad to have: freedom to speak to the world!


False Prophets Forbade Free Speech

Throughout the Bible, evil Jewish leaders and false prophets routinely forbade free speech. Their actions anticipated modern "speech crime" laws, also inspired by evil Jews (the Anti-Defamation League). There was no grace period then, just as there is none under modern "hate crime" bureaucracies. Both demanded immediate silence under threat of harsh penalties. Like hate laws enforcers now, those evil rulers would not be reasoned with. Truth was not allowed to be admitted as evidence then or in hate crime tribunals at present. In times of Elijah, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist, authorities feared the prophets would humiliate them by publicly laying their sins bare. Nothing has changed today, as Jewish supremacists attempt to suppress all criticism of matters Jewish.

With God it is different. From the dawn of creation He allowed Satan free reign to articulately deceive Eve, and Eve, in turn to persuade Adam to rebel. Except for incitement to extremely dangerous or egregious sins such as idolatry, blasphemy, and reviling of parents, the theocracy of the Old Testament never sanctioned laws and use of force to end free speech. In such exceptions, God allowed free expression until the moment He cut it off. King David, reviled and stoned by Shimei as he fled the insurrection of David's son, Absalom, did not allow Shimei to be silenced. (2 Samuel 16:11) Such indulgence of free speech only increased in the New Testament age of grace.

The Bible's position could not be clearer: Let there be free speech!

What Ahmadinejad Really Says

Let's take a closer look at what Ahmadinejad actually says. He alleges that Jewish supremacy represents a primary nexus of evil in the world, particularly through domination of media, finance, and government in Western society. He also says Zionist Israel cruelly oppresses the Palestinians. He views the state of Israel as a tyranny which came into existence through terrorizing 800,000 Palestinians into fleeing their ancestral homeland in 1948. Israel, he says, continues such oppressions by incarcerating Palestinians in hellholes of Zionist concentration camps and IDF-occupied territories. (See, http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/israelsfoundingmiraclelandgrab.htm
Israel's Founding: Miracle or Land Grab?) All this is true.

Ahmadinejad advocates the violent overthrow of this political and military system, including warfare against Israelis who defend it. The larger context of his speeches and writings, however, proves he doesn't invite genocide (extermination) of the Jewish inhabitants of Israel. Yet, falsely, this is the primary accusation made by Christian Embassy and many Christians and Jews today.

Founding Fathers Weigh In

What about the authority of America's Founding Fathers regarding the freedom of evil people to speak? If we could raise Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson from the dead, would they join today's chorus of evangelicals and Jews attempting to take free speech from Ahmadinejad? Or would they, like Ahmadinejad, sanction overthrow of governments if they become tyrannical and oppressive? The Bill of Rights maintains it is the right and duty of the people to overthrow despotism! "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." The Founding Fathers' endorsement of revolution, if necessary, also implies that whatever inflammatory speech is required to encourage such overthrow should be allowed.

Would Founders Agree with Ahmadinejad?

Ahmadinejad and the Palestinians are accused of wanting to "drive Israel into the sea." But did not America's Founding Fathers attempt, through violence-inciting rhetoric and actual military offensives, to do just that to the British? They tried to drive the British into the sea for much smaller offenses than the Palestinians have suffered under Israel for the last 60 years!

Is Ahmadinejad a new Hitler, or a Patrick Henry, to the oppressed Palestinians? Concerning his right to free speech, it doesn't matter. Both Biblical and Constitutional precedence affirm his right to speak ­ even to the point of advocating violence against what he perceives as tyranny.

Of course, society must have laws that forbid speech and expression that encourages harm to the innocent. Yet Ahmadinejad's speech is not directed against the Jewish people in general, but against a conspiratorial international Jewish elite and oppressive government and military in Israel. Surely, Israel's cruel mistreatment of the Palestinians constitutes "a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object [which] evinces a design to reduce them [the Palestinians] under absolute Despotism" I believe that if the framers of our Constitution were to come on the scene today and be presented with an unbiased description of the plight of the Palestinians under Israel's harsh dominion, they, like Ahmadinejad, would cry out for an end to the political state of Israel.

Actually, the Bible prophesies that not Ahmadinejad but, with poetic justice, Israel's own long-awaited false messiah, antichrist, will turn upon the "great harlot" Israel, destroying her. Out of ensuing "great tribulation," a remnant of repentant Jews will believe on Christ at His second coming and, in obedience, at last have scriptural right to occupy the land. (See, http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/prophecysimple.html
Bible Prophecy Made Simple)

Conquest through Ideas, not Sword

Today Israel's status as fourth greatest military superpower, buttressed by at least 200 nuclear missiles, renders futile any attempt to militarily vanquish her. The Arab world has the right to defend itself from Zionist/American colonization of the Middle East. But it should abandon all terrorism, including suicide by bombings and rhetoric such as Ahmadinejad's "Israel should be wiped off the map!" Violence against civilians and incendiary language is the best PR Israel could imagine, uniting world opinion against the Palestinians and Iran. It makes their legitimate cries against Jewish supremacy and Zionist oppression vastly more difficult for the world to accept.

Ultimately, the only feasible way to restrain Jewish supremacy in Israel or anywhere else is not by the violent revolution America's founders might recommend but by heeding the cautions of Christ: "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Matthew 26:52) The Bible indicates warfare against the "synagogue of Satan" in all its manifestations is spiritual ­ an ideological contest between good and evil ideas. This battle is waged by the righteous through free speech.

Most American Christians are already very used to limiting their own free speech, having imposed on themselves and rigorously enforced a century-old ban on criticism of Israel and matters Jewish. Now, they further help destroy Biblically and Constitutionally authorized freedom by joining with Jews to deprive Ahmadinejad of free speech in the international forum. Although increasingly aware that Jewish-created hate laws threaten their free speech, they hypocritically unite with those very Jewish supremacists to deny free expression to one whom Jews declare "beneath representation."

The cycles of history have repeatedly demonstrated that one era's politically correct become the outcasts of another era. If Christians tear down the social and legal structures that have protected unpopular speech for centuries, someday Christians will find themselves without legal protection. Already, the Jewish supremacists with whom evangelicals have joined-including the Anti-Defamation League-describe Christian evangelicals as similar to Ahmadinejad, perpetuating "anti-Semitism," "genocide," "spiritual holocaust," "killing of Jewish souls." How? Do Christians threaten Israel? No. Their crime is sharing the good news of salvation with Jews! (See, http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/ntantisemitic.html
ADL's Foxman: New Testament is Anti-Semitic)

With this kind of actual hate speech proceeding against Christians from Jews in the highest echelons of media control and power, it takes little imagination to see what's coming. The same Jewish media that deprives Ahmadinejad of free speech today will as eagerly take it from Christians tomorrow.

By Rev. Ted Pike
http://www.truthtellers.org/