Sponsoring Geert
“I don't need to agree with him to see the importance of him making his arguments,” said Pipes, the director of MEF, about Wilders, who heads the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and serves in the country's Parliament. Earlier this month, Wilder was not allowed to enter the United Kingdom due to his criticism of Islam, which included comparing it to Nazism, and last month a Dutch court ruled he could be prosecuted for hate speech.
Pipes said Wilders is an important figure who is part of the discussion about confronting and fighting radical Islam. “If our collective voice is impeded from speaking” or “shut down,” said Pipes, then “the way is paved for radical Islam to move ahead.”
Pipes said he felt hate speech laws, which have also been used to prosecute Holocaust deniers in Europe, are a bad idea.
“I believe in the First Amendment,” he said.
Co-sponsoring Wilders' appearance, during which he'll show his anti-radical Islam film “Fitna” and take questions, is the Republican Jewish Coalition. The group's executive director, Matt Brooks, said his organization had become involved after one of its chapter leaders in the area contacted them about signing on to the event.
Brooks said his organization also doesn't support Wilders' Koran ban, but believes he “sheds light on some troubling issues.” Anyone who disagrees, he said, “can go listen to whatever he has to say and ask whatever tough questions you want.”
“If we only had speakers we agree with 100 percent of the time, it would be a very small universe of speakers,” Brooks said.
On Thursday, Wilders is scheduled to be in Washington, where Sen. John Kyl is hosting a showing of Wilders' film for members of Congress and their staffs.
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Wilders is advocating destruction of paper with hate words on it, He is not calling for harm to a single human being. The case is a perversion of the law and should be thrown out. As long as that book, the Koran, with its blatant Jew hatred, is held sacred by the collective group(Muslims) that collective will always be held suspect, feared and treated as a underclass “other” by the Jews and enlightened people in the Western world. Read Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s book, The Lucifer Effect.
Am Israel Chai
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Rabbi Arie Chark
02/26/09 04:26 PM
Daniel Pipes and I agree on something?! Wow. I never thought that would happen. Next thing you know, I’ll have something to agree with Noam Chomsky about.
Nah. Some things are simply not meant to be.
OK, so I lied a tiny bit. I do not *entirely* agree with Pipes. I’m a Canadian and there is no Canadian equivalent to First Amendment rights—nor should there be. Free speech is not unlimited speech and I think that Mr Wilders may have crossed the line. We certainly agree, however, that Mr Wilders should be permitted to make his case publicly—whether the public is in the UK, Holland, the US, or Canada.