Last week, Rachel Ehrenfeld was honored at the American Jewish
Historical Society for her work in exposing sources of terrorism
and resisting attempts to silence her. Ehrenfeld is the author of
Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop
It, in which she exposes Saudi billionaire Khalid bin
Mahfouz as a financer of terrorism. In response to the
accusation, bin Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in British
courts — a tactic known as “libel tourism” — on the grounds
that 23 copies of Funding Evil, which was only published
in the U.S., had been purchased over the Internet and shipped to
the UK. He obtained a default judgment and an award of $225,000.
Ehrenfeld chose not to appear in British courts, where libel laws
are much more plaintiff friendly. Instead, she sought a
declaratory judgment in New York courts holding bin Mahfouz’s
judgment invalid. Both the New York Southern District Court and
the New York Court of Appeals declined to assert jurisdiction
over bin Mahfouz, leaving Ehrenfeld with the often proposed, but
rarely successful, method of seeking passage of a new law in the
state legislature. In this case, however, the New York
Legislature quickly passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act,
which Governor David Paterson signed into law in April of this
year. The act, nicknamed “Rachel’s Law,” grants New York courts
jurisdiction over persons who obtain foreign libel judgments
against New York writers or publishers and limits enforcement of
foreign libel judgments to those rendered under legal systems
that meet the standards of the U.S. First Amendment.
Passage of the New York law led U.S. Rep. Peter King to introduce
the Free Speech Protection Act in Congress, co-sponsored by
Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner. The bill would protect U.S.
residents from foreign libel judgments if the speech would not be
libelous under U.S. law. Arlen Specter, Joseph Lieberman, and
Charles Schumer have co-sponsored a Senate version. (There is a
particular irony in Senator Schumer’s co-sponsoring legislation
to protect free speech rights given his support for reviving the
Fairness Doctrine, one of the great threats to free discourse in
America.)
The legislation, along with the experience of Rachel Ehrenfeld,
is a reminder of the threats that both terrorism and the erosion
of free speech pose to our free society. Unfortunately, it is one
to which much of the international community at large seems
oblivious. The United Nations, in particular, has sanctified
attempts to restrict free speech. Last month, the UN General
Assembly’s Third Committee passed the “Combating Defamation of
Religions” measure designed to criminalize “blasphemy” of
religions. The 57 member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)
sponsored the resolution as an attempt to prevent criticism of
Islam, and it is scheduled for a final vote soon.
If anyone still has doubts about the efficacy of the UN, this
charade should resolve them. The free world faces a war against
an extreme Islamofascist ideology whose advocates seek to destroy
democracy and spread Islamic Shari’a law across the globe, and UN
bureaucrats are more worried about offending the perpetrators.
Furthermore, it is laughable that the OIC, along with Venezuela
and Belarus, are seeking to pass worldwide legislation in the
name of “tolerance,” although it is the kind of bad joke that
observers of the UN should expect. Who could forget the UN’s 2001
World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which
quickly turned into an attack on the Jewish state of Israel and
prompted Secretary of State Colin Powell to leave the conference?
The UN will be holding another World Conference Against Racism in
2009, with a new administration representing the U.S. It is
crucial that President-elect Obama continue the Bush
administration’s opposition — even if unpopular — to the OIC
blasphemy resolution and other attempts by the UN to threaten
freedom in the name of political correctness. America’s free
speech tradition is not a partisan issue, nor should it be a
point of negotiation with the international community. Free
discourse represents an uncompromising American principle, and
the world would be a better place if all nations shared it. That,
however, would probably be asking too much. That Congress should
quickly pass legislation guaranteeing the rights of all Americans
to speak freely without fear of international harassment is not.
