Free speech and reckless charges

It's amazing what a little persuasion can accomplish. I wrote a couple of days ago of remarks on a major far-right Zionist and pro-Milosevic site, in which - mirabile dictu - my support for Tony Blair's position on Kosovo had been magically transmuted into support for Nazism and genocide, for which I was labelled an enemy of the Jews. I have never remotely considered threatening - let alone actually threatened - legal action against a blogger, to which I would be opposed on libertarian grounds. But I commented, in the case of this website that presents itself as an advocate for Israel:

I looked recently and in another context at the issue of the Internet and libel law. I remarked that, for my part, I could not conceive of realistic circumstances in which I would threaten legal action against a blogger. But I confess I hadn't considered at all a circumstance in which I might be depicted as a supporter of Nazism, genocide and ethnic cleansing.... Given the recklessness of IsraPundit's charges, the repulsiveness of its politics, and the gracelessness of its non-apology, I did consider the possibility of referring this one for legal advice. On grounds of my belief in free speech and of the evident stupidity of the charges, I am very unlikely to take that course even in this case.

So I was, and so I did not. The editor of the IsraPundit site has belatedly said the right thing, even so. He has today posted on his site a long comment, of which the important part is:

The more I read and the more I reflect on [his contributor] Nathan’s attack on Oliver Kamm, the more I want to distance myself and condemn it. Nathan has lost it. He has become hysterical in his zeal. His attack was egregious and greatly defamatory. And those that endorsed his attack are equally wrong.... To further call into question [Kamm's] friendship of the Jews is outrageous. Oliver Kamm has a long history of protecting Jews and Israel and nothing in his position on Serbia tarnishes that record.

I am close to being an absolutist on grounds of free speech, and would always interpret the issue of libel very narrowly. (I am not quite an absolutist, though. I have referred before to one case where I believe a libel writ by a large media organisation to defend the reputation and integrity of its journalists was absolutely justified.) So when I raised this issue with the editor of IsraPundit in the first place, I specifically said that I did not wish to see the offending comments removed; I asked only for an additional editorial comment dissociating the site from those judgements. That has now happened, so the matter is satisfactorily closed.

I'm pleased, moreover, to have looked a little more closely as a result of this altercation at the murky world of pro-Milosevic apologetics, and will return to this issue. I would stress - as one well known author on the Balkans has rightly reminded me today, and as I ought already to have said - that American Jewry was on all the available evidence overwhelmingly supportive of the victims of Milosevic's aggression in the 1990s. The sort of xenophobic and conspiracy-minded sentiment represented by the site I have taken issue with is an extreme and minority view, just as that site's opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are far out of line with the views of Israeli voters and political leaders.

UPDATE: I must move on, especially because I don't usually write about web commentary - but for sheer nuttiness the IsraPundit circle really is difficult to match. It is not quite the first time - strictly, it's the second - that I've ever been accused of being an agent of Noam Chomsky. But at least one regular has the right idea: "If anyone is slandering anyone it is Kamm who is slandering Israpundit as extremist and warmongers." That is indeed my judgement of these people, who are a complete liability for the cause of Israel's security and the vibrancy of her democracy.