There’s No Excuse for Censoring Free Speech In the UK—But in Israel?

The argument for placing limits on speech

Growing up in the United Kingdom, I was always envious of the United States Constitution.

Specifically, I envied that Americans have what the British like to pretend they possess: the right to free speech with few, if any, significant limitations.

Enshrined in the First Amendment, free speech means that Americans can say what they like, when they like, how they like, and about whom they like. They can offend, they can blaspheme, they can be wrong. That is their right.

There are, of course, caveats. And in light of the manufactured outrage over the U.S. government’s move to deport Palestinian Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, it’s worth remembering them. Contrary to the claims of his supporters, Khalil has not been detained for attending or speaking at anti-Israel rallies. He is facing allegations that he “led activities aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” which, inconveniently for his defenders, happens to be a violation of U.S. visa regulations.

Meanwhile, under the grey skies of the British Isles, the picture is rather different. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s delusional declaration that Britain has free speech and will continue to do so “for a very, very long time” in response to U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s pointed remark—during their Oval Office meeting—that both British citizens and Americans living in the UK face “infringements” on speech was laughable.

This is coming from the man presiding over the very government under which anti-immigration unrest erupted in Southport—unrest fueled not only by the brutal murder of three young British girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party but by the police and political establishment’s efforts to obscure the identity of their killer. Axel Rudakubana, whose Rwandan parents came to the UK as asylum seekers, was the product of failed government policies that the authorities were desperate to suppress. Seriously, how does Starmer reconcile his claim of Britain’s unwavering commitment to free speech when his government literally jailed people for posting about the murders on social media?

It was within this—the UK’s ever-expanding and now outright dangerous culture of state censorship, where people can be jailed for their opinions—that my own views on free speech were formed.

I believed—perhaps naively—that the best way to combat dangerous ideas was to drag them into the light. Let people spout their antisemitism, their homophobia, their assorted bigotries. Better to see it out in the open than to let it fester in the darkness.

I believed that extremism thrives in echo chambers, that censorship merely lends credence to conspiracies, and that suppressing speech only makes it more alluring.

And then I moved to Israel.

I still believe in free speech. But I no longer believe it is absolute.

Deadly Speech

In England, restricting speech has largely served as a backdoor for the introduction of blasphemy laws—ones that, curiously enough, seem to exist only to shield the perpetually aggrieved followers of one particular faith. "Islamophobia" is now a prosecutable offense, as British Army veteran Daffron Williams, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran suffering from PTSD, discovered when he was sentenced to two years in prison for posting critical comments online.

Yet these same draconian measures never seem to apply to radical imams preaching hate in mosques across the country. Consider Birmingham’s Green Lane Mosque, a recipient of millions in government funding, whose preacher, Abu Usamah At-Thahabi, has openly called for the murder of homosexuals and non-Muslims.

The UK has no compelling reason for restricting speech in the way that it does. But in Israel? The issue is not one of theoretical rights but of immediate, life-or-death consequences.

Since the October 7 Hamas-led massacres (and long before), the Israeli government has been accused of persecuting Palestinians and Arab Israelis over nothing more than online expressions of solidarity with Gaza or criticism of the state.

Just two weeks after the attacks, The Guardian ran a headline claiming that Arabs were facing “reprisals” for posting online in support of Gaza. Among the supposed victims was Ahed Tamimi—professional provocateur, viral media darling, and a woman who has built an entire career out of inciting violence against Jews.

But the difference between Israel and England when it comes to arresting people over online speech is simple: in Israel, the correlation between speech online and real-world violence is unmistakable.

When a Palestinian posts a call to murder Jews, it is not mere rhetoric. It is a direct incitement to an action that has been carried out time and time again—on Israeli streets, in synagogues, in restaurants, in kibbutzim.

Take, for example, the Jerusalem bus station attack in November 2023, in which three Israeli civilians were murdered by Palestinian gunmen armed with automatic weapons. A report by Israel’s Reichman University’s International Institute for Counterterrorism linked the attack to a surge in Hamas and Islamic Jihad incitement at the start of the war in Gaza:

“The correlation between these online posts and real-life outcomes is unmistakable, manifested in the increase in attempted and successful terrorist attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including a rise in shooting incidents.”

Year after year, the same pattern repeats. Once, radicalization came from the sermons of imams in mosques across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, it is streamlined for efficiency, fed straight into the phones of young Palestinian men via Telegram channels urging them to riot at Al-Aqsa to “defend” the mosque from the latest imagined Jewish plot to destroy it—one that, like all the others, never materializes.

It is clear, then, that in Israel, the debate is not about free speech versus censorship. It is about security versus bloodshed. Life versus death. Stopping the next massacre before it happens. Israel’s so-called disregard for free speech is, in reality, a necessary measure to protect its citizens. Meanwhile, the UK government, far removed from existential threats, seeks to muzzle open debate, suppress criticism of its failing institutions, and criminalize dissent under the guise of “social cohesion.” These are not the same.

So, can one truly be a free speech absolutist when, sometimes, lives depend on limiting it? I don’t think so.