After the Oct. 7 murders, the first attempts to punish speakers focused on those who defended Hamas's murders. But, unsurprisingly, things have turned to trying to suppress criticism of Israel more broadly, including criticism of Israel's attacks on Gaza. (The slippery slope is a real phenomenon, in a culture where people reason by precedent and analogy in developing both laws and social norms.) The firing of actress Melissa Barrera from Scream 7, in response to her accusing Israel of "genocide and ethnic cleansing" and of "[distorting] the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry," is just one prominent example. The production company's explanation:
We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.
Attempts to place outright advocacy of murder beyond the pale have thus morphed into punishments for what is seen as "false" characterization of a foreign government's actions. Likewise, the Ingber v. NYU lawsuit claims NYU violated federal law by tolerating not just discrimination against specific Jewish students and anti-Semitism but also speech "denying Jews the right to self-determination"; and the lawsuit argues for adopting a definition of prohibited anti-Semitism as including, among other things,
