American debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being stifled by an insidious form of pre-emptive censorship.

Land of the free? | American debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being stifled by an insidious form of pre-emptive censorship. | Richard Silverstein | October 9, 2007 3:00 PM

I've noticed what may be a new phenomenon in the Israel-Palestine debate as it plays out in the US. I call it pre-emptive censorship. A number of non-Jewish organisations have denied supposedly controversial speakers or organisations the right to speak or perform due to the anticipated reaction of the local Jewish community.
...
But in the case of the postponed New York performance of My Name is Rachel Corrie, a cancelled Chicago appearance of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, a cancelled concert by Marcel Khalife in San Diego, and a cancelled speech by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Minneapolis, the hosts nixed the appearances before there was any protest. And they cancelled because of an anticipated response from the Jewish community which they had no reason to know might ever happen. This to me seems absolutely pernicious to open political debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
...
"The bottom line is that preventing us from speaking before the council is not the way we are supposed to be conducting public debate on important issues in the United States," Mearsheimer said.
...
Liberal Jewish bloggers who report on these outrages understand that the Israel lobby retains enormous reach in its ability to pre-empt speech and manipulate the public debate. But our conviction is that the more these incidents see the light of day, the more the power of the lobby to stifle debate will wane. So far Goliath is still king of walk. But someday he will be felled by the giant's own hubris.