UK Lawyers for Israel Clarify 'Free Speech' Doesn't Apply to Boycotts
The story from The New Arab notes UKLFI's legal warnings, triggered by figures like Olivia Colman and Emma Stone supporting a boycott. This comes despite decades of similar pressures on regimes for human rights abuses (e.g., apartheid South Africa). The BBC and Netflix, ever so eager to 'both-sides' any discussion remotely critical of Israeli policy, will no doubt weigh the 'caution' against their
supposed commitment to artistic freedom—or more likely, their bottom line. It appears that calls for accountability are only 'dangerous' when directed at certain nation-states. One might suggest that if one is truly concerned about accusations of antisemitism, perhaps the best course of action is to not conflate the actions of a government with an entire religious group. But that would require
actually engaging with criticism, not silencing it with legal threats. The BBC, of course, has a rich history of buckling under such pressure, often adopting language that sanitizes state violence as 'clashes' or 'conflict'.