DERSHOWITZ: Right. The speech is tasteless, provocative, but it has a value because it’s making the statement that violent extremists aren’t going to set the boundaries of free speech in this country. This is a country where literally nothing is sacred. And if we’re going to accept an assassin’s veto in this case, we’re going to say the only exception is the image of Muhammad. That’s just perverse and that’s not what this country is about, and that’s not the way it should work.
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DERSHOWITZ: I know. I agree. Look, everything that the critics of what Geller has said could be said about Martin Luther King. Now, I don’t want to make any comparisons between the two of them morally or legally, but from a constitutional law point of view, there’s no difference. Martin Luther King picked some of the cities he went to precisely in order to provoke, and bring out the racists and show what kind of violent people they are, so the world could see what is wrong with Jim Crow. It’s part of the American tradition to provoke, so that the world can see.
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DERSHOWITZ: And there is some value, but I think one has to remember the most important part of this is there’s only one group in the world today that threatens to kill people who offend them, and that is radical Muslims. . They don’t need Geller to do it. They issued fatwas against Salman Rushdie.
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DERSHOWITZ: They issued a fatwa and then murdered Theo Van Gogh. You know, Jews and Christians don’t go after and threaten to kill (inaudible) when he makes this outrageous and anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements are made. They don’t do it to other groups. And we just cannot accept the veto by threatened extreme violence.