Anti-government speech cannot be conveniently labeled “harassment” or “abuse” whenever detractors would like it to stop. Anarchists may hold an anti-US government demonstration on, say, the University of Virginia campus and, perhaps with the appropriate permit, burn American flags. Such a protest cannot, however, be branded harassment by the Daughters of the American Revolution for the purposes of abridging any offensive speech.
The US Supreme Court decided in March in Snyder v. Phelps that members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who protest near funerals of US soldiers and shout the vilest slurs, could not be sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress, despite the foulness of their campaign. The Supreme Court ruling was not close; justices voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro rabble-rousers.
If the First Amendment protects such hateful speech, it very obviously protects acerbic speech about Israel, and even about Jews or other minority groups. British fashionisto John Galliano was convicted in a French court this month and fined over $8,000 for anti-Semitic slurs he mumbled while swaying atop a Parisian bar stool, but such punishment of speech in the US is unthinkable.
