Israeli Apartheid Week is more than an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatefest full of nonsensical pronouncements that have no basis in reality. It is also a direct, frontal attack on two of our most fundamental, inalienable rights, freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

IAW organizers and participants are not interested in dialogue or the unfettered exchange of ideas. They know that they would come out a very poor second if challenged and that no person with a sound and open mind would take them seriously. That is why anyone who raises his or her voice in protest at an IAW event is harassed and threatened and shouted down and why their statements are trite and filled with cliches and hyperbole.

Whatever ones views are on the Middle East as people living in a free, democratic, secular society we have every right to express them in whatever way we see fit. The minute that someone prevents us from doing so and gets away with it is the minute we can no longer call ourselves free. Israeli Apartheid Week brownshirts are threatening our freedom by trying to intimidate and shut up anyone who opposes them. We must not let them succeed. Rest assured, if freedom of speech and freedom of expression are lost a free press, an independent judiciary, freedom of religion and all the other hallmarks of our way of life will be lost too.

Israeli Apartheid Week won't bring down Israel or raise up Palestinians. The mentality behind it and the bilge it spits out diminish us all and pose a serious threat to our civil liberties however and it is incumbent on each and every one of us to counter its odious activities with energy and passion.