Why does anti-Semitic hate speech get a free pass?

Shalom Kiwi reports:

Fast forward four months to the high-profile Vodafone Music Awards, when the recipient of a lifetime music award, Dean Hapeta of hip hop group Upper Hutt Posse took to the stage and, in a rambling speech, called for war against Israel and “death to all oppressors”.

The left labelled the two Canadians at hate speech that must be stopped. So let’s look at what Hapeta said:

all of our armed forces and military that have been fighting in these fake wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for oil, for USA imperialism – get outta there! What you need to be doing is going to Palestine to fight against the racist terrorism of the Israeli state. That is where all of our fighting energy needs to be.

First he calls for the NZ military to be used to destroy the state of Israel.

“Death to all oppressors!”

And he explicitly calls for anyone he deems an oppressor to be killed. Not removed from power. But killed.

Rather than be condemned, Shalom Kiwi reports how many on the left said they approved on what he said.

That weekend RNZ ran an entirely favourable, soft interview with two members of Upper Hutt Posse on its Music 101 programme  and read out listeners’ messages defending the speech. Maori Television similarly ran an uncritical piece highlighting the group’s activism.

So it’s fine to use hate speech, if it is for a cause the left approve of.

But, you say, Hapeta was just defending the rights of the Palestinians! He’s anti-oppression, not anti-Jew!  Let’s examine that. Hapeta took to the stage and, in his moment in the spotlight, took the opportunity to call not for peace, tolerance or coexistence but for violence against the one tiny Jewish state, thousands of miles away.  The final words were “death to the oppressors”, and he left little doubt about who he saw as the “oppressors”. In a world of conflict and turmoil, in a region wracked with ancient tribal grievances, hegemonic jostling for power and layers of geopolitical complexity, Hapeta’s solution to righting those problems is to annihilate those troublesome Jews. Sounds familiar.

And he has form against Jooows

The summary of this is:

Rather than championing the oppressed, Hapeta is denying Jewish emancipation and self-determination. He denies Jews’ very existence as a people, spreads harmful lies about them and calls for violence against them. He’s not fighting oppression, he’s an oppressor.

And to conclude:

Jews are too vividly aware of the recent murder of 11 of their people in Pittsburgh at the hands of someone steeped in the same conspiracies and hatred that appear in Hapeta’s online comments.  Jews are too aware of the reality that, around the world, attacks on Jews are steadily rising in frequency. When people make Jews out to be the source of all the world’s evils, and incite harm against them, it should be called out.  Those who vociferously condemn hateful views on other sides of the political spectrum should apply the same zero-tolerance approach to marginalisation or victimisation of all minority groups.

Well said.