As a religious minority who have historically held unpopular beliefs, Jews have benefited from freedom of speech and religion, and can’t afford to take them for granted. In Britain, traditional protections on freedom of speech have been gradually eroded, and there have been instances of police showing up at people’s houses to investigate offensive social-media posts. Here in America, there is much talk of fighting online disinformation and concern about so-called “hate speech,” with little corresponding worry about preserving the First Amendment. The story of the Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen should thus serve as a cautionary tale of what can happen when the state uses intolerant means to enforce supposedly tolerant attitudes:

In 2021, Räsänen was charged on three counts of incitement against a minority group for stating long-held Christian beliefs about homosexuality.

These complaints resulted in eighteen months of police investigation and thirteen hours of interrogations. . . . I was sitting in the police station being interrogated, with the Bible on the table in front of me.

The questions were shamelessly about the Bible and its interpretation. I was asked, “What is the message of the book of Romans and its first chapter?” and “What do I mean by the words ‘sin’ and ‘shame’?” . . . The police asked if I would agree to delete my writings within two weeks. I said no and reasserted my belief in the Bible’s teachings, no matter the consequences. I will not apologize, I explained, for what the apostle Paul has stated.

The possible sentence for the crime of “ethnic agitation,” of which I have been accused, is up to two years imprisonment or a fine. In Finnish law, it falls within the “war crimes and crimes against humanity” section of the criminal code. The “hate speech” law had passed parliament unanimously without any real debate.

In the trial at the District Court, the prosecutor at first stated that the trial would not be an inquisition concerning the Bible. But then she . . . claimed that my views amounted to a doctrine that she summarized as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This doctrine she regarded as insulting and defaming because, according to her, you cannot distinguish between the person’s identity and his or her actions.

Räsänen expects the case will go her country’s supreme court. Finland currently has a small but flourishing Jewish community—but one could imagine such draconian laws being used against Orthodox members of this vulnerable minority by an unsympathetic government.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.