Telling unfunny jokes should not be a crime

The antisemite described below is black and appears jealous of the attention that Jewish suffering gets.

"He has called some of his Jewish critics ‘slave traders who turned to banking or the entertainment business and now to terror activities’ He once labelled the French president’s chief-of-staff a ‘good little soldier of the Zionist lobby’

In a video circulating on the internet, he appears to attack a ‘yid Zionist lobby’ led by ‘racist liars’. He once appeared on a television show dressed as an Orthodox Nazi-saluting Jew shouting ‘IsraHeil’. In a skit he mimics the Jewish-French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, haggling with a street potato-seller and says: ‘How can you ask me to pay so much when six million of us died in the Holocaust?’ He apparently declared, in a radio interview, that he has a habit of ripping out the pages in his children’s school books that deal with the Holocaust, which he believes Jewish people exploit for ‘memorial pornography’.

The man in question – and currently in the eye of yet another comedy controversy – is the French comedian Dieudonné. None of this seems very funny to me. But then again, my French is a bit rusty.

The comedian, whose full name is Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, was last week fined €10,000 for ‘public anti-Semitic insults’ after inviting the notorious revisionist historian and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on stage during a stand-up comedy show in Paris last December. In the skit, Faurisson received a spoof award for ‘social unacceptability and insolence’ from an actor dressed in a chequered flannel pyjama with a yellow star sewn on. When the stagehand claims he was made to wear the pyjama because he was meeting Faurisson, Dieudonné replies: ‘No you fool, you’re wearing it because you were in Belsen, it was obligatory!’ The implication is that the foolish stagehand unwittingly reveals to the audience that he is not an authentic Holocaust victim and Dieudonné, pretending to be the award ceremony host, tries to hide the gaffe.

Of Cameroonian and Breton middle-class origins, Dieudonné is known for no-holds-barred satire of racial prejudices. He started his career as part of a comedy double act with Jewish comedian Elie Semoun, who has in recent years distanced himself from Dieudonné. He has had the conscience of the French liberal press in tortured contortions, as he’s caused them to debate, to and fro, where to draw the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, what makes a joke drole, and if and where to limit free speech.

As a magazine which does not believe in slapping gags on gags or in fining opinions - and which believes the public can cope with being offended – spiked completely opposes the criminalisation of Dieudonné’s offensive skits.

Firstly, this would be counterproductive, as it is likely to help Dieudonné claim he is some kind of martyred, free-speech warrior. It will also fuel the conspiratorial mindset of Dieudonné’s fans and others with nightmare visions of a nefarious Zionist lobby occupying, not just Gaza and the West Bank, but also the high seats of power where they get to sit around tables dictating the political agenda (why are Zionists so keen on round tables, anyway?).

Secondly, if we let the authorities put a price on Dieudonné’s words, then there is no telling which opinions will be fined into extinction in the future. Already we have seen how a growing culture of offence-taking has led to the watering-down of comedy and has severely limited freedom of expression in other spheres, too....

Source

Note that the writer above bears the surname Rothschild, so is presumably Jewish

A bit of trivia: Most people pronounce the name "Rothschild" as if it were "Roths child". That is strictly wrong. It should be pronounced as "Roth Schild", which is German/Yiddish for "Red shield"