COMMENTARY: Judge Should Not Have Allowed Hateful Anti-Muslim Subway Ads

A woman was arrested in New York City this week for defacing a poster in the city's subway that compares Muslims to "savages."

Mona Eltahawy -- an Egyptian-American Muslim -- was arrested by New York police, and faces a court trial for spray-painting on the ad.

The ad has the support of the pro-Israeli group American Freedom Defense Initiative and reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

Originally, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) refused to post the "savage" ad, because it considered the ad to be hateful; however, a court ruling forced the MTA to post it because failure to do so violates freedom of speech.

While we are strong supporters of freedom of speech, we believe the ad is too hateful to be posted in the New York subway -- or anywhere else for that matter.

It would not surprise me one iota if the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- or other American Islamic group -- soon retaliates by placing an anti-Israeli ad in the New York subway.

For example, the pro-Islam ad could say, "In a conflict between a group seeking to regain its true homeland and a country that seized it, support the group seeking its bona fide land. Support Palestine. Defeat land-seizers."

The fact is that neither one of the two hateful situations described above should occur in our society. Indeed, the judge who authorized the pro-Israeli ad -- due to the right of freedom of speech -- must have been wearing "blinders," since he failed to see that freedom of speech does not justify hateful messages against a religious or ethnic group of people.

All in all, the decision of the judge to allow this hateful ad to be posted on the new York City subway walls conveys a sad message; namely, that a person or group can insult another person or group without any limitation, because of the freedom of speech to which Americans are entitled.

In the final analysis, such freedom of speech -- which has no limitation in defaming individuals or groups of people -- is a good example of why the American judicial system has become a failure in our society.