Anti-Israel activists insist their protests in America are protected by the First Amendment. After calls for a “Jew hunt” in Amsterdam and the orchestrated attacks that followed the organization online, it’s time to assess when hateful rhetoric like the “globalization intifada” moves from protected speech to incitement to violence.

The slogan “globalize the Intifada” refers to two previous Palestinian “revolts”, one in 1990 and the other in 2000-2005. These periods were marked by suicide bombings in Israel on buses and other public spaces, stabbings of civilians and other acts of violence. Since October 7, the slogan has been used on college campuses, including Chapman University and UCI. It was shouted in City Hall chambers in Irvine, Santa Ana and Anaheim by protesters ironically calling for “ceasefire” resolutions. Chants of “globalization Intifada” have been used when targeting Israeli or Jewish businesses in the United States and even at the homes of prominent American Jews.

Last week in Amsterdam, fans of the Israeli soccer team were identified as Jews and then beaten in a premeditated attack. The Jews were mocked as they were chased and thrown into the river. The attackers chanted “Jews, Jews, IDF, IDF” and “free Palestine” as they attacked soccer fans visiting the city. After the attack in Amsterdam, the Jews of Stockholm were beaten. This weekend in New York, a masked man tried to snatch a Jewish boy who was walking with his father in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court developed a legal standard for evaluating when speech could be restricted based on incitement to imminent illegality. The Supreme Court held that to limit such speech, it must be 1) directed toward inciting or producing imminent unlawful action, and 2) likely to incite or produce such action.

In the Court’s particular case, Ohio’s law restricting speech was held to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court found that the KKK’s rights were violated and the state statute was too broad. The constitutional deficiency of the Ohio legislation was that it did not assess whether the hate speech would actually incite violence. The Supreme Court’s prevailing test errs on the side of free speech. It is designed to balance First Amendment protections with the need to protect public safety.

The Supreme Court favors a generous reading of the First Amendment. Free speech is a pillar of American democracy even when the speech is ugly and hateful. But as a society, we must not tolerate chants and slogans that are obvious incitements to violence.

Have the events of the past week shown that chants like “globalize the intifada” meet the Brandenburg test? The bloody riot in Amsterdam and the spread of violence against Jews throughout the world have indeed demonstrated that the slogans that have permeated society in the past year are both aimed at inciting violence and likely to incite such violence. Chanting “globalize the Intifada” promotes acts of indiscriminate violence against Jews. Point.

Congress and state legislators don’t have to wrestle with how to craft new legislation to reign in hate speech that has been proven to incite violence. Such regulations would rightly be tested in the courts to ensure that any such hypothetical legislation is not overbroad, thus delaying any immediate implementation. Universities and municipalities are already equipped with constitutionally tested time, place, and manner restrictions. Universities must stop pretending that hate on their campuses, including the red triangles marking Jewish targets, are “peaceful protests” and enforce their codes of conduct. City councils must stop allowing government forums to be co-opted to spread anti-Semitism. Municipalities may apply their decorum codes and limit the use of open meeting laws to subjects within their jurisdiction.

An open society depends on the free exchange of ideas. It is often said that the antidote to bad speech is good speech. This may be true in a debating club, in a structured University class, or in the halls of Congress; but when mobs are given liberties to call for attacks and such chants actually produce violence, we must reflect. We must not allow our society to go from one that promotes the open discussion of thought and debate of philosophies to one that promotes violence against a subsection of our population, in this case, the Jews.

Julie Marzouk is a lawyer, author and activist. She lives in Irvine.