BREAKING: The House just passed HR 6090, which expands the definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel.
Let me be clear. People have rights. State governments do not have rights. This terrible bill sets a dangerous precedent & does nothing to actually decrease or stop the scourge of antisemitism. The Senate should not pass this bill and Biden should not sign it into law.
Imagine criminalizing criticism of Pakistan or Iran, or Mauritania as Islamophobic because each nation starts with "Islamic Republic of." It would be absurd, precisely because state nations do not have rights, people do.
The same applies with antisemitism & criticism of Israel.
Fuck the Likud led Israeli government. And I salute all Israeli citizens who have taken to the streets to protest the current atrocities in Gaza.
Israel has forgotten the lessons taught to them during WWII. Instead of "Never Again", they are repeating the very atrocities visited upon them seventy some odd years ago.
People really, really need to read the history of Palestine and Israel.
@QasimRashid hahaha, of course they'll vote it in, and of course Biden, with a shit eating grin, will sign it in to law, with genocidal monsters flanking him.
American democracy was always a thin veneer of lies, but even that is gone now, with it becoming clear that America is to become the next fascist state, with both parties' blessing
@QasimRashid Anti-Russia means whoso has that opinion-- also hates all Russians? That's ridiculous. Thanks for the news--I can't believe the Senate will pas it.
@QasimRashid While they’re at it, they might as well expand the legal definition of Russophobia to include criticisms of the Holy Russian Empire and the legal definition of Sinophobia to include criticisms of the Communist Party of China. That’s what this sounds like to me.
@QasimRashid This is nonsense. You can criticize any government without being racist or xenophobic. It's just performative politics. Which is all the house does anymore.
@QasimRashid I agree. I’ve witnessed and objected to the rising anti-semitism on campuses; seen and objected to how some protest against Israeli government action is a thin cloak for antisemitism. I’m also a longtime, fierce critic of Netanyahu govt policies and of the Israeli theocratic form of government. As a non-practicing American Jew, I should have the right and ease to do both. @KatM
@philip Rep Nadler, who is Jewish and serves the largest Jewish constituency in the nation explains the problem well based on how that passage is already interpreted. "“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”"
@philip@QasimRashid It’s cutting it close. Whether the state of Israel’s stated goals of remaining a jewish state is racist should still be up for debate, because it is a debate that can be learned from. It’s useful because ethnicity was a thing on the ground through 1920 to 1990, even if technically one can convert to Judaism nowadays.
The conflict is based on deep ethnically-based divisions and violence in the past, and it isn’t a worthless argument.
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