Antisemitism Awareness Act
Updated 2024-07-15
2024-06-13 Why the Senate Must Reject the Dangerous Antisemitism Awareness Act The bill could be used to crush legitimate debate about Israel, its policies, and American policies toward it—policies that have given rise to one of the greatest acts of genocide since the Holocaust.
Totalitarianism rarely shows its true face when it arises. Instead, it often pretends to stand for good and decent values. A new bill claims to fight antisemitism, something all decent people oppose. But antisemitism—that is, bias and discrimination against Jews because of their religion or ethnic identity—is already barred under civil rights law. The real goal of the so-called “Antisemitism Awareness Act” is to suppress free speech.
This dangerous bill was already passed by the House of Representatives and now awaits a Senate vote. It outsources some of our constitutional rights to an outside organization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose arbitrary definition of antisemitism poses a threat to civil liberties. It could be used to crush legitimate debate about Israel, its policies, and American policies toward it—policies that have given rise to one of the greatest acts of genocide since the Holocaust.
The implications are enormous. The federal government spends more than $100 billion per year on education, including $85.3 billion for kindergarten through high school, $24.6 billion in federal student aid assistance, and $1.3 billion in congressional earmarks for colleges (for projects that range from equipment purchases and airport runways to prison education programs). All these expenditures could be used as leverage to stifle legitimate debate.
Despite its “antisemitic” branding, the bill targets Jews as well as non-Jews. As literature professor Benjamin Balthasar writes, it would effectively ban the teaching of “much Jewish history and culture.” Balthasar observes that Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Ed Asner, and “countless other Jews would now be considered ‘antisemitic’ under the new law.”
The bill defines criticism of Israel as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That legislation allows citizens to file “administrative complaints with the federal agency that provides funds,” or to sue in federal court. That means that non-Jews could take action against anti-apartheid Jews—including deeply religious Jews who object to Israel’s existence on theological grounds. And they could do it in the name of antisemitism. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/antisemitism-awareness-act
.
Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
.
progressiveissuesblog 