Trump guts the First Amendment: signs Executive Order suppressing criticism of Israel

[unknown]

Trump signs executive order aimed at suppressing criticism of Israel

At a Hanukkah celebration in the White House Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at suppressing criticism of the Israeli government on college campuses across the United States.

The action is targeted in particular at squelching the First Amendment rights of US-based students, professors and other activists involved in the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, by classifying opposition to the policies of the state of Israel as anti-Semitism.

Trump’s order expands the federal government’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits funding to institutions which discriminate or allow discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, to include anti-Semitism.

Trump declared that his order makes clear that Title VI “prohibits the funding of institutions which traffic in anti-Semitic hate.” He went on to proclaim that if publicly funded universities “want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars you get every year you must reject anti-Semitism.”

The president boasted of his tremendous support for Israel as proof of his support for Jews, citing his decisions to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognize Israel’s control over the disputed Golan Heights and tear up the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.

While he didn’t specify which institutions were targeted by the order, he did explicitly call out the BDS movement, whose supporters seek to pressure Israel through protests and lobbying into ending its occupation of the West Bank, grant full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and recognize the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Leaders of the BDS movement have been blocked from entering Israel and supporters are routinely smeared as anti-Semites simply for advocating on behalf of the Palestinian people.

Replying to early reports, the Trump administration was at pains to insist that this stretching of the scope of anti-discrimination measures was not meant to redefine Jews as a nationality or race, itself a vile anti-Jewish trope deployed by the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Semites.

“The executive order does not define Jews as a nationality,” Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times Wednesday. “It merely says that to the extent that Jews are discriminated against for ethnic, racial or national characteristics, they are entitled to protection by the anti-discrimination law.”

Critically, the executive order encourages departments enforcing Title VI to utilize the working definition of anti-Semitism outlined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), aligning policy with the staunchest right-wing defenders of Israel.

The IHRA definition describes criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, listing a number of examples, including the description of the establishment of the state of Israel as a “racist endeavor” due to the expulsion of the Palestinian citizens who were already living in the region, or comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” in establishing an apartheid regime which confines Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The effort to expand the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel is supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. According to the New York Times , the initiative for the executive order came from David Krone, who had served as chief of staff for Senator Harry Reid when he led Democrats in the Senate.

Reid had helped shepherd through the Senate a bill which would have written into law similar standards, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016, but it ultimately died in the House. Krone successfully lobbied Kushner, who had been a Democrat until 2015, for the order to be drafted by the White House and signed by Trump.

Among those welcomed by Trump on the platform was Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a Democrat, who proclaimed that the executive order would “turn universities from being bastions of discrimination and hatred” and “go down in history as one of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism.” Other Democrats on the platform behind Trump as he signed the order were Representatives Max Rose from New York, Elaine Luria from Virginia and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.

One of Trump’s favorite far-right evangelical ministers, Robert Jeffress, was also given time to speak, assuring those assembled that God would “bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel” and the president was on the “right side of God.” Evangelicals are fervently pro-Israel, not due to their love for Jews, but because they believe that the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle East will help usher in the second coming of Christ. In fact, Jeffress, who spoke at the dedication of the US embassy in Jerusalem, has declared that Jews as well as Muslims, Hindus and Mormons are all condemned to an eternal punishment in hellfire.

For his part, Trump has repeatedly made appeals to far-right anti-Semites, something which is not incompatible with appeals to far-right Zionists. His fascist adviser on immigration policy, Stephen Miller, is Jewish. Early on in his presidency Trump declared that the neo-Nazis who rioted in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one protester, were “good people.”

 

[Warlord]

Are you allowed to criticize Zionism?

 

[unknown]

Are you allowed to criticize Zionism?

Fuck no.

When the first amendment was written, people used quill pens, they couldnt have envisioned the internet.

 

[Anti Globalist]

Clearly the deep state is making him do this and he secretly actually doesn't support it at all.

 

[acptulsa]

Clearly the deep state is making him do this and he secretly actually doesn't support it at all.

Justin Amash did this single handed by enabling RINO senators to blackmail Trump with the threat of impeachment.

No, seriously. That's this week's Official Lame Excuse Plausible Denial.

And Amash is enabling the Neocons in the Senate to be able to blackmail Trump with their impeachment votes to sign it.

 

[revgen]

So, withholding taxpayer dollars is an attack on the 1st amendment?

 

[RonZeplin]

This will only encourage the college yutes to criticize the Axis Of A$$hole$.

 

[nikcers]

Here I thought the first amendment was designed basically so the government can't persecute you for criticizing the government. If ops premise is true than Israel is the government.

 

[acptulsa]

Here I thought the first amendment was designed basically so the government can't persecute you for criticizing the government. If ops premise is true than Israel is the government.

If you're going to make lame excuses, perhaps you should read the First Amendment first. It does not specify speech about the government.

But it does start, Congress shall pass no law... So, maybe your lame denial should be, Trump can decree any Bill of Rights violating totalitarianism he damned well pleases because he isn't Congress.

 

[nikcers]

If you're going to make lame excuses, perhaps you should read the First Amendment first. It does not specify speech about the government.

But it does start, Congress shall pass no law... So, maybe your lame denial should be, Trump can decree any Bill of Rights violating totalitarianism he damned well pleases because he isn't Congress.

Well as far as i can read the eo basically reads that jew is a nationality and therefore anti discrimination laws apply to jews. The Israel stuff from what i can tell is just recognizing that Israel is a Jewish nation.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Trump declared that his order makes clear that Title VI “prohibits the funding of institutions which traffic in anti-Semitic hate.” He went on to proclaim that if publicly funded universities “want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars you get every year you must reject anti-Semitism.”

They (colleges and their students) have no absolute right to my extorted tax dollars.

Fuck them, bunch of Marxist pricks the whole lot of them.

You want to hang Moshe and Stein in effigy, be my guest.

All Trump is saying here is that you're not gonna do it with taxpayer funds.

I happen to agree.

Good for him.

 

[acptulsa]

Well as far as i can read the eo basically reads that jew is a nationality and therefore anti discrimination laws apply to jews. The Israel stuff from what i can tell is just recognizing that Isarel is a Jewish nation.

You just called Jared Kushner a liar--and he, presumably, has actually read this thing. Have you? Would you be so kind as to quote the section you're talking about?

They (colleges and their students) have no absolute right to my extorted tax dollars.

$#@! them, bunch of Marxist pricks the whole lot of them.

You want to hang Moshe and Stein in effigy, be my guest.

All Trump is saying here is that you're not gonna do it with taxpayer funds.

I happen to agree.

Good for him.

So the colleges and universities that jump through Israel's hoops do get your taxpayer dollars, and are able to squeeze those which don't out of the market and out of business.

What are we cheering about again?

 

[Anti Federalist]

So the colleges and universities that jump through Israel's hoops do get your taxpayer dollars, and are able to squeeze those which don't out of the market and out of business.

What are we cheering about again?

I'm not particularly cheering.

Just mildly pleased that some of my extorted dollars will be cut off from the Marxist's training camps.

I don't give a flying fuck what they do or do not do as far as teh Joos are concerned.

They could build mock ups uf Bergen Belsen as far as I'm concerned...wouldn't surprise me if they did as a matter of fact.

Just so long as they aren't doing it with money stolen from me.

 

[acptulsa]

I'm not particularly cheering.

Just mildly pleased that some of my extorted dollars will be cut off from the Marxist's training camps.

I don't give a flying $#@! what they do or do not do as far as teh Joos are concerned.

They could build mock ups uf Bergen Belsen as far as I'm concerned...wouldn't surprise me if they did as a matter of fact.

Just so long as they aren't doing it with money stolen from me.

But that's not happening.

What's happening is, they are jumping through Israel's hoops and they are landing in a big, fat pile of your and my money.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[CCTelander]

But that's not happening.

What's happening is, they are jumping through Israel's hoops and they are landing in a big, fat pile of your and my money.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Exactly correct. It's just like when the feds threatened to withold federal highway funds to coerce states into adopting the 55 mph speed limit and to raise drinking ages up to 21. Universities will all fall in line, not one red cent in funding will be withheld and free speech will die a little bit more on campuses.

I absolutely agree that universities should receive no tax dollars but this is not the way to accomplish that. This is an attack on free speech plain and simple using the threat of doing something that ought to be done across the board selectively to accomplish it. "We won't steal other people's money and give it to you unless you help us violate their 1st Amendment rights." Trump gets no points for this.

ETA:And since when do conservatives come down IN FAVOR of expanding the reach of the CRA64? Seriously?

 

[nikcers]

You just called Jared Kushner a liar--and he, presumably, has actually read this thing. Have you? Would you be so kind as to quote the section you're talking about?



So the colleges and universities that jump through Israel's hoops do get your taxpayer dollars, and are able to squeeze those which don't out of the market and out of business.

What are we cheering about again?

What the fuck so you are saying i can go to college campuses with a KKK hood on and preach that black people aren't human?

 

[acptulsa]

What the $#@! so you are saying i can go to college campuses with a KKK hood on and preach that black people aren't human?

Please do.

 

[nikcers]

But that's not happening.

What's happening is, they are jumping through Israel's hoops and they are landing in a big, fat pile of your and my money.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

They are entitled to their country and are our ally. I can't say America is entitled to southern states and they don't belong to Mexican reconquistas if Israeli jews arent entitled to Israel.

 

[nikcers]

Please do.

Sorry anti discrimination laws apply so i legally can't.

 

[acptulsa]

They are entitled to their country and are our ally. I can't say America is entitled to southern states and don't belong to Mexico reconquistas if Israeli jews arent entitled to Israel.

So you stand with Abraham Lincoln. Good to know.

Sorry anti discrimination laws apply so i legally can't.

You can't do it legally, or you can't do it long before being declared a trespasser?