 |
| Trump's executive order will be challenged in courts. You can't force people to support Israel. The far-white considers criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. |
Folks continue to conflate Israel to Judaism. Israel is not the Jewish state. The United States is not a Christian nation. Religious theorcracies are dangerous.
The U.S. doesn't support an Islamic State. So why are being forced to support a Jewish state when Israel isn't one? Israel isn't even a Jewish state. It is a parliamentary democracy. It is the far-right Zionists who believe they are the rightful occupiers of the so-called Holy Land.
It is a controversial state that has forced apartheid among those living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The U.S. has walked away from the two-state solution. There was never a two-state solution. It was usurping of tribal lands.
Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that would effectively allow the government to interpret Judaism as both a race or nationality and a religion under federal law so that the Education Department can take direct action against what he views as anti-Semitism on college campuses.
Trump, joined by lawmakers and administration officials in addition to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, said the order "makes clear" that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would "apply to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate."
Pointing to past bipartisan efforts to pass similar legislation, Trump said that "they didn't get it done," adding, "This year, there's no roadblock."
The interpretation would allow the Education Department to withhold funding from college or educational programs it believes are discriminating in an anti-Semitic way. The law states that the Education Department can take such action against a program that discriminates based "on the ground of race, color or national origin" — but not on religion.
The latest order comes largely in response to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians. The movement has become prominent on some campuses and resulted in actions that have left some Jewish students feeling targeted.
After wrapping up his address, Trump called upon the evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress to offer some words. Jeffress, who once said Jews were going to hell, said at the White House that Trump is "the most pro-faith president in history" and that God will "bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel."
 |
| Executive orders are not law. Those are enacted abilities that could be challenged in court. In the background is sexual predator Robert Kraft. |
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has provided Trump with favorable legal analysis, spoke next, saying there had been "no more important event in" the six decades he's spent on college campuses "to turn universities away from being bastions of hatred and discrimination than this executive order being signed today."
"It is a game changer," he added. "One of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism."
In supporting the order, the Trump administration appeared to be recognizing Jews as having a collective national origin — or, more specifically, extending protections to Jewish students from those who might attack them based on that perception. Amid a fierce debate over the measure's intent on that front, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, in a New York Times op-ed late Wednesday, said that the order "does not define Jews as a nationality."
A senior administration official told reporters Tuesday that "the Domestic Policy Council began to focus on this issue in the late winter-spring of this year, when we were alarmed, frankly, at a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric, including, unfortunately, from leading political figures. ... We looked at the data and we saw that there's been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents since 2013, and we began a policy process to figure out, specifically, what we could do on the subject."
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines anti-Semitism as "a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews," though “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic."
The definition also includes "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination," which lists “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" among such denials.
Trump's order mirrors bipartisan legislation that stalled out in Congress, though critics have said the change could be used to stifle free speech and opposition to Israel's government.
Some Jewish leaders who said they had been shown a draft version of the order described the language ahead of its final release as not being materially different than that used for similar guidelines issued during previous administrations, such as President Barack Obama’s.
The White House had not released the final text for a full day following the initial announcement. White House officials earlier Wednesday would not confirm the draft language or respond to questions about ways in which the order itself — or the administration’s interpretation or enforcement of that order — might differ from previous actions.
"When news of the impending executive order leaked, many rushed to criticize it without understanding its purpose," Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, wrote in the Times op-ed. "The executive order does not define Jews as a nationality. It merely says that to the extent that Jews are discriminated against for ethnic, racial or national characteristics, they are entitled protection by the anti-discrimination law."
No comments:
Post a Comment