The United States House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would expand the federal definition of anti-Semitism, despite opposition from civil liberties groups.
The bill passed the House on Wednesday by a margin of 320 to 91, and it is largely seen as a reaction to the ongoing antiwar protests unfolding on US university campuses. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.
If the bill were to become law, it would codify a definition of anti-Semitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”.
According to the IHRA, that definition also encompasses the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”.
The group also includes certain examples in its definition to illustrate anti-Semitism. Saying, for instance, that “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” would be deemed anti-Semitic under its terms. The definition also bars any comparison between “contemporary Israeli policy” and “that of the Nazis”.
Rights groups, however, have raised concerns the definition nevertheless conflates criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.
In a letter sent to lawmakers on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged House members to vote against the legislation, saying federal law already prohibits anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment.
“Instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism.”
But Nazism is completely legal in the US?
Looking very much so.
If this happened under Trump liberals would be up in arms. But it’s happening under Biden, so they don’t give a shit.
Once Obama got in office, Democrat stans suddenly didn’t care about the Global War(s) on Terrorism anymore. They were silent on his star chamber as well. It was a real wake-up call for me.
Democrats, Republicans, its the same picture.
Dems don’t even talk about Republicans or their policies anymore, they just namedrop trump then start preemptively blaming leftists for their losses as they tell leftists to eat dick and die.
So about that freedom of speech…
That’s double-plus ungood wrongthink, citizen. Report for re-education.
Pointing out hypocrisy on the part of the regime; that’s -100 points to your FICO score; hand over the deed to your home
I get the feeling a lot of our more vocal free speech absolutists are going to be conspicuously quiet on this one.
What about it? You are still free to say exactly what the government wants you to say
And what’s so bad about being called an antisemite?
I mean, personally I’m highly again all types of organised religion. The abrahamic ones included.
So the shoe fits, I guess.
What does it mean to be against a religion? As in you don’t follow it? Or that you oppress people following it?
I guess I’m technically an antisemite then because Israel is behaving like fucking Nazis. They’re doing a genocide and they’re invading and settling. Netanyahu deserves to go to the same hell that Hitler deserved, and unfortunately also just like Hitler, I seriously doubt that America will be the ones sending him there. I hope he blows his brains out in disgrace as the walls close in on him before he can be Gaddafi’d in the street. Fuck that piece of shit to death with a bayonet. Just one itty bitty war crime in response to his katamari of war crimes, and it can serve as a deterrent against future war crimes. It’s like bombing for peace, rectal remix.
And yes, I also condemn Hamas. The victims are the civilians who didn’t ask for any of this bullshit.
He can be Gaddafi’d in the street. Fuck that piece of shit to death with a bayonet. Just
Fuck you, piece of shit imperialist. You’re as bad as the Zionists.
I also condemn Hamas.
Pathetic. How dare they resist their genocide!? Uppity bastards.
Even when you’re trying to pretend to be some kind of supporter of justice you still can’t hide that you’re an ugly removed.
What? do you really think that that Netanyahu is some sort of saint with his response to the October 7 attacks? It was a political choice to let things happen to the point they did.
And if you’re on Hamas’ side in all of this, do you really think that nobody targeted by them was innocent?
Grow up mods.
You just don’t understand how you still parrot lies from the Empire. Condemning Hamas and Gaddafi…
Which empire?
In short, are are you trying to say that Hamas killed no innocents on October 7?
This was removed for bigotry?? Are mods following that policy already?
Edit: and the comments below it too.
Edit 2: the below comments didn’t even have a call to violence. What’s going on mods?
There are already bad actors infesting lemmy mod teams.
We gotta fight back and be persistent, or else this place will become another censorship hellhole like reddit.
I can still see it on Lemmy world
The comment said “I condemn Hamas” aka the group fighting back against genocide.
So? Are those the magical words that justify removing any comment? Hamas isn’t Palestine or Palestinians and condemning a group that killed hundreds shouldn’t be a controversial statement, much less bigotry. And the irony of this happening in the thread about Isreal trying to pass a similar law for themselves…
I can understand you and other commenters expressing your opinions but the fact that not even the mods are keeping up the pretense of impartiality is insane
There is no impartiality for genocide.
The Viet Cong killed hundreds in the same way, and so have all successful revolutionary groups in the past. Decolonization is violent, if you don’t like it don’t colonize in the first place.
There is no impartiality for genocide.
Fuck off with hiding behind “but genocide!” whenever someone disagrees with you and double fuck you for implying that I or those other people support genocide. No matter how hard tankie politics dictates imperialsits (‘them’) and rest of the world (‘us’) are polar opposites, there are people that share some of your values and don’t share others. This includes people who see both hamas and isreali gvt as evil. If your ideology has answers ready for everything and doesn’t need you to impartially think to come to conclusions that’s a bullshit ideology.
Edit: Reminds me of religious nuts thinking atheists are evil because if they don’t follow every rule in the book they must be breaking all of the rules and you certainly can’t have your own moral compass.
Edit: And Hamas, even with …
Are you seriously arguing that killing less civilians than the isreali military somehow makes hamas good? If they hadn’t attacked much of the violence since then wouldn’t have happened and those 30 thousand Palestinians would at least be alive, even if not free. How hard is it to understand that multiple things can be correct?
I can understand why Hamas would choose to do what they did when they did it. Cornered animal lashes out. But it’s incomprehensible to me how anyone looking from the outside thinks attacking Isreal with anything less than a takeover force was a good idea, especially considering that in hindsight it was a terrible one.
“Anything I don’t like is a tankie”, Lemmy politics equivalent to the right wing’s use of woke.
Followed by the 30,000x version of “they wouldn’t have died if they just did what the police told them!”
You’re saying the people advocating to remove comments that condemn Hamas or Gaddafi, accuse people of obeying the ‘empire’ and bring up genocide to claim moral high ground aren’t tankies?
Just because one side of a conflict is evil doesn’t automatically make the other side good. Evil can fight evil, and when it does we should condemn both sides. Hamas have literally said that their goal is to genocide the Israelis, if you think that’s ok then that’s terribly hypocritical of you. The only reason Israel is succeeding in that goal and Hamas are not is because USA is tipping the scales with their arms shipments etc
Hamas have literally said
Don’t blindly believe what western outlets say.
The Hamas Can’t you see both sides are using identical arguments? Israel has also repeatedly said that their intention is to destroy Hamas, not the Palestinian people, but their actions show that that is utter bullshit of course (they even used suitcases full of cash to keep Hamas in power).
Likewise Hamas claim to only be against the Zionists in order to gain public support but their charter literally says “from the Jordan river to the sea, Palestine will be free of Jews”, and there are numerous reports of them raping and murdering innocent Israelis.
Long story short, the current government of Israel and Hamas are both terrible, and supporting either of them is supporting a group whose goal is genocide. The US government is obviously extra complicit in genocide due to continuing to sell Israel weapons, but if you didn’t already know that US foreign policy is pure evil then you haven’t been paying attention
I condemn Hamas
Thanks for being the occupation’s little lapdog
I condemn the IDF
Both-siding with an occupation and their victims just means passively supporting their genocide. My statement remains unchanged.
Fuck the IDF. Fuck Hamas. Save the Palestinian people. It’s not that hard.
They would be condemning the Viet Cong for using the exact same strategies Hamas does (taking hostages, using tunnels and guerilla warfare, etc) and having the same goal of driving out an occupying force to reunite their country, yet they have the audacity to claim they’re an antizionist.
Campus protests and the pigs dispersing them are also paralleling the Vietnam war.
This guy lauds the empire’s overthrow and murder of a state later resulting in untold human suffering and then condemns a peoples’ resistance to a genocide. Amazing.
And that’s bigotry? Is every comment you don’t agree with supposed to be removed?
I don’t agree with the comment being removed. I think the fediverse is worse than reddit for its censorious childishness. But I can see why it could be considered bigotry.
That’s what happens when corrupt politicians are paid by AIPAC
Got your cart before the horse: the US controls Israel, the control Israeli lobbyists have over it is secondary to that.
If the US truly controlled Israel, they could force them to comply with UN resolutions, force them to ban settlements or force them into a ceasefire. The US built Israel, but these criminals are now strong enough not to have to listen to the US or anyone, not even the UN or the ICC.
If the US truly controlled Israel, they could force them to comply with UN resolutions, force them to ban settlements or force them into a ceasefire.
Could, but why would they want to? They have a little buddy doing their dirty work for them.
How does the US benefit from Israel committing a genocide?
The oil, the real estate?
Does the US benefit from stopping them?
Yes. War always has a negative impact on the economy, and trust me, if the US care about one thing, then that is money.
At some point US troops will invade to bring democracy to such an autoritarian country
No no that’s only if there’s oil there.
Oh shit.
This gives the USA too much credit. It doesn’t invade other countries to save them from tyranny. It invades them because it wants to control them for strategic or economic purposes.
If the Israelis don’t want to be compared to Nazis maybe they ought to stop acting like Nazis
It would also help if more than a handful of people in the House knew semitic is a pretty archaic term and would include Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israelis and people from several other countries as well.
Protected classes are race, religion, national origin, age, pregnancy status, gender, citizenship, disability or veteran, family status or generic information. Nobody gets protections for genocide.
Ah, free speech in the land of the free
Only free for zionists and the corporations. You know, the wealthy people. Not for the silly plebes.
Are all Israelis Jewish? The US is such a fucking joke at this point. And it’s tedious to block community after community on lemmy to avoid the noise of vapidness. Good luck with your fucked up politics.
PS: I’d recommend excluding US specific news from “world news”. Not sure if this stuff is moderated, or if those who do, give af about it.
Being Jewish is not the same as being Zionist. One of them has Nazi moral intent, and it’s not the Jews that oppose Zionism.
3/4 are Jewish which is an overwhelming majority but I also think there are great reasons to separate the classifications of Israeli and Jew. Mainly because the state is not led by the religion but instead by elected leaders.
Though that separation of church and state does seem to be diminishing as Bibi and his far right ultraorthodox cronies do seem to be slowly turning it into more of an authoritarian state.
The politics of the global hegemon affects the entire world, as much as we hate it. Specially when it’s regarding a country they’re currently committing genocide in.
What the fuck?
Fuck zionists and their disproportionate amount of control over the world.
The genocidal world order. The civilized nations see them for the monsters that they are.
Good thing their silly religious stories will never come true.
Imagine being disappointed for eternity.
Zionism is a racist colonial ideology, merely using religion as a tool. Theodor Herzl, founder of zionism, said so himself
“We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.” Source [II]
It used religion simply as a component of typical XIX-century romantic nationalism. It was a secular ideology until the last 10-20 years.
Wonder what other things they’ll make illegal to compare to Nazis. Cause once your banning disparaging speech, why stop there?
As heavily as they’re censoring outlets to the point a tiktok ban suddenly isn’t laughable, I’m surprised they didn’t pass a law making calling it genocide a hate crime.
As a Jew I have never felt less respected by Congress than them appropriating the concept of antisemitism to further their own oppressive political ends. Fuck it’s so gross.
So it’s ok to call students that are protesting against a genocide Nazis but not the people actually committing the genocide. Got it.
That’s what modern Nazis do - try very hard to defame their opponents as Nazis. Sometimes even their victims. Then any argument from that side is disadvantaged.
Why the fuck I’m even writing this here, it’s obvious, only unless I find a way to kill some bad people doing this, I won’t help things.
It’s OK to call anyone not aligned with the Republican Party a Nazi, because it’s important that words have no real meaning. Once words have no meaning, the ideas behind them fade as well. This is double plus ungood.
Like triplespeak.
Modern Israel is not Judaism! It’s not the same theocracy described in the old testament. It’s not even religiously pure, there’s a sizeable Christian and Muslim population. It’s perfectly valid to respect Jews and and their beliefs, and to criticize Netanyahu’s government for attempting to crush Palestine and kill its civilians indiscriminately in raids. Jewish folks in the US and abroad are joining in the protests to stop the war - this isn’t about being antisemitic, this is telling a very atrocious government to stop behaving as a similarly atrocious government did 80 years ago
Even the Jewish community in Germany is against Netanjahus way of treating Palestine.
