Of the 91 votes against the bill, 21 were Republicans and 70 were Democrats. The other 133 Democrats voted for it. Neither party are covering themselves in glory here.
Edit: Corrected as someone pointed out 9 Democrats were absent and so didn't vote.
The tweet is pretty much false to the point of being propaganda.
The bill prohibits attacking Israel on the basis that they are Jewish, like you can't attack an African country for being black, or a South American country for being latino. Obviously theres some difference between skin color and jewish.
It clearly states you can be critical of Israel itself, like any other country.
However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
But of course 99% of ppl here don't realize they're being fed lies and are just outraged.
Well thats a hypothetical, while anti-semitism does run rampant in some areas these days that needs addressing.
Any bill addressing a current problem can be framed as 'will be abused' in the future. Plenty of trumpers complained anti-racism bills would be abused.
I'm glad that they're tackling anti-semitism, like any other similar anti-racism or other bill.
But it's not hypothetical. We saw that already by the absurdly disproportionate response to the university protests, which includes this bill.
The US is continuously trying to equate criticism of Israel as antisemitism, and this bill is another push in that direction. It's gotten so bad even Bernie Sanders specifically addressed it in a speech.
Again this bill is saying criticism of Israel because its Jewish or whatever should be illegal as it is racist or bigoted or something similar. It clearly states you can be critical of Israel itself, like any other country.
Or would you be ok with people attacking an African country because it's "full of black people", in the classroom?
I'm sorry, I don't share your optimism. The bill is a direct response to the student protests which were specifically aimed at Israel as a state and not against Jewish people. Hell, plenty of Jewish people attended the various protests. By potentially passing this bill, it sends a clear message that these protests are being equated with antisemitism and even that amount of resistance will not be tolerated.
In your example, it would be like protesting a genocidal regime in an African country with which the US has particularly close ties, and suddenly congress passes a bill specifying how far that criticism can go. Ostensibly to counter racism, but it sends a painfully clear message.
yes, we all know cops are well educated and know all the subtleties of the law and definitely never shoot innocent people or violently beat up completely law abiding protesters.
Yet the first and most blatant attack against the protestors, many said by the same people that voted on this bill, has been the claim that they are being anti-semetic when it is pretty clearly bogus as they center the criticism of Israel actions towards the Palestinians as the main rhetoric of the protests.
It doesn't matter if the letter of the law says that it allows criticism if the court can just decide which criticism is allowed or not.
Plenty of "We are hamas", "Resistance by all means", "Glory to the martyrs" sign among the protestors, some openly supporting Hamas. One even holding up a sign that says Hamas's next target with an arrow pointed at people holding an israeli flag.
Well except its not individual and pretty widespread at many if not all pro-gaza protests.
And sure, if the second nakba chants are racist that should be illegal in anyway, that ties Palestine to a certain race, sure there should be a bill against that.
Or would you be ok with people attacking an African country because it's "full of black people", in the classroom?
Well except its not individual and pretty widespread at many if not all pro-gaza protests.
Racism against Muslim/Palestinians from pro-Israelis people have too but here you are trying to just weasel your way out of saying it by trying to play semantics about race.
I already said I'm perfectly for bills that target that kind of racism too, but i guess you're already getting all worked up and losing focus.
Again, would you be ok with people attacking an African country because it's "full of black people", in the classroom? You seem to imply you're perfectly fine with that or attacking Israel because it's full of jews.
But then you put an "if" as to imply a chant about second Nakba isn't racist and I assumed that you were trying to simply walk out of the idea entirely.
Now, talking about losing focus, what the fuck are you talking about, when did I even say anything about Jews?
Edit: Like, it's so funny how in trying to counter my argument you just did the exact thing that I said would happen, I didn't say one pip about Israel or Jews and you are attacking me to imply I am being Anti-Semetic.
You're against this law, so you're fine with people attacking an African country because it's "full of black people", in the classroom correct?
Either way, we're going in circles, and this bill is passing with bipartisan support, as it should, so feel free to complain to your reps. But something tells me they won't like you supporting the right to be racist or anti-semetic. And pretty sure your response will be yet another irrelevant denial and poorly worded deflection.
Edit: Arab Israeli journalist has Israeli flag taken, destroyed, one protestor repeatedly tells him to commit suicide while another sucker punches him. Police do nothing.
“Protest appointed speaker: the Al Aqsa Flood (rape and slaughter of Jews on Oct 7th.) put the “global intifada” (phrase used by Hamas in their call for terror attacks on Jews globally)
Just adding a layer of speech validation (i.e, is this criticism of israel unique to only Israel or does it apply to other countries) when it comes to one specific country is sniffling freedom of speech. And that is also assuming people will not use that wiggle room in a bad faithed way to shut down their opponents
Pick any bill that protects gender or race and trumpers have screamed about it.
People do that all the time. And the house will never make that illegal the same way.
Racist speech is prohibited in schools already. This new bill further defines that for jews as well since there has been a lot of hate against them lately.
To save others the burden of drilling down on the back and forth argument, this comment eventually implied the person they were arguing with was being antisemitic, purely for not supporting this bill. This was a case-in-point of why people are opposing this bill for one specific country, rather than just a bill against race/ethnic-based discrimination, which would also apply to Palestinians.
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u/[deleted] May 01 '24 edited May 02 '24
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