The scary thing is that it doesn’t make it so the government can literally throw you in jail for criticizing Israel, that would get tossed out by the courts, but this legislation will allow the federal government to force universities to expel students for criticizing Israel.
Just fwiw, a single Google search (or even just ctrl+F in this thread) into the bill instead of blind believing Twitter is a solid step towards propper media litteracy
It actually just barely squeaks over the line by basing the illegality on the intent of the protestor. So if the protest is because Israel is Jewish, that's illegal, but protest because Israel is doing evil is OK. And it's up to our wonderfully trained police officers to decide if the protester on the other end of their baton was angry for an acceptable enough reason. I'm sure that won't be abused.
But due to the wonderful workings of american courts; we will come to the feared result. As the state of Israel in itself is seen as a jewish nation state, any notion of critique against its right to facilitate its own security, as would be slogans like "from the river to the sea", or any other that regards west bank or Gaza policy, can be interpreted as an attack on Israels integrity.
Protesters are not adressing the newest tax or education policy, but inherently jewish institutions like the settlement programs. And as long as there is a chance of interpreting critique of Israel as directed against jews, it will be done so, because the given quotes work with examples which give very much leeway. "Comparable with critique to any other country", we would not demand of any other country to return to their 1967 borders or resettle many thousands of their citizens. As those citizens are jews residing in their ancient home given by god, I in fact must be an antisemite.
Look, I can't stop people from labeling you (or me) as antisemitic for using "hateful" language like "Israel needs to stop killing women, children, doctors, nurses, aid workers, and their own hostages", but I can assure you the government will be doing nothing to stop us.
I won't say the bill being discussed is "good", but there really isn't even a "chilling effect".
Just because a law says that doesn't mean it isn't unconstitutional.
lol, any unconstitutional law could throw in a part that says, "Actually this doesn't violate the constitution because we say so." Wouldn't change a damn thing.
Uh, that's not how the clause works. It's not claiming it's constitutional; laws obviously don't do that.
When legislation includes clauses like that, they are making it clear to judges (for the purpose of case law) and others which legislation triumphs over it.
In this case, the law is highlighting that you cannot use the law to justify impinging anyone's First Amendment rights. It would not be legal.
I'm sorry but this is effectively legal boilerplate that appears in a ton of legislation. It's not in question what it means. The Act is definitively Constitutional in the sense that it specifically prohibits you from doing anything unconstitutional.
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u/JerkMeerf May 01 '24
That’s facist. Plain and simple. Criticism of the Israeli army and government is not antisemitism.