Will Antisemitism Awareness Act be struck down by SC for violation of 1st amendment?

[David Hume]

I think it would but not sure about the voting.

[Vosem]

Probably only as part of some sort of larger strike-down of civil rights practice; I don't think it's particularly out of the ordinary if one thinks of the law as a civil rights issue rather than a free speech one.

[Steve from Lambeth]

No. Section 6b of the Act explicitly contains First Amendment protections.

Furthermore, it enshrines into statute law what Donald Trump's Department of Education enshrined into departmental Title VI canon, and the latter has not been struck down to this day nor meaningfully challenged.

With that said, antisemitism usually manifests itself as religious more than racial hatred (race, color and nationality being the three Title VI characteristics). I can see the need for clarity - but just for perfect clarity, it would of course be preferable for Title VI to require action against all manner of religious discrimination as well.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Reading the act a week ago, it outsources the definition of anti-Semitism to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and makes that all against federal law. First, I don't really care for outsourcing such as this - it means this organization with non-American members  now can effectively control U.S. federal law, and attitudes and motivations change over time. It'd be better for Congress to instead explicitly define anti-Semitism inside the act. If they did a copy/paste of the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism, that would be better than what is in there now.

Second, while most of the items held as anti-Semitic from the IHRA are not in my eyes controversial, there's some that I think should receive a real discussion:

(This all comes from a plenary held in Bucharest on May 26th, 2016, and is from the IHRA website)

http://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism/

-Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or societal institutions.

There are people that happen to be Jewish that do control media, economy, government, and societal institutions. Are we no longer allowed to point this out?

-Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imaged wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

I'm a white man that's native to the South, a Libertarian Party member, and U.S. citizen. Do you know how much I get accused of just on this board because of the actions of others I know nothing about? Are we going to criminalize all that? Should the federal government criminalize guilt by association to everything or just this one narrow instance?

-Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

As a blanket statement, fine. But we have spies in this nation's past that were captured and now that have obviously been as loyal to Israel as communists were to the Soviet Union. So for those individuals, accusing them of such is anti-Semitic?

-Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Seriously, what the f#ck? This is par for the course for all international relations. And we're criminizalizing that in federal law for one country out of 200 plus?

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

This and the one above are more scoring political points in tone.

[JohnAMacdonald]

-Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or societal institutions.

[A] There are people that happen to be Jewish that do control media, economy, government, and societal institutions. Are we no longer allowed to point this out?

-Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imaged wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

I'm a white man that's native to the South, a Libertarian Party member, and U.S. citizen. Do you know how much I get accused of just on this board because of the actions of others I know nothing about? Are we going to criminalize all that? Should the federal government criminalize guilt by association to everything or just this one narrow instance?

-Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

[C] As a blanket statement, fine. But we have spies in this nation's past that were captured and now that have obviously been as loyal to Israel as communists were to the Soviet Union. So for those individuals, accusing them of such is anti-Semitic?

-Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

[D] Seriously, what the f#ck? This is par for the course for all international relations. And we're criminizalizing that in federal law for one country out of 200 plus?

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

[E] This and the one above are more scoring political points in tone.


[/quote]



I've lettered all of your remarks, for ease of replying

A) You seem to have misunderstood, this isn't about any one jew, go re-read it, the statement says "of Jews controlling [...] ", in other words, it is perfectly ok to say that there are jews in the media, economy, etc..., but claiming jews as a whole have control over the economy or have outsized control over it is the problem.

B) "this one narrow instance" refers to jews, a group which has, for thousands of years, been discriminated against by nearly everyone, saying that the way you are being treated is the same as the way they have been treated is reductive and you know it. Collective mistreatment is already illegal, this isn't a law, this is a framework to define antisemitism, and that is one of the flaws with using it to define one.

C) I don't know if you are pretending not to get it or something, but this clearly refers to (falsely) accusing jews as a whole (or any individual) of being spies or traitors working for judaism or israel, if someone is caught spying, obviously, this would be allowed, you just can't libelously make such a claim (this is arguably redundant, since libel is already illegal, but again this wasn't intended as a law, and shows a flaw with using it as a basis for one)

D)Seriously, are you not getting it or just acting like you don't? This is about behaviours which constitute anti-semitism, because jews in particular are often held to a higher standard than others are.

E) Arguably, this is hard to defend, but it is important to note that this is often used by antisemites to attack Israel or jews in general.

[Open Source Intelligence]

-Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or societal institutions.

[A] There are people that happen to be Jewish that do control media, economy, government, and societal institutions. Are we no longer allowed to point this out?

-Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imaged wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

I'm a white man that's native to the South, a Libertarian Party member, and U.S. citizen. Do you know how much I get accused of just on this board because of the actions of others I know nothing about? Are we going to criminalize all that? Should the federal government criminalize guilt by association to everything or just this one narrow instance?

-Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

[C] As a blanket statement, fine. But we have spies in this nation's past that were captured and now that have obviously been as loyal to Israel as communists were to the Soviet Union. So for those individuals, accusing them of such is anti-Semitic?

-Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

[D] Seriously, what the f#ck? This is par for the course for all international relations. And we're criminizalizing that in federal law for one country out of 200 plus?

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

[E] This and the one above are more scoring political points in tone.

I've lettered all of your remarks, for ease of replying

A) You seem to have misunderstood, this isn't about any one jew, go re-read it, the statement says "of Jews controlling [...] ", in other words, it is perfectly ok to say that there are jews in the media, economy, etc..., but claiming jews as a whole have control over the economy or have outsized control over it is the problem.

B) "this one narrow instance" refers to jews, a group which has, for thousands of years, been discriminated against by nearly everyone, saying that the way you are being treated is the same as the way they have been treated is reductive and you know it. Collective mistreatment is already illegal, this isn't a law, this is a framework to define antisemitism, and that is one of the flaws with using it to define one.

C) I don't know if you are pretending not to get it or something, but this clearly refers to (falsely) accusing jews as a whole (or any individual) of being spies or traitors working for judaism or israel, if someone is caught spying, obviously, this would be allowed, you just can't libelously make such a claim (this is arguably redundant, since libel is already illegal, but again this wasn't intended as a law, and shows a flaw with using it as a basis for one)

D)Seriously, are you not getting it or just acting like you don't? This is about behaviours which constitute anti-semitism, because jews in particular are often held to a higher standard than others are.

E) Arguably, this is hard to defend, but it is important to note that this is often used by antisemites to attack Israel or jews in general.

Provide me the distinction in law where accusing one is not anti-Semitic but the group is. The distinction must be in law and not up to personal opinion. This law is way too broad and being vague just allows all the distinctions to not be defined by Congress but instead interpreted by judges of multiple motivations following the guidance of a non-government, non-American organization.

Also, the equivalence of Israel to Jews is false in international law. One, not all Jews are Israelis (the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism itself states this, but ignores it when making certain bullets). Two, not all Israelis are Jews. You can see this false equivalence with the IHRA working definition as they flip back and forth between Jews as an ethnicity and the state of Israel instead of treating them as two groups with shared membership but not in entirety. If I, an American of Scottish, Irish, German, and Cherokee extraction have sex with an Israeli woman and produce a child, the kid is not full ethnic Jew but is still Israeli. I'm pretty confident that's happened before of Arabs and Jews both native to Israel having sex and producing offspring. That's one reason why explicitly ethnic-based states all across the world I consider this horrid European monstrosity belonging to the pre-World War II era that does not work in the modern world with freedom of movement for people.

If I accuse Iran of being a threat to world peace that does not make me Islamophobic, even if Iran is an Islamic theocracy. But we are choosing to define in federal law these conditions that apply to only one country and one ethnicity.

Point D though is just taking the piss, that is not a credible opinion in the 21st century because all nations pick and choose quite often where to be hypocrites, and we're making this federal law based off a vote held in Romania 8 years ago.

[JohnAMacdonald]

Provide me the distinction in law where accusing one is not anti-Semitic but the group is. The distinction must be in law and not up to personal opinion. This law is way too broad and being vague just allows all the distinctions to not be defined by Congress but instead interpreted by judges of multiple motivations following the guidance of a non-government, non-American organization.

Also, the equivalence of Israel to Jews is false in international law. One, not all Jews are Israelis (the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism itself states this, but ignores it when making certain bullets). Two, not all Israelis are Jews. You can see this false equivalence with the IHRA working definition as they flip back and forth between Jews as an ethnicity and the state of Israel instead of treating them as two groups with shared membership but not in entirety. If I, an American of Scottish, Irish, German, and Cherokee extraction have sex with an Israeli woman and produce a child, the kid is not full ethnic Jew but is still Israeli. I'm pretty confident that's happened before of Arabs and Jews both native to Israel having sex and producing offspring. That's one reason why explicitly ethnic-based states all across the world I consider this horrid European monstrosity belonging to the pre-World War II era that does not work in the modern world with freedom of movement for people.

If I accuse Iran of being a threat to world peace that does not make me Islamophobic, even if Iran is an Islamic theocracy. But we are choosing to define in federal law these conditions that apply to only one country and one ethnicity.

Point D though is just taking the piss, that is not a credible opinion in the 21st century because all nations pick and choose quite often where to be hypocrites, and we're making this federal law based off a vote held in Romania 8 years ago.
[/quote]

It does need to be defined in law because it is quite obvious from reading the text, it says "of jews controlling the media, economy, etc..." , if you say "this jew has control over bank XYZ(which he legally owns)" that is different from saying "George Soros is secretly running all the banks", the second is obviously !!!in law!!! antisemitic, while the other is obviously not !!!in law!!! antisemitic.

As for Jews and Israel, that is true, but that's not what I said, I stated that jews, jewish-run institutions and yes, Israel, a majority jewish state, are all often held to higher standards than others, that's also true.

And also, THE IHRA DEFINITION DOESN'T BAN CRITICISM OF ISRAEL, if you are saying that Iran is a threat to world peace, that's not inherently islamophobic, nor is saying the same thing about Israel inherently antisemitic, as long as you are doing it for a valid reason (ex: Iran or Israel are genuinely being bellicose).

This definition, which is being written into law, does not ban criticism for one ethnicity for one state, it merely defines what antisemitism is.

[Open Source Intelligence]

.

And also, THE IHRA DEFINITION DOESN'T BAN CRITICISM OF ISRAEL

We live in an era of interest groups on all sides taking incredibly narrow viewpoints on issues to maximize one's power, the argument over time is absolutely going to come from officials in government or private citizens that it is. There are people that believe everyone protesting this war are anti-Semitic, some are but that blanket starement is a complete overreach. Some post on this board, some serve in Congress, some may even be judges interpreting this law in the future.

The law is squarely aimed at Department of Education and looks to be codification of a regulatory practice from the Trump administration, as it says other definitions of anti-Semitism harm efforts to combat it. The international relations bit is just wrong and should be struck, everyone are hypocrites when it suits them, including us and Israel (e.g. coups in democracies are unacceptable, unless it ousts the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt).

I still think oursourcing federal law is bad form. If you have no problem with the IHRA definition, fine, it should still be copy/pasted into the act.

[JohnAMacdonald]

.

And also, THE IHRA DEFINITION DOESN'T BAN CRITICISM OF ISRAEL

We live in an era of interest groups on all sides taking incredibly narrow viewpoints on issues to maximize one's power, the argument over time is absolutely going to come from officials in government or private citizens that it is.

The law is squarely aimed at Department of Education and looks to be codification of a regulatory practice from the Trump administration, as it says other definitions of anti-Semitism harm efforts to combat it. The international relations bit is just wrong and should be struck, everyone are hypocrites when it suits them, including us and Israel (e.g. coups in democracies are unacceptable, unless it ousts the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt).

So just because sometimes everyone is a hypocrite, the international relations bit is wrong? Well, that's missing the point.

You are right, We live in an era of interest groups on all sides taking incredibly narrow viewpoints on issues to maximize one's power.
The argument over time from anti-semites will be that any of their criticism is being perceived as antisemitism, when only some of it is, where in the IHRA definition does it explicitly say : "criticism of Israel is antisemitic"? The answer : nowhere

[Open Source Intelligence]

.

And also, THE IHRA DEFINITION DOESN'T BAN CRITICISM OF ISRAEL

We live in an era of interest groups on all sides taking incredibly narrow viewpoints on issues to maximize one's power, the argument over time is absolutely going to come from officials in government or private citizens that it is.

The law is squarely aimed at Department of Education and looks to be codification of a regulatory practice from the Trump administration, as it says other definitions of anti-Semitism harm efforts to combat it. The international relations bit is just wrong and should be struck, everyone are hypocrites when it suits them, including us and Israel (e.g. coups in democracies are unacceptable, unless it ousts the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt).

So just because sometimes everyone is a hypocrite, the international relations bit is wrong?

Why should applying double standards to the international relations of Israel be considered anti-Semitic according to their definition when countries historically have constantly applied double standards? Remember, this is whataboutism that is being made federal law saying it is automatically discriminatory, that's not just some opinion from a guy in a bar.

I mean, I would love for people and countries to not have double standards and to be principled at all times, right after I get my 50 gold bars. What happens, a college professor 3 years from now is going to write a book about the bloodshed in Gaza this past year and the Education Department are going to strip him of grants because he was anti-Semitic and didn't write one about the bloodshed in Haiti in contrast?