Two dangerous bills in Congress take aim at Palestine solidarity

from Mondoweiss

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a controversial bill equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and effectively laying the groundwork for other laws to be crafted that could classify pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations as crimes. The bill’s passage stirred outrage among supporters of Palestine and free speech.

Another bill was introduced more quietly and immediately demonstrated the dangers of the first. Both bills bear close scrutiny. Taken together, they promise to make support for Palestinians under siege by Israel much more difficult.

The bill that passed Tuesday was declarative, headlined, “Strongly condemning and denouncing the drastic rise of antisemitism in the United States and around the world.” It made five declarations, four of which denounced antisemitism and expressed support for the Jewish community in the United States and around the world. But the fourth clause says that the House “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

Only the day before, Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York—a staunch supporter of Israel and a pillar of the American Jewish community—made a speech on the House floor clarifying that anti-Zionism is a position that Jews have held as long as some of their fellows have embraced Zionism. He noted both the religious objections—including that of the largest Hasidic sect in the world, the Satmar—as well as a long tradition of labor activists and other secular Jews who had and have political objections to Zionism. 

Yet, when the bill came up for a vote, Nadler, like 91 other Democrats, merely voted “present” on the bill. That set them on a slightly higher moral plane than the 95 Democrats who voted “yes” on this Republican bill. Only 13 Democrats voted against the bill. 

Defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism was, without a doubt, the point of the bill. That clause was the only one of the five in the “resolves” section that was anything other than blanket opposition to attacks on Jews. It came after a long list of examples, from both the United States and abroad, of actions against Jewish targets, most of which were quite minor...

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