By Richard Mellor in California
The US House of Representatives voted today on the Antisemitism Awareness Act and passed it 320 to 91 with 70 Democrats and 21 Republicans voting against the bill. This bill has been criticised for basing the legislation on the definition of antisemitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which conflates antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel. The bill now heads to the US Senate.
The bill mandates the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which classifies most anti-Zionism as antisemitic. Here are some of the aspects of the bill that I came across:
*Calling for aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
*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 other societal institutions.
*Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews
*Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War Il (the Holocaust)
*Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
*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.
*Denying the Jewish people their right to self determination, eg by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
*Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
*Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (eg claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
*Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis
*Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of anti-semitic materials in some countries).
Defending Jews is not the purpose of the legislation
Without a doubt, the bill does point to clear examples of antisemitism, or more accurately hatred toward Jews, as Arabs also are semites. I recall in my youth the term Arab-Jews being quite common but then the state of Israel was only 20 years old.
But defending Jews is not the purpose of this legislation, defending Israel is. This is a very dangerous piece of legislation, as it equates criticism of the actions of a nation state with attacks on a people because of their religious beliefs.
Is criticizing the historical English and British subjugation and genocidal war on the Irish people racist toward the English? Not all Germans were Nazis. Is criticizing or referring to Nazis as racist, anti-German? Zionism is inherently a racist ideology and is not and should not be confused with Judaism. One is a political formation, the other a religion. Zionism is barely 150 years old. Millions of Jews are anti-Zionist.
Katie Halper of the Katie Halper Show on YouTube writes on X: “This Bill is an abomination and anti-semetic in itself because it perpetuates the dual loyalty trope that all Jews are a monolith who support the state of Israel. Truly repulsive stuff.”
“I can’t totally speak to their intent,” said Morriah Kaplan, strategic director at IfNotNow, which is focused on opposing the Israeli occupation, “but these are not people I trust to go after antisemitism.” (Jewish Forward 1-26-21.)
Jerry Nadler, the informal dean of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, voted against the measure, “Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination……The bill sweeps too broadly.” he said.
Meanwhile the big business press in the US is playing the antisemitism card to the hilt, “As antisemitism has surged to record levels since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, many Jews feel Israel requires more support now than ever – as a refuge for Jews, who have long been an oppressed minority, ” as hundreds of students are being beaten, attacked and arrested by US security forces (CNN reports on May 1) .
Movement against Israeli genocide in Gaza includes many Jews
The reality is that the movement against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and decades-long ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is to a large part led by young Jews. This is certainly the case in the US. We now have young Palestinian children thanking the US students for their support. Are we supposed to think that they don’t know many of them are Jews? I have an Arab friend from Yemen who refers to Jews as “our cousins” and I have never heard an antisemitic word out of him, but I have heard him curse the Israelis.
Naturally, the overwhelmingly Gentile US bourgeois is supporting the legislation, along with their conservative Jewish colleagues. Their interests are under threat if the Zionist regime is weakened: it’s the only ally US imperialism can rely on in this important part of the world. This is the crux of the matter, and that’s what drives the US rogue regime and the US Congress to support the genocide.
I have long been an opponent of some Jewish Americans who are too complacent in the view that Jews are safe here from the events that occurred in Europe that led to the Holocaust. But I think it is a bit of a stretch to consider Jews an oppressed minority in the US, but that doesn’t mean they can’t become one. Zionism and the actions of the Zionist regime in Israel increases the likelihood of such a development.
Conservative Jewish groups like the ADL and others are supportive of the legislation but other Jewish groups, not to mention the ACLU, have opposed it on the grounds that it is a barrier to free speech, First Amendment rights and the right to criticize a nation state.
It is important to remember that the largest Zionist group in the US is right wing or Evangelical Christians, and the US body-politic is populated with them. However, this move to conflate Judaism with Zionism is a political strategy taken by US imperialism to defend its settler-colony in the Middle East and the Christian right are a useful ally here as they are driven by biblical prophecy.
The heroic sacrifices the Palestinian people have made in their struggle against occupation, apartheid and genocide has transformed the situation in Palestine and the world’s perception of events. The endless meetings, talks about a Palestinian state and US guarantees of it at some nebulous point in time are shown now for what they really were: lies, lies and more lies. Decades of cruelty.
Many Americans are settlers in Israel, on stolen land
The Palestinians struggle has done more damage to the Zionist regime than decades of diplomacy. It has created a nightmare, but Palestinians have been living that nightmare with no end in sight for 76 years. The Zionists have already lost the war. I watched a video today and had to listen to the many Americans who are settlers in Israel and live on stolen land or in houses built on demolished Palestinian ones.
The state of Israel was created by the British and Western capital as a foothold in the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1 and also as a way of ridding Europe of its centuries old “Jewish problem.” Only after the betrayal of Stalinism and the horror of the Holocaust did the concept of Palestine as a home for Europe’s Jews gain any traction at all and they too are victims on that basis. It was Christian Europe that tried to exterminate Jews, not Arabs or Muslims.
There is a genuine danger here of a wider conflict, but the main players are driven by the laws of the capitalist system. The US is under threat from all sides. It is losing in the competition with China. It has lost the Ukraine conflict after spending billions of US taxpayers’ money, and now its most important proxy in the Middle East that has received untold billions in money and weapons of mass destruction, is losing the battle for influence in the oil rich region.
In the long run, and time is running out, capitalism cannot solve this crisis and there will be more war, more fragmentation and chaos as global capitalism comes apart at the seams. Perhaps the most threatening of all is climate catastrophe which threatens human life as we know it.
Only united action by the global working class, the formation of a global federation of democratic socialist states based on economic cooperation in harmony with nature not opposed to it, can show a way out. That is not utopian, it is necessary if we are not to be another one of those ancient civilizations that never made it.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
