In looking at the bogus arguments against the Executive Order on including Jews as a protected minority for Title VI purposes, I stumbled onto the J-Street U arguments used against the nearly identical Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018.
J-Street U wrote a letter to Congress opposing that act, which was originally pushed during the Obama administration. Most of their arguments are the specious ones we have already debunked, but they added one that tells us a lot more about the leftists who oppose fighting antisemitism than the act itself:
In addition to focusing narrowly and exclusively on anti-Semitism that is related to Israel and to Zionism, the bill alarmingly fails to take into account the pressing issue of anti-Semitic hatred in our country stemming from the white supremacist far-right, which has risen precipitously since the 2016 election. …It would be a grave mistake for Congress to ignore this virulent strain of anti-Semitism that has lead to a rise in hate crimes and violence across the country.
J-Street U claimed that the Antisemitism Awareness Act didn’t deal with right-wing antisemitism – and this is a laughable lie. It refers to the IHRA definition which includes all kinds of antisemitism, right and left. Its definition (without the examples) leaves no doubt:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
By falsely and absurdly claiming that right-wing bigotry is not included, J-Street U – and by extension, all of the Leftist arguments against the EO – shows that their concern isn’t for free speech or worries about chilling debate on campus. They simply want to shut down the very idea that there is any kind of antisemitism other than the neo-Nazi kind (and there are plenty of other flavors of antisemitism besides Right and Left) and therefore they want to be able to demonize the Jewish state in exactly the same way the far-Right demonizes Jews. Any argument is meant only for the real goal of defending most types of antisemitism on campus.
That’s messed up.
What is especially sick about this antisemitism denial is that it tramples on the rights of thousands of Jews on campus, today, who are being disenfranchised and attacked because they don’t subscribe to the religious philosophy of the Left, where victims are to be worshipped and white-passing people like Jews are the devil-oppressors.
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