The United States House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would expand the federal definition of anti-Semitism, despite opposition from civil liberties groups.

The bill passed the House on Wednesday by a margin of 320 to 91, and it is largely seen as a reaction to the ongoing antiwar protests unfolding on US university campuses. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

If the bill were to become law, it would codify a definition of anti-Semitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”.

According to the IHRA, that definition also encompasses the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”.

The group also includes certain examples in its definition to illustrate anti-Semitism. Saying, for instance, that “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” would be deemed anti-Semitic under its terms. The definition also bars any comparison between “contemporary Israeli policy” and “that of the Nazis”.

Rights groups, however, have raised concerns the definition nevertheless conflates criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.

In a letter sent to lawmakers on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged House members to vote against the legislation, saying federal law already prohibits anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment.

“Instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism.”

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  • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    So it’s ok to call students that are protesting against a genocide Nazis but not the people actually committing the genocide. Got it.

    • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It’s OK to call anyone not aligned with the Republican Party a Nazi, because it’s important that words have no real meaning. Once words have no meaning, the ideas behind them fade as well. This is double plus ungood.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      That’s what modern Nazis do - try very hard to defame their opponents as Nazis. Sometimes even their victims. Then any argument from that side is disadvantaged.

      Why the fuck I’m even writing this here, it’s obvious, only unless I find a way to kill some bad people doing this, I won’t help things.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It would also help if more than a handful of people in the House knew semitic is a pretty archaic term and would include Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israelis and people from several other countries as well.

      Protected classes are race, religion, national origin, age, pregnancy status, gender, citizenship, disability or veteran, family status or genetic information. Nobody gets protections for genocide.

      Edit: genetic not generic

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    6 months ago

    Legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and IDF is being actively outlawed in the western world as governments support the brutal mass killing in Gaza.

    Condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s actions in Xinjiang rings completely hollow. Western governments really are the people in glass houses throwing stones.

    • SitD@feddit.de
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      6 months ago

      bro you need to chill out. I’m all for criticizing Israel but if you use a name that has a bad ring to it (for example nazi) but is defined on an entirely different era, set of crimes, and political landscape, you cannot put forward a well-reasoned argument. if people continue to get up in their feelings and stray from reality, they’ll never change anything that is based in reality

      • phobiac@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        There is a world of difference between taking issue with someone making a poorly received argument and a government deciding that making that argument is inherently illegal.

        • SitD@feddit.de
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          6 months ago

          everyone who upvoted this comment is a brainlet social media activist and never did anything good for Palestine 👌😂 go on and confirm by downvoting here, polls are open.

      • BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        Hun, your slavish devotion to optics are shackles. Worse, you’re policing your peers, prioritizing the abstract appeal of your optics to a hypothetical other over their reality anchored and literal praxis.

        Kill the cop in your head, babe. We’ll be over here when you’re ready.

  • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
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    6 months ago

    Saying, for instance, that “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” would be deemed anti-Semitic under its terms. The definition also bars any comparison between “contemporary Israeli policy” and “that of the Nazis”.

    Lmao this is a guilty conscience talking.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Israel is like the Nazis in that the Americans are going to support them up to the moment they lose, at which point they will retcon their own history to say of course they were always against them.

      • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        The majority of Americans opposed Nazis, even before entering the war. We supported the allies with aid, and were instrumental in making the Nazi’s defeat a reality.

  • john89@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    What the fuck?

    Fuck zionists and their disproportionate amount of control over the world.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      The genocidal world order. The civilized nations see them for the monsters that they are.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        By civilized nations you mean whom exactly? European governments are complicit in more than one genocide happening right now, same with USA, China is fine with its own, India is a mess, but TBH without an active massacre happening right now, I think.

        Latin America with all those drug cartels and sexual exploitation? I mean, Latin American states indeed are generally civilized on issues of the genocide and self-determination kinds. Most of those issues exist in the old world, though, so - easier for them.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Good thing their silly religious stories will never come true.

      Imagine being disappointed for eternity.

      • Alsephina@lemmy.mlOP
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        6 months ago

        Zionism is a racist colonial ideology, merely using religion as a tool. Theodor Herzl, founder of zionism, said so himself

        “We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.” Source [II]

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          It used religion simply as a component of typical XIX-century romantic nationalism. It was a secular ideology until the last 10-20 years.

    • mihor@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Only free for zionists and the corporations. You know, the wealthy people. Not for the silly plebes.

    • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      I get the feeling a lot of our more vocal free speech absolutists are going to be conspicuously quiet on this one.

  • Binthinkin@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Zionists are also thieves because they are buying stolen Gaza land.

    I have sat at passover with Zionists and they are the dumbest shittiest people just like the crazy evangelicals. Just shit people.

    Good luck on getting them to admit any type of fault.

      • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Hey!

        Aw who am I kidding, I know my country’s bloodstained history despite my public education. I wish I could say it was in our past and that we’re better now, but we’re literally funding this exact genocide. 🫠

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          6 months ago

          I know my country’s bloodstained history despite my public education.

          I fucking can’t stand that this is a thing. I experienced the same thing and honestly it was “earth shattering.”

          When you’re a kid and you’re brainwashed into believing “America the Great” and how we’re always the Good Guys™ always Fighting for Democracy™ only to graduate and then learn on your own how absolutely fucking disgusting we are as a nation it absolutely fucks with your head and how you trust information.

          These fucking morons can’t figure out where so many conspiracy theorists come from? It’s from people like me who find out their entire social studies class was a fucking lie to indoctrinate you and then fall down a rabbit hole when they start learning about actual history… Thankfully I was “smart” enough to dig my way out of that hole before becoming some crazed Neonazi but still… Damage was done.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Adding IHRA’s definition to the law would allow the federal Department of Education to restrict funding and other resources to campuses perceived as tolerating anti-Semitism.

    The campus crackdown is definitely going too far. Vietnam War protestors were treated the same way. It escalated, and the cops opened fire at Kent State.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The state guard fired on students at Kent State not the cops.

      The difference today is kids got guns and will fire back.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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    6 months ago

    That’s called a Nazi apologist law. That’s making a subset of Nazis accepted and censoring those against them at the same time.

    I thought I won’t see such decay in my lifetime, but then life is never boring.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    These people must know all this does is destroy the legitimacy of your authority. Israel is committing genocide. Its happening. Changing legal definitions will not change how many bodies are piled in Gaza. The mounds of dead children cannot be legislated into something moral.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      These people must know all this does is destroy the legitimacy of your authority.

      I think I know what they think - that their authority doesn’t stand on legitimacy, it stands on power. The difference between now and 20 years ago is that modern Web and mass media are better controlled by them, and modern surveillance is another world.

      They don’t care about “moral”, they think we’ll just eat it and shut up.

      They are fine with a few protests which won’t change the outcome.

      Notice how protests in the last decade or so have become less violent, while the crimes against humanity of those governments have become more blatant.

      That’s not a coincidence, it’s a strategy of controlling population bringing fruit. People more likely to lead movements are detected and neutralized without ever knowing it, maybe through connectivity, maybe through disinformation, maybe through directing their attention at wrong things, maybe through various kinds of pressure, and I’m sure in a miraculous case where these don’t work nobody will notice a sudden death here and there.

      Internationalization of KGB has happened. In Soviet times that was simply a very inefficient system, so it sucked balls compared to the western ones. But now the west both gradually reduced freedoms considered normal, making such control less expensive, and also modern technologies raised its efficiency quite a lot.