Continuing to push a manufactured moral crisis about "antisemitism on college campuses" to justify the Trump regime's war on higher education, free speech, and protest rights, the fascist GOP are holding another round of HUAC-style "antisemitism" hearings; this time targeting the presidents of Haverford College, DePaul University, and California Polytechnic State University. In response to this latest perverse appropriation of Jewish identity and anti-hate activism to justify a genocide, ideological policing, and fascist repression of student activists, Congressional Democrats, free speech advocates, and Jewish peace activists are all speaking out against the conflation of anti-genocide activism with antisemitism, and these clownshow McCarthyite hearings as a whole.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/house-antisemitism-hearing

Jewish Voices for Palestine and Free Speech Slam House GOP 'Kangaroo Hearing' on Antisemitism

"Tali Beckwith-Cohen, a Jewish senior at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, argued: "The Trump regime is using false allegations of antisemitism to disappear our friends, punish student protestors, and dismantle higher education. What we are seeing has nothing to do with keeping Jews safe, and everything to do with crushing dissent."

"Thousands of Jews on campuses across the country have spoken out in solidarity with the people of Gaza and we will not be silent," Beckwith-Cohen vowed.

JVPA political director Beth Miller contended that "the far-right does not care about Jewish safety."

"Trump and his allies in Congress are platforming neo-Nazis and Christian nationalists, all while pretending to care about antisemitism in order to take a hatchet to our communities and most basic freedoms," Miller added. "This is intended to silence the Palestinian rights movement, sow chaos, and sharpen authoritarian tools that will then be used to dismantle civil liberties and democracy itself."

Alright there's a lot of absolutely wild shit going on here, all of which contribute to the stunning DARVO-esque fascist unreality being created by this spectacle; so we've got to go through it all.

- Yes multiple GOP members sitting on this commission are either racists or antisemites themselves; including the chair, Michigan's own Tim Walberg who suggested during a recorded town hall that Israel should nuke Gaza like "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" after October 7th. Using an expansive definition of antisemitism that conflates opposition to Zionism and Israeli crimes against Palestine with antisemitism, the Republicans managed to extract groveling apologies from the University Presidents, who supported Republican lies and threw the free speech rights of their students and faculty to the wolves without too much provocation.

- Numerous Jewish students and anti-genocide activists accused the GOP members of the committee of appropriating Jewish pain and identity to justify a campaign of ideological policing, authoritarian repression, and illegal kidnapping of student protestors. This matters because while the Trump regime and pro-genocide mainstream media outlets have worked very hard to portray anti-genocide student protests as inherently antisemitic, the fact is that Jewish Americans are massively overrepresented in the anti-genocide protest movement on college campuses. Their voices are consistently erased from the discourse by an establishment working hard to manufacture consent for a US-backed genocide being conducted by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.

- As former ACLU national legal director David Cole pointed out, anti-Israel advocacy and even actual antisemitic speech are still protected under the First Amendment; although obviously hate crimes and threats are not. Professor Cole also mentioned the disturbing parallels between this hearing and the House Un-American Activities Committee sessions from the days of McCarthyism. Finally, Cole drew the obvious connection between the GOP member's arguments and the Trump regimes larger authoritarian attempt to ideologically police and take academic control of American universities.

- Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also pointed out the direct connection between the committee's activities and the Trump regime's ongoing campaign of kidnapping, detainment, and attempted deportation of noncitizen activists to suppress anti-genocide protest and speech. Additionally *multiple* other Democrat politicians on the committee expressed disbelief that the clearly-cynical "party of 'very fine people on both sides' or ' Jewish space lasers' does not give a damn about stopping antisemitism," particularly while openly and disdainfully neglecting to bright forth literally any other type of civil rights investigation or legal case against marginalized people being victimized anywhere else in American life.

#Fascism #GOP #Genocide #Gaza #Trump #Israel #StudentProtests #FreeSpeech #DemocraticParty #IlhanOmar #DavidCole #ACLU #Antisemitism #TimWalberg #JVPA #McCarthyism #IdeologicalPolicing #Propaganda

This is coverage of Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan's 5th Congressional District & his horrific comments.

Michigan actually elected this clown.

☑️ #Republican congressman suggests US should #nuke Gaza to 'get it over quick' in troubling clip https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/republican-congressman-suggests-should-nuke-32481857.amp
☑️ #Michigan congressman on Gaza aid: 'It should be like Nagasaki & Hiroshima. Get it over quick'
https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-congressman-gaza-aid-nagasaki-033727385.html
☑️ Congressman rebuked for call to bomb #Gaza ‘like Nagasaki & Hiroshima’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/31/tim-walberg-republican-congressman-gaza

#timwalberg