BREAKING: The House just passed HR 6090, which expands the definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel.
Let me be clear. People have rights. State governments do not have rights. This terrible bill sets a dangerous precedent & does nothing to actually decrease or stop the scourge of antisemitism. The Senate should not pass this bill and Biden should not sign it into law.
@QasimRashid It took me a moment to get how you got to that conclusion.
The bill (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090/text) vaguely refers to the IHRA definition (https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism).
I take it that the problem is this line in that definition?
> Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Otherwise I don’t see anything in there that to me suggests you can’t criticize Israel.
@philip @QasimRashid It’s cutting it close. Whether the state of Israel’s stated goals of remaining a jewish state is racist should still be up for debate, because it is a debate that can be learned from. It’s useful because ethnicity was a thing on the ground through 1920 to 1990, even if technically one can convert to Judaism nowadays.
The conflict is based on deep ethnically-based divisions and violence in the past, and it isn’t a worthless argument.
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
Philip Mallegol-Hansen
Toni Aittoniemi