Podcast: Play in new window | Download
President Trump Signs Order Defining Jewish People In The United States As Nation And Race, Not Religion
In the past several years support for the human rights of Palestinians has grown substantially, especially on U.S. college campuses. Israel is being criticized and even boycotted for its violation of international law in its treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which it controls militarily , in the territory of the West Bank , which it conquered and now militarily occupies, and in Israel proper where Palestinians are a discriminated against minority.
In response to this growth of support for Palestinians on December 11th, 2019, President Donald Trump signed an executive order changing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and defining for the first time the 7.5 million American Jews who live here not as a religious group , but as a nation and a race.
The implication of this is that they are an “other” with dual loyalties not just to the United States but loyalty to Israel. The dual loyalty accusation is an anti-Semitic trope with an old and ugly history.
Presidential advisor Jared Kushner wrote a New York Times OpEd defending his father-in-law’s policy equating anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
This was done in order for the Department of Education to suppress the free-speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists on campuses who may now be labeled as anti-Semitic for their activities and their schools would be denied funds unless the activists were shut down.
Guest – Attorney Abdeen Jabara, a leader of the National Lawyers Guild and the former president of the Arab American Anti-discrimination Committee.
Guest – Professor Norman Finkelstein, received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department in 1988. He is the author of ten books that have been translated into 50 foreign editions, including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections On The Exploitation Of Jewish Suffering and, most recently, GAZA: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.?
—————————
—————————