[rad-green] On Trump’s Executive Order, BDS a nd the Real Threat of Antisemitism

*https://rabbibrant.com/2019/12/13/on-trumps-executive-order-bds-and-the-real-threat-of-antisemitism/
<https://rabbibrant.com/2019/12/13/on-trumps-executive-order-bds-and-the-real-threat-of-antisemitism/>Shalom
Rav          December 13, 2019*

*On Trump’s Executive Order, BDS and the Real Threat of Antisemitism*


*by Rabbi Brant Rosen*
[image: Donald Trump, Melania Trump]

*photo credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta*

It’s certainly been a strange and surreal week for the American Jewish
community. As is all too painfully well known by now, this past Tuesday,
the New York Times reported
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=PiInCVHjZg_Lhb0RQ-dhd4gqBuo8cWdoXISQrtef_S_YgYj_CuqTWw6gLYIxU2k4OJBHZZsAoC98cpF35Z1RUBUlPmnv3TZdx36sif1WdqWczh7okvuhjldTgStNe-jf&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=2>
that
Donald Trump would sign an Executive Order that would “interpret Judaism as
a race or nationality” to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and
universities that failed to protect Jewish students from the threat of BDS
activism. This news caused an almost immediate upheaval, with
vociferous protest emanating from a wide swath of the Jewish community
concerned that this order could easily enable the antisemitic canard of
Jewish “dual loyalties.”

While I certainly shared the outrage upon hearing this news, I harbored a
deeper concern that I shared on my congregation‘s Facebook group page
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=27Ax0UmWOX2J8J_QwK9Z6sAbiimTwRd6ssr23ZzK-qJ3i6mom5P7WRKa8oparrYL&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=3>:
i.e., that the Jewish community was making this issue exclusively about us,
ignoring the fact that Trump’s order was ultimately aimed silencing
Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them. “As ever,” I
wrote:

I would suggest the most important response we can make to this latest
cynical maneuver is to redouble our solidarity with the Palestinian people
and to rededicate our support of the BDS movement – not merely for the sake
of “free speech” but for a free Palestine. We must recommit ourselves to
the central goals of the BDS call from Palestinian civil society itself:
for a land where all who live between the river and the sea are full and
equal citizens.

As it turned out, the New York Times report turned out to be false. The
actual text
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=1oBgX6ST5KuGZKQuBmzqEa1zrCKCwOrGxH1LyVgZmdNQrNTmJVChaXfmVRySmNmiGfzjy2l74D94iGOO66XoN9WhTNWhUWqQ5zKo4nkkfH0GNK-0FvyJ52K_YAGAOMPMOFff7Qet-y0qh4dIf3fs9tTMB8OeRvEpnzAGMlRX5ws&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=4>
of
the Executive Order, which Trump signed at bizarre White House Hanukkah
reception
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=JNO4c-GH-KGwAqGopQLVlmFB8LvnOOGAu9hf2xfB0_mt15qOuXkledCiJAIKYSLhEqrsv6szHEru63qVtA7yzlzzsumA0cjKyfa_8CB2_cmlaHaKiCO-RvaC84ubJNDjieSY__3PfXKq_8CWZjVUkC-F-vqWAMiOG0X_iJO2UpfovknijsZjb8ctxdhBRQj56zuHiDZWiy8zzkUqTCuLZYvW82pKE-OYzoWkn1hbSZA&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=5>,
did not explicitly define Jews as a nationality (though it did rely on
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the
basis of race, color and national origin” but not religion). Upon hearing
this news, many in the Jewish community seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
Others dismissed the order itself, saying it was just a reaffirmation of
the Obama administration’s policy and that “it wouldn’t change much at all
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=Zhr1BCzf6Ur_laVYQPiBtGAPzQkTAg3EQf7O8lkVap8gxK9OS8_C8HYYUBCyWnQGhJsJXMQAEWF8WJKiD11VSUMSIEmZT82Ene1l6BN3r3H-4INB93Rj8N9KeHfi5VL9wpBJmCnwRNCbgn_iS3GGdw&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=6>
.”

Whatever else this might mean, we certainly shouldn’t downplay the threat
posed by this cynical Executive Order, which essentially puts into law what
Israel advocates and their allies in Congress were unable to do with the
stalled, ill-fated “Antisemitism Awareness Act
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/01/congresss-anti-semitism-act-wont-stop-hate-crimes-against-jews/>.”
Going forward, agencies and departments charged with enforcing Title VI can
now “consider” using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s
(IHRA) definition <https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/node/196> of
antisemitism, which was never intended to be used to be enforce standards
on college campuses.

There are a myriad of problems with the IHRA definition. In one oft-quoted
line, for instance, it prohibits “applying double standards by requiring of
it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
However, as journalist Paul Waldman recently pointed out
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/> in the Washington Post, while “someone
might apply double standards to Israel out of antisemitism, but the idea
that doing so is inherently antisemitic is preposterous. We can decry
double standards, but people use them all the time in policy debates
without being defined as bigoted.” Moreover, Waldman wrote, “‘saying
criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country’ is
not antisemitic would mean criticisms of Israel would have to meet a
*higher* standard than criticism of other countries or else they’re
antisemitic.”

Additionally, the IHRA definition deems it antisemitic to “deny the Jewish
people their right to self-determination.” This is a muddy and subjective
standard that comes dangerously close to making the fallacious claim
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-anti-zionism-isn-t-a-form-of-discrimination-and-it-s-not-anti-semitism-1.5419045>
that
anti-Zionism is synonymous with antisemitism.

In fact, there are many different definitions of self-determination other
than political nation-statism.  It could well be argued (as I have
<https://rabbibrant.com/2014/02/26/more-heat-than-light-my-response-to-rev-chris-leighton/>
on
several occasions) that the Jewish people have no more inherent “right” to
create a political nation state in a specific piece of land than any other
people might have – and it is certainly not antisemitic to say so. On the
other hand, it would be *immensely* antisemitic to suggest that Jews do not
have a right to self-determination as minority communities of the nations
in which they live.

I certainly realize that how events of this past week may have conjured up
the the deepest fears of American Jews. And I know full well that we cannot
and must not be sanguine about the threat of resurgent antisemitism. But I
would also suggest that is critically important that we remember where this
threat is actually coming from – and where it is not. Indeed, it is
critical to note that while the American Jewish community was tying itself
up in knots around the issue of the so-called “antisemitic threat” of BDS
on college campuses, two Jews and a third bystander were killed in a kosher
market in Jersey City, an incident
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=9j2xrPCwd3yFLU_EZoBgHtfEESaxtCFEWO2dJEAI3D941WHV3Y0dPYG2LW6vqWo9zA0bMDLKZ4YlpX6e-SYzEw_YvwcJGEodw7jLJnykD8iHB22vwXqQ_Fw9VcM-6XVw&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=7>
the
police is now investigating as a hate crime.

In an age where Jews are being regularly targeted and murdered by
extremists, it is not only disingenuous of our government to spend so much
time, energy and resources on combatting BDS – a nonviolent movement rooted
in human rights for all – it is downright dangerous. It is time to stand
down the false and pernicious equation of antisemitism coming from both the
“right and the left.” We know full well where the most dangerous and deadly
antisemitism is truly coming from – and we need to make this clear to the
world in no uncertain terms.

In the end, I believe the most telling commentary
<https://www.tzedekchicago.org/r?u=FECXgvVBAH18GBWRCy8D9STfn5_obmJT_ymll8hPaHIrlNgvTplzlQa1ylHs8y-jeHmkLqfiXuyhZQgUKnMaXSLeOcdz6fnqGU21Yt0zAJByYzhlXat9CoSpP8tKuQhKKOj2ZxmEuztoUQ7sX7k_IfGdtOJycofrRn_SArBrwByDLK5LyzPy6pxbHh13sOxk2EqykVbS939mHxRgjHboM2TFJjxN3dHqWAGEPLC8PG6PqnQ74uh9RRLrTr0XvmGx&e=f4566184432acda1bf30fe90009ce8e9&utm_source=tzedekchicago&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e_news_12_13_19&n=8>
on
the events of this past week came in an op-ed by Kenneth Stern, one of the
authors of the definition of antisemitism used in Trump’s Executive Order.
I’ll let him have the last word:

Rather than champion the chilling of expressions that pro-Israel Jews find
disturbing, or give the mildest criticism (if any) of a president who
repeatedly uses antisemitic tropes, why weren’t those Jewish officials who
were present when Trump signed the executive order reminding him that last
year, when he demonized immigrants and called them “invaders”, Robert
Bowers walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue because he believed Jews were
behind this “invasion” of brown people as part of a plot to harm white
people, and killed 11 of us?

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