Entire ‘Squad,’ 70 Dems Vote Against ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’
For now the vote on the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ was revealing when 70 Democrats voted against a bill fighting antisemitism.
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Will Sen. Schumer kill the bill? Probably.
First, the actual solutions to what’s happening on campus would be to
- deport foreigners supporting terrorists
- defund the departments are responsible for turning campuses into activism hubs
- restore order on campuses using state or federal law enforcement
2 out of 3 of those are evergreen and even the third would mostly apply to the BLM riots and other forms of political harassment.
The ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ falls far short of that. Despite the false claims on social media, it does little more than allow Jewish students to sue colleges for allowing harassment of Jews under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’. It can also help roll back some of the pro-terrorist propaganda in the classroom.
Will it do that?
The actual bill, which few seem to have read, orders the Department of Education to exclusively use the IHRA definition of antisemitism as opposed to using it alongside other definitions. The practical upshot of the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ would be force the Department of Ed to close the ‘anti-Zionism’ loophole, but in reality there’s no particular reason to think that the same bureaucrats ignoring campus antisemitism now will start taking it seriously now that the House passed a bill ordering it to.
Will the Senate even take up and pass the bill? Probably not.
70 Dems, including the Squad and most of the Left, voted against it. Sen. Schumer has indicated he’s not too excited about the people. Rep. Nadler being trotted out to attack the bill publicly suggests Schumer is getting cover to kill the bill.
The ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ is, like a lot of congressional legislation, probably doomed. It does provide grist for antisemites from the Left (and now from the Right) to spread conspiracy theories about it. (No, it does not criminalize the bible. An IHRA definition states that comparing Israel’s fight against Islamic terrorism to Jews killing Jesus is not a political criticism, it’s antisemitism.)
If the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ actually becomes law (and I don’t believe it will), a Trump administration could appoint people who would actually use it as a tool to end some of the abuses by terror-supporting faculty in the classroom.
For now the vote on the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act’ was revealing when 70 Democrats voted against a bill fighting antisemitism.
That’s what it amounts to and not much else.
