En ces jours-là surgit d’Israël une génération de vauriens qui séduisirent beaucoup de personnes en disant : “Allons, faisons alliance avec les nations qui nous entourent, car depuis que nous nous sommes séparés d’elles, bien des maux nous sont advenus.” (…) Plusieurs parmi le peuple s’empressèrent d’aller trouver le roi, qui leur donna l’autorisation d’observer les coutumes païennes. Ils construisirent donc un gymnase à Jérusalem, selon les usages des nations, se refirent des prépuces et renièrent l’alliance sainte pour s’associer aux nations. 1 Maccabées 1: 11-15
Il n’était même pas permis de célébrer le sabbat, ni de garder les fêtes de nos pères, ni simplement de confesser que l’on était Juif. On était conduit par une amère nécessité à participer chaque mois au repas rituel, le jour de la naissance du roi et, lorsqu’arrivaient les fêtes dionysiaques, on devait, couronné de lierre, accompagner le cortège de Dionysos. (…) Ainsi deux femmes furent déférées en justice pour avoir circoncis leurs enfants. On les produisit en public à travers la ville, leurs enfants suspendus à leurs mamelles, avant de les précipiter ainsi du haut des remparts. D’autres s’étaient rendus ensemble dans des cavernes voisines pour y célébrer en cachette le septième jour. Dénoncés à Philippe, ils furent brûlés ensemble, se gardant bien de se défendre eux-mêmes par respect pour la sainteté du jour. (…) Eléazar, un des premiers docteurs de la Loi, homme déjà avancé en âge et du plus noble extérieur, était contraint, tandis qu’on lui ouvrait la bouche de force, de manger de la chair de porc. Mais lui, préférant une mort glorieuse à une existence infâme, marchait volontairement au supplice de la roue,non sans avoir craché sa bouchée, comme le doivent faire ceux qui ont le courage de rejeter ce à quoi il n’est pas permis de goûter par amour de la vie. 2 Maccabées 6 : 6-20
On célébrait à Jérusalem la fête de la Dédicace. C’était l’hiver. Et Jésus se promenait dans le temple, sous le portique de Salomon. Jean 10: 22
La crise maccabéenne n’est pas un affrontement entre un roi grec fanatique et des Juifs pieux attachés à leurs traditions. C’est d’abord une crise interne au judaïsme, d’un affrontement entre ceux qui estiment qu’on peut rester fidèle au judaïsme en adoptant néanmoins certains traits de la civilisation du monde moderne, le grec, la pratique du sport, etc.., et ceux qui au contraire, pensent que toute adoption des mœurs grecques porte atteinte de façon insupportable à la religion des ancêtres. Si le roi Antiochos IV intervient, ce n’est pas par fanatisme, mais bien pour rétablir l’ordre dans une province de son royaume qui, de plus, se place sur la route qu’il emprunte pour faire campagne en Égypte. (…) Là où Antiochos IV commettait une magistrale erreur politique, c’est qu’il n’avait pas compris qu’abolir la Torah ne revenait pas seulement à priver les Juifs de leurs lois civiles, mais conduisait à l’abolition du judaïsme. Maurice Sartre
L’assemblée générale (…) considère que le sionisme est une forme de racisme et de discrimination raciale. Résolution 379 (ONU, le 10 novembre 1975)
L’assemblée générale décide de déclarer nulle la conclusion contenue dans le dispositif de sa résolution 3379 (XXX) du 10 novembre 1975. Résolution 4686 (ONU, le 16 décembre 1991)
I stand before you as the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, parents who experienced being stripped of their human rights – the right to freedom of travel, equal treatment. I cannot stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government and the State of Israel. I love our country’s freedom of speech, madam speaker. Dissent is how we nurture democracy. and grow to be better and more humane and just. This is why I oppose resolution 243. All Americans have a right, a constitutional right guaranteed by the first amendment to freedom of speech. To petition their government and participate in boycotts. Speech in pursuit of civil rights at home and abroad is protected by our first amendment. That is one reason why our first amendment is so powerful. With a few exceptions the government is simply not allowed to discriminate against speech based on its viewpoint or speaker. The right to boycott is deeply rooted in the fabric of our country. What was the Boston tea party but a boycott ? Where would we be now with the civil rights activists in the 1950’s and 1960’s like the united farm workers grape boycott? Some of this country’s most important advances in racial equality and equity and workers’ rights has been achieved through collective action, protected by our constitution. Americans of conscience have long and proud history of participating in boycotts, specifically to advocate for human rights abroad. Americans boycotted nazi Germany in response to dehumanization, imprisonment, and genocide of Jewish people. In the 1980’s, many of us in this very body boycotted South African goods in the fight against apartheid. Our right to free speech is being threatened with this resolution. It sets a dangerous precedent because it attempts to delegitimatize a certain people’s political speech and to send a message that our government can and will take action against speech it doesn’t like. Madam speaker, the Supreme court has time and time again recognized the expressive conduct is protected by the constitution. from burning a flag to baking a cake, efforts to restrict and target that protected speech run the risk of eroding the civil rights that form the foundation of our democracy. All Americans have the right to participate in boycotts, and I oppose all legislative efforts that target speech. I urge congress, state governments, and civil rights leaders from all communities to preserve our constitution, preserve our bill of rights, and preserve the first amendment’s guaranteed of freedom of speech by opposing h. res. 246 and the boycott, anti-boycott efforts wherever they rise. Rashida Tlaib (July 23, 2019)
Melania and I send our warmest wishes to Jewish people in the United States, Israel and across the world as you commence the 8-day celebration of Hanukkah. More than 2,000 years ago, the Maccabees boldly reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, securing a victory for the Jewish people and their faith. They proudly lit the menorah to rededicate the Second Temple. Even though there was only enough olive oil to burn for one day, through divine providence, the flames miraculously burned for eight nights. As the Jewish community gathers together to celebrate this special and sacred time of year, we are reminded of God’s message of hope, mercy, and love. Throughout the coming eight days, each candle to be lit on the menorah will signal to the world that freedom and justice will always shine brighter than hate and oppression. Today, the relationship between the United States and Israel, one of our most cherished allies and friends, is stronger than ever. We will continue to stand with the Jewish people in defending the God-given right to worship freely and openly. As our Jewish brothers and sisters gather around the menorah each night, we pray for a memorable and blessed celebration of the Festival of Lights. May the light of the menorah and the fellowship of family and friends fill your hearts with happiness and a renewed sense of faith. Happy Hanukkah! President Trump
Le président Donald J. Trump prend un décret présidentiel pour renforcer la lutte contre la montée de l’antisémitisme aux États-Unis. Le décret du président Trump indique clairement que le Titre VI de la loi sur les droits civils de 1964 s’applique à la discrimination antisémite fondée sur la race, la couleur ou l’origine nationale. Dans le cadre de l’application du Titre VI contre la discrimination antisémite dissimulée, les agences se référeront à la définition de l’antisémitisme de l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste (IHRA) ainsi que ses exemples contemporains. (…) Ces dernières années, les Américains ont assisté à une augmentation inquiétante des incidents antisémites et à une montée de la rhétorique correspondante dans l’ensemble du pays. (…) Les incidents antisémites se sont multipliés en Amérique depuis 2013, en particulier dans les écoles et sur les campus universitaires. Il s’agit en particulier d’actes de violence horribles à l’encontre de Juifs américains et de synagogues aux États-Unis. 18 membres démocrates du Congrès ont coparrainé cette année une législation en faveur du mouvement antisémite « Boycott, désinvestissement, sanctions » (BDS). Dans leur résolution, ces membres du Congrès comparaient de manière choquante le soutien à Israël à celui à l’Allemagne nazie. Ambassade des Etats-Unis en France
États-unis. Quand Trump voit le judaïsme comme une nationalité: Sous prétexte de combattre l’antisémitisme, le président américain signe un décret qui empêche toute critique d’Israël. L’Humanité
Le président Trump prévoit de signer mercredi un décret visant à cibler ce qu’il considère comme de l’antisémitisme sur les campus universitaires en menaçant de retenir l’argent fédéral des établissements d’enseignement qui ne parviennent pas à lutter contre la discrimination, ont déclaré mardi trois responsables de l’administration. L’ordonnance devrait effectivement interpréter le judaïsme comme une race ou une nationalité, et pas seulement comme une religion, pour inciter une loi fédérale pénalisant les collèges et universités qui se dérobent à leur responsabilité à favoriser un climat ouvert pour les étudiants issus de minorités. Ces dernières années, le boycott, le désinvestissement et les sanctions – ou B.D.S. – le mouvement contre Israël a troublé certains campus, laissant certains étudiants juifs se sentir importuns ou attaqués. En signant l’ordonnance, M. Trump utilisera son pouvoir exécutif pour agir là où le Congrès ne l’a pas fait, reproduisant essentiellement une législation bipartite bloquée par le Capitol Hill depuis plusieurs années. D’éminents démocrates se sont joints aux républicains pour promouvoir un tel changement de politique afin de combattre l’antisémitisme ainsi que le mouvement de boycott d’Israël. Mais les critiques se sont plaints qu’une telle politique pourrait être utilisée pour étouffer la liberté d’expression et l’opposition légitime à la politique d’Israël envers les Palestiniens au nom de la lutte contre l’antisémitisme. La définition de l’antisémitisme utilisée dans l’ordonnance correspond à celle utilisée par le Département d’État et par d’autres nations, mais elle a été critiquée comme étant trop ouverte et trop générale. Par exemple, il y est décrit comme antisémite « nier au peuple juif son droit à l’autodétermination » dans certaines circonstances et offre comme exemple de ce comportement « affirmer que l’existence d’un État d’Israël est une entreprise raciste ». (…) Les responsables de l’administration, qui ont insisté sur l’anonymat pour discuter de l’ordonnance avant son annonce officielle, ont déclaré qu’elle n’était pas destiné à étouffer la liberté d’expression. La Maison Blanche a contacté certains démocrates et groupes militants qui ont critiqué le président pour obtenir un soutien à cette décision. (…) Au fil des ans, M. Trump a été accusé de faire des remarques antisémites, de fermer les yeux sur les tropes antisémites ou d’enhardir les suprémacistes blancs comme ceux de Charlottesville, en Virginie, en 2017. Le week-end dernier, il a été critiqué pour ses propos tenus en Floride devant le Conseil israélo-américain au cours de laquelle il a déclaré au public juif qu’ils n’étaient « pas des gens sympas » mais qu’ils appuieraient sa réélection parce que « vous n’allez pas voter pour l’impôt sur la fortune ». Mais il s’est également positionné comme un partisan indéfectible d’Israël et un champion des Juifs américains, en déplaçant l’ambassade des États-Unis à Jérusalem, en soutenant les colonies en Cisjordanie et en reconnaissant la saisie des hauteurs du Golan. Il a également agressé la représentante Ilhan Omar, démocrate du Minnesota, lorsqu’elle a déclaré que le soutien à Israël était « tout au sujet des Benjamins », ce qui signifie de l’argent. (…) L’ordonnance à signer par M. Trump habiliterait le Département de l’éducation à de telles actions. En vertu du titre VI de la loi sur les droits civils de 1964, le ministère peut retenir le financement de tout collège ou programme éducatif qui établit une discrimination «fondée sur la race, la couleur ou l’origine nationale». La religion n’était pas incluse dans les catégories protégées, donc l’ordre de Donald Trump aura pour effet d’embrasser un argument selon lequel les Juifs sont un peuple ou une race d’origine nationale collective au Moyen-Orient, comme les Italo-Américains ou les Polonais américains. La définition de l’antisémitisme qui doit être adoptée par le Département d’État et formulée à l’origine par l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste comprend « une certaine perception des Juifs, qui peut être exprimée comme de la haine envers les Juifs ». Cependant, elle ajoute que « des critiques d’Israël similaires à ce niveau contre tout autre pays ne peut pas être considéré comme antisémite ». (…) Bien qu’un ordre exécutif ne soit pas aussi permanent que la législation et puisse être annulé par le prochain président, l’action de M. Trump peut avoir pour effet d’étendre la politique au-delà de son administration, car ses successeurs peuvent trouver politiquement peu attrayant de le renverser. NYT
President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Wednesday targeting what he sees as anti-Semitism on college campuses by threatening to withhold federal money from educational institutions that fail to combat discrimination, three administration officials said on Tuesday. The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. NYT
In an alternate universe, the idea of a presidential order designed to protect Jews from discrimination on college campuses would not necessarily create a firestorm of mutual recrimination and internecine political warfare. True, there is no consensus on whether “Jewish” is a religious, cultural, ethnic, or national identity. Most often, it is framed as a combination of at least three, but not always and certainly not in the views of all the various denominations and sects that accept the appellation. But there is no question that anti-Semitic acts are increasing across the United States, and they are being undertaken by people who could not care less about these distinctions. And there is nothing inherently objectionable about using the power of the federal government to try to protect people, including college students, from those incidents’ consequences. But in this universe, the guy who ordered this protection, Donald Trump, has revealed himself repeatedly to be an inveterate anti-Semite. (…) That’s on the one hand. On the other, Trump has been a perfect patsy for Israel’s right-wing government and its supporters in what is misnamed the American “pro-Israel” community. While previous presidents sought, without much success, to restrain Israel on behalf of a hoped-for future peace agreement with the Palestinians, Trump has given that nation’s most corrupt and extremist leadership in its 71-year-history carte blanche—peace and the Palestinians be damned. If the simultaneous embrace of anti-Semitism at home and philo-Semitism when it comes to Israel strikes one as contradictory, this is a mistake. Trump, like so many of today’s elected “populists,” sees considerable advantage in playing to hometown prejudices for personal gain while boosting Israel as a bulwark against worldwide Islam, which many of the president’s supporters consider an even greater offense to Christian belief than Jews are. Jews may be greedy and disloyal at home, but as long as Israel is out there kicking the shit out of the Arabs, it’s a trade-off that right-wing autocrats and their neofascist followers can get behind. (…) But the issue of the executive order is complicated by the fact that it is understood by all to be a means for the federal government to step in and quash the intensifying criticism of Israel on college campuses—most notably, criticism that takes the form of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, or BDS. And it does this in part by insisting, as Jared Kushner recently argued in a New York Times op-ed, that all “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” I’ve been an outspoken critic of the academic BDS movement for some time now. But if you ask me, the movement has been a spectacular failure in every respect, save one: It has succeeded in turning many college campuses into anti-Israel inculcation centers and therefore has scared the bejesus out of the Jewish parents paying for their kids to attend them. At the same time—even if you allow that occasional anti-Semitic comments and actions by some of BDS’s supporters are outliers and not indicative of most of its followers—I find the idea and, even more so, the practice of an academic boycott to be undeniably contradictory to universities’ philosophical commitment to freedom of expression and ideas. Nonetheless, the explicit and intellectually indefensible equation of anti-Zionism with actionable anti-Semitism is an obvious offense to the notion of freedom of expression, however much it cheers the tiny hearts of right-wing Jews and other Trump defenders. Jewish students already had all the protections they needed before Trump’s executive order. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act covers discrimination on the basis of a “group’s actual or perceived ancestry or ethnic characteristics” or “actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity.” The New York Times’ early, inaccurate reporting on the executive order, in which the paper falsely stated that the order would “effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality,” deserves special mention here for creating the panic. But the result of the entire episode is that, yet again, the Trump administration has placed a stupid, shiny object before the media, and the hysteria that has ensued has divided Americans, Jews, liberals and conservatives, and free speech and human rights activists, all while the administration continues its relentless assault on our democracy and better selves. The Nation
US President Donald Trump thinks that anti-Semitism is a serious problem in America. But Trump is not so much concerned about neo-Nazis who scream that Jews and other minorities “will not replace us,” for he thinks that many white supremacists are “very fine people.” No, Trump is more worried about US college campuses, where students call for boycotts of Israel in support of the Palestinians. (…) In the first years of the Jewish state, Israel was popular among many leftists, because it was built on socialist ideas. Left-wing opinion in Europe and the United States began to turn against Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967, when Arab territories were occupied by Israeli troops. More and more, Israel came to be seen as a colonial power, or an apartheid state. One may or may not agree with that view of Israel. But few would deny that occupation, as is usually the case when civilians are under the thumb of a foreign military power, has led to oppression. So, to be a strong advocate for Palestinian rights and a critic of Israeli policies, on college campuses or anywhere else, does not automatically make one an anti-Semite. But there are extreme forms of anti-Zionism that do. The question is when that line is crossed. Some would claim that it is anti-Semitic to deny Jews the right to have their own homeland. This is indeed one of the premises of Trump’s presidential order. There are also elements on the radical left, certainly represented in educational institutions, who are so obsessed by the oppression of Palestinians that they see Israel as the world’s greatest evil. Just as anti-Semites in the past often linked Jews with the US, as the twin sources of rootless capitalist malevolence, some modern anti-Zionists combine their anti-Americanism with a loathing for Israel.In the minds of certain leftists, Israel and its American big brother are not just the last bastions of racist Western imperialism. The idea of a hidden Jewish capitalist cabal can also enter left-wing demonology as readily as it infects the far right. This noxious prejudice has haunted the British Labour Party, something its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has consistently failed to recognize.In short, anti-Zionism can veer into anti-Semitism, but not all critics of Israel are anti-Zionist, and not all anti-Zionists are prejudiced against Jews.Quite where people stand on this issue depends heavily on how they define a Jew – a source of endless vagueness and confusion. (…)There is, in any case, something ill-conceived about the stress on race and nationhood in Trump’s order on combating anti-Semitism. Israel is the only state claiming to represent all Jews, but not all Jews necessarily identify with Israel. Some even actively dislike it. Trump’s order might suggest that such people are renegades, or even traitors. This idea might please Israel’s current government, but it is far from the spirit of the Halakha, or even from the liberal idea of citizenship.Defining Jews as a “race” is just as much of a problem. Jews come from many ethnic backgrounds: Yemenite, Ethiopian, Russian, Moroccan, and Swedish Jews are hard to pin down as a distinctive ethnic group. Hitler saw Jews as a race, but that is no reason to follow his example.To combat racism, wherever it occurs, is a laudable aim. But singling out anti-Semitism in an executive order, especially when the concept is so intimately linked to views on the state of Israel, is a mistake. Extreme anti-Zionists may be a menace; all extremists are. But they should be tolerated, as long as their views are peacefully expressed. To stifle opinions on campuses by threatening to withhold funds runs counter to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the US Constitution. This is, alas, not the only sign that upholding the constitution is not the main basis of the current US administration’s claim to legitimacy. Ian Buruma
Donald Trump has a knack for taking some of humanity’s most problematic ideas and turning them on their head to make them even worse. He has done it again. On Wednesday, he signed an executive order that will allow federal funds to be withheld from colleges where students are not protected from anti-Semitism—using an absurdly defined version of what constitutes anti-Semitism. Recent precedent and the history of legislative efforts that preceded the executive order would suggest that its main targets are campus groups critical of Israeli policies. What the order itself did not make explicit, the President’s son-in-law did: on Wednesday, Jared Kushner published an Op-Ed in the Times in which he stressed that the definition of anti-Semitism used in the executive order “makes clear what our administration has stated publicly on the record: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” Both Kushner and the executive order refer to the definition of anti-Semitism that was formulated, in 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance; it has since been adopted by the State Department. The definition supplies examples of anti-Semitism, and Kushner cited the most problematic of these as the most important: “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”; denial to “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”; and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” All three examples perform the same sleight of hand: they reframe opposition to or criticism of Israeli policies as opposition to the state of Israel. And that, says Kushner, is anti-Semitism. To be sure, some people who are critical of Israeli policies are opposed to the existence of the state of Israel itself. And some of those people are also anti-Semites. I am intimately familiar with this brand of anti-Semitism, because I grew up in the Soviet Union, where anti-Zionist rhetoric served as the propaganda backbone of state anti-Semitism. The word “Zionist,” when deployed by Pravda, served as incitement to violence and discrimination against Soviet Jews. All of this can be true at the same time that it is also true that Israel has effectively created an apartheid state, in which some Palestinians have some political rights and the rest have none. Human-rights organizations such as Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem—Israeli groups, founded and run by Jews—continue to document harrowing abuse of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza. One does not have to be an anti-Semite to be an anti-Zionist, but one certainly can be both an anti-Semite and an anti-Zionist. Trump, however, has inverted this formula by positioning himself as a pro-Zionist anti-Semite. Masha Gessen (New Yorker)
The key point we were making is that sometimes discrimination against Jews, Muslims, and others is based on a perception of shared race, ethnicity, or national origin, and in those cases it’s appropriate to think of that discrimination as race or national origin discrimination as well as religious discrimination. It doesn’t mean that the government is saying that the group is a racial or national group. The government is saying that the discrimination is based on the discriminator’s perception of race or national origin. That’s a very different matter from saying that anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian speech constitutes discrimination. Sam Bagenstos (University of Michigan Law School)
The text of the order, which leaked on Wednesday, does not redefine Judaism as a race or nationality. It does not claim that Jews are a nation or a different race. The order’s interpretation of Title VI—insofar as the law applies to Jews—is entirely in line with the Obama administration’s approach. It only deviates from past practice by suggesting that harsh criticism of Israel—specifically, the notion that it is “a racist endeavor”—may be used as evidence to prove anti-Semitic intent. There is good reason, however, to doubt that the order can actually be used to suppress non-bigoted disapproval of Israel on college campuses. Title VI bars discrimination on the basis of “race, color or national origin” in programs that receive federal assistance—most notably here, educational institutions. It does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, an omission that raises difficult questions about religions that may have an ethnic component. For example, people of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities can be Muslim. But Islamophobia often takes the form of intolerance against individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern origin. If a college permits rampant Islamophobic harassment on campus, has it run afoul of Title VI? In a 2004 policy statement, Kenneth L. Marcus—then–deputy assistant secretary for enforcement at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights—answered that question. “Groups that face discrimination on the basis of shared ethnic characteristics,” Marcus wrote, “may not be denied the protection” under Title VI “on the ground that they also share a common faith.” Put differently, people who face discrimination because of their perceived ethnicity do not lose protection because of their religion. The Office of Civil Rights, Marcus continued, “will exercise its jurisdiction to enforce the Title VI prohibition against national origin discrimination, regardless of whether the groups targeted for discrimination also exhibit religious characteristics. Thus, for example, OCR aggressively investigates alleged race or ethnic harassment against Arab Muslim, Sikh and Jewish students.” The Obama administration reaffirmed this position in a 2010 letter written by Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who is now the chair of the Democratic National Committee. “We agree,” Perez wrote, with Marcus’ analysis. “Although Title VI does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, discrimination against Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and members of other religious groups violates Title VI when that discrimination is based on the group’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, rather than its members’ religious practice.” Perez added that Title VI “prohibits discrimination against an individual where it is based on actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity.” On Wednesday, I asked Perez’s former principal deputy, Sam Bagenstos—now a professor at University of Michigan Law School—whether he felt this reasoning equated any religious group of a nationality or race. “The key point we were making,” he told me, “is that sometimes discrimination against Jews, Muslims, and others is based on a perception of shared race, ethnicity, or national origin, and in those cases it’s appropriate to think of that discrimination as race or national origin discrimination as well as religious discrimination. It doesn’t mean that the government is saying that the group is a racial or national group. The government is saying that the discrimination is based on the discriminator’s perception of race or national origin. That’s a very different matter from saying that anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian speech constitutes discrimination.” Trump’s executive order mostly just reaffirms the current law. Trump’s EO does not deviate from this understanding of the overlap between discrimination on the basis of race or nationality and discrimination against religion. It only changes the law insofar as it expands the definition of anti-Semitism that may run afoul of Title VI. In assessing potential violations, the order directs executive agencies to look to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition—chiefly “hatred toward Jews” directed at individuals, their property, their “community institutions and religious facilities.” Agencies must also refer to the IHRA’s “Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism.” That list contains a number of obvious, unobjectionable examples. But it also includes two more controversial examples: “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,” and “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” To the extent that anyone is alarmed by Wednesday’s order, these examples should be the focus of their concern. A tendentious reading of this rule could theoretically get students in trouble for severe condemnation of Israeli policy, even when it does not cross the line into a condemnation of Jews. But the order only directs agencies to consider the IHRA’s list “to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.” In other words, applying double standards to Israel alone would not trigger a Title VI investigation. Instead, the IHRA’s list would only come into play after an individual is accused of overt anti-Semitism with an ethnic component, and then only as evidence of bigoted intent. Moreover, the order states that agencies “shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment” in enforcing Title VI. Because political criticism of Israel is plainly protected speech, the impact of the order’s revised definition of anti-Semitism will likely be limited. In fact, it’s unclear whether Wednesday’s order will have any impact, given that it mostly just reaffirms the current law. The New York Times’ reporting provoked anger among many Jews, who feared that an order to “effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality” would stoke anti-Semitism. But the order does no such thing. It restates the federal government’s long-standing interpretation of Title VI to encompass some anti-Jewish bias. And it raises the faint possibility that, in some case down the road, a student’s sharp criticism of Israel may be used as evidence of anti-Semitic intent after he has been accused of targeting Jews because of their perceived race or nationality. Is this order red meat for Republicans who believe colleges are increasingly hostile to Jews? Probably. Will it quash the pro-Palestine movement on campuses or impose an unwanted classification on American Jews? Absolutely not.
Plus raciste que moi, tu meurs !
En cette première journée d’Hanoukah, la Fête des lumières juive célébrant la reconsécration du Temple par les Maccabées en décembre 165 avant notre ère suite à sa désécration par le roi Séleucide (syrien descendant des généraux d’Alexandre) Antiochus (ou Antiochos) IV dit Epiphane …
Qui derrière la tentative d’héllénisation forcée et les mesures d’une sorte de génocide culturel …
Et la véritable crise identitaire que déclencha, avant celle des Romains puis la nôtre aujourd’hui, cette première mondialisation …
Vit en fait au sein même d’Israël non seulement une révolte fiscale…
Mais une véritable guerre civile entre factions opposées du judaïsme (héllenisés contre traditionalistes) …
Les premiers allant jusqu’à faire appel à la puissante occupante des Séleucides pour arbitrer le conflit …
Et au lendemain de la retentissante et réjouissante remise aux poubelles de l’histoire par le peuple britannique …
De la véritable institutionnalisation de l’antisémitisme, derrière le parti de Jeremy Corbyn, de toute une gauche européenne et américaine …
Comment ne pas voir rejouer sous nos yeux, toutes proportions gardées, cette même guerre culturelle …
Au sein même de la communauté juive aussi bien américaine que mondiale …
Et, 70 ans après sa re-création, ce même refus d’une souveraineté juive restaurée …
Suite aux premières fuites (d’un toujours aussi zélé NYT ayant conclu un peu hâtivement à une assimilation qui y aurait été faite du judaïsme à une race ou un groupe ethnique) d’un décret que vient de publier le président Trump contre l’antisémitisme …
Qui, entre appels au boycott d’Israël et intimidation de toute parole pro-israélienne, continue ses ravages sur les campus américains …
Et comment ne pas découvrir horrifié derrière l’interdiction de l’antisionisme …
L’opposition à un « Etat d’apartheid » ne pouvant être, y compris on le sait à coup d’associations au nazisme, qualifié de racisme …
L’abomination de cette nouvelle race de super-racistes …
A savoir celle du… sioniste antisémite ?
Trump’s Racist Ban on Anti-Semitism
To combat racism, wherever it occurs, is a laudable aim. But singling out anti-Semitism in an executive order, especially when the concept is so intimately linked to views on the state of Israel, is a mistake.
Ian Buruma
Project syndicate
Dec 13, 2019
NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump thinks that anti-Semitism is a serious problem in America. But Trump is not so much concerned about neo-Nazis who scream that Jews and other minorities “will not replace us,” for he thinks that many white supremacists are “very fine people.” No, Trump is more worried about US college campuses, where students call for boycotts of Israel in support of the Palestinians.
Trump just signed an executive order requiring that federal money be withheld from educational institutions that fail to combat anti-Semitism. Since Jews are identified in this order as a discriminated group on the grounds of ethnic, racial, or national characteristics, an attack on Israel would be anti-Semitic by definition. This is indeed the position of Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, who believes that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”There are, of course, as many forms of anti-Semitism as there are interpretations of what it means to be Jewish. When Trump and his supporters rant in campaign rallies about shadowy cabals of international financiers who undermine the interests of “ordinary, decent people,” some might interpret that as a common anti-Semitic trope, especially when an image of George Soros is brandished to underline this message. Trump even hinted at the possibility that the liberal Jewish human rights promoter and philanthropist was deliberately funding “caravans” of refugees and illegal aliens so that they could spread mayhem in the US. In Soros’s native Hungary, attacks on him as a cosmopolitan enemy of the people are unmistakably anti-Semitic.Conspiracy theories about sinister Jewish power have a long history. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian forgery published in 1903, popularized the notion that Jewish bankers and financiers were secretly pulling the strings to dominate the world. Henry Ford was one of the more prominent people who believed this nonsense.The history of extreme anti-Zionism is not so long. In the first years of the Jewish state, Israel was popular among many leftists, because it was built on socialist ideas. Left-wing opinion in Europe and the United States began to turn against Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967, when Arab territories were occupied by Israeli troops. More and more, Israel came to be seen as a colonial power, or an apartheid state.One may or may not agree with that view of Israel. But few would deny that occupation, as is usually the case when civilians are under the thumb of a foreign military power, has led to oppression. So, to be a strong advocate for Palestinian rights and a critic of Israeli policies, on college campuses or anywhere else, does not automatically make one an anti-Semite. But there are extreme forms of anti-Zionism that do. The question is when that line is crossed.
Some would claim that it is anti-Semitic to deny Jews the right to have their own homeland. This is indeed one of the premises of Trump’s presidential order. There are also elements on the radical left, certainly represented in educational institutions, who are so obsessed by the oppression of Palestinians that they see Israel as the world’s greatest evil. Just as anti-Semites in the past often linked Jews with the US, as the twin sources of rootless capitalist malevolence, some modern anti-Zionists combine their anti-Americanism with a loathing for Israel.
In the minds of certain leftists, Israel and its American big brother are not just the last bastions of racist Western imperialism. The idea of a hidden Jewish capitalist cabal can also enter left-wing demonology as readily as it infects the far right. This noxious prejudice has haunted the British Labour Party, something its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has consistently failed to recognize.In short, anti-Zionism can veer into anti-Semitism, but not all critics of Israel are anti-Zionist, and not all anti-Zionists are prejudiced against Jews.Quite where people stand on this issue depends heavily on how they define a Jew – a source of endless vagueness and confusion. According to Halakha, or Jewish law, anyone with a Jewish mother, or who has converted to Judaism, is Jewish. That is the general Orthodox view. But more liberal Reform Jews allow Jewish identity to pass through the father as well.On the other hand, while most Orthodox Jews consider a person to be Jewish even if they convert to another religion, Reform Jews do not. Israel’s Law of Return grants “every Jew” the right to immigrate, but refrains from defining Jewishness. Since 1970, even people with one Jewish grandparent have been eligible to become Israeli citizens. In the infamous Nuremberg laws, promulgated by the Nazis in 1935, people with only one Jewish parent could retain German citizenship, while “full” Jews could not.The whole thing is so complicated that Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, once sought to simplify the matter as follows: “Who is a Jew? Everyone who is mad enough to call himself or herself a Jew, is a Jew.”There is, in any case, something ill-conceived about the stress on race and nationhood in Trump’s order on combating anti-Semitism. Israel is the only state claiming to represent all Jews, but not all Jews necessarily identify with Israel. Some even actively dislike it. Trump’s order might suggest that such people are renegades, or even traitors. This idea might please Israel’s current government, but it is far from the spirit of the Halakha, or even from the liberal idea of citizenship.Defining Jews as a “race” is just as much of a problem. Jews come from many ethnic backgrounds: Yemenite, Ethiopian, Russian, Moroccan, and Swedish Jews are hard to pin down as a distinctive ethnic group. Hitler saw Jews as a race, but that is no reason to follow his example.To combat racism, wherever it occurs, is a laudable aim. But singling out anti-Semitism in an executive order, especially when the concept is so intimately linked to views on the state of Israel, is a mistake. Extreme anti-Zionists may be a menace; all extremists are. But they should be tolerated, as long as their views are peacefully expressed. To stifle opinions on campuses by threatening to withhold funds runs counter to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the US Constitution. This is, alas, not the only sign that upholding the constitution is not the main basis of the current US administration’s claim to legitimacy.
Voir aussi:
The Real Purpose of Trump’s Executive Order on Anti-Semitism
The President’s new order will not protect anyone against anti-Semitism, and it’s not intended to. Its sole aim is to quash the defense—and even the discussion—of Palestinian rights.
Masha Gessen
The New Yorker
December 12, 2019
Donald Trump has a knack for taking some of humanity’s most problematic ideas and turning them on their head to make them even worse. He has done it again. On Wednesday, he signed an executive order that will allow federal funds to be withheld from colleges where students are not protected from anti-Semitism—using an absurdly defined version of what constitutes anti-Semitism. Recent precedent and the history of legislative efforts that preceded the executive order would suggest that its main targets are campus groups critical of Israeli policies. What the order itself did not make explicit, the President’s son-in-law did: on Wednesday, Jared Kushner published an Op-Ed in the Times in which he stressed that the definition of anti-Semitism used in the executive order “makes clear what our administration has stated publicly on the record: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”
Both Kushner and the executive order refer to the definition of anti-Semitism that was formulated, in 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance; it has since been adopted by the State Department. The definition supplies examples of anti-Semitism, and Kushner cited the most problematic of these as the most important: “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”; denial to “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”; and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” All three examples perform the same sleight of hand: they reframe opposition to or criticism of Israeli policies as opposition to the state of Israel. And that, says Kushner, is anti-Semitism.
To be sure, some people who are critical of Israeli policies are opposed to the existence of the state of Israel itself. And some of those people are also anti-Semites. I am intimately familiar with this brand of anti-Semitism, because I grew up in the Soviet Union, where anti-Zionist rhetoric served as the propaganda backbone of state anti-Semitism. The word “Zionist,” when deployed by Pravda, served as incitement to violence and discrimination against Soviet Jews. All of this can be true at the same time that it is also true that Israel has effectively created an apartheid state, in which some Palestinians have some political rights and the rest have none. Human-rights organizations such as Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem—Israeli groups, founded and run by Jews—continue to document harrowing abuse of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza.
In August, I went on a tour designed by Breaking the Silence that aims to show Israelis and foreigners what the occupation looks like. This particular tour ended in a Palestinian village which has been largely overtaken by an Israeli settlement that is illegal under international law. One of the Palestinian houses ended up on territory claimed by the settlers, so the settlers built a chain-link cage around the house, the yard, and the driveway. A young Palestinian child, who is growing up in a house inside a cage, waved to us through the fencing. Comparing this sort of approach to Nazi policies may not make for the most useful argument, but it is certainly not outlandish. The memory of the Holocaust stands as a warning to humanity about the dangers of dehumanizing the other—and invoking that warning in Palestine is warranted.
One does not have to be an anti-Semite to be an anti-Zionist, but one certainly can be both an anti-Semite and an anti-Zionist. Trump, however, has inverted this formula by positioning himself as a pro-Zionist anti-Semite. He has proclaimed his support often for the state of Israel. His Administration’s policies, which have included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and, more recently, declaring that the U.S. does not view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal, have pleased the state of Israel, especially its most militantly expansionist citizens. Over the weekend, however, at the Israeli American Council National Summit, in Florida, Trump gave a speech that brimmed with Jewish stereotypes: Jews and greed, Jews and money, Jews as ruthless wheeler-dealers. “A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well,” he said. « You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all.” It was the kind of stuff that requires no definitions, op-eds, or explanations—it was plain, easily recognizable anti-Semitism. And it was not the first time that Trump trafficked in anti-Semitic stereotypes. The world view behind these stereotypes, combined with support for Israel, is also recognizable. To Trump, Jews—including American Jews, some of whom vote for him—are alien beings whom he associates with the state of Israel. He finds these alien beings at once distasteful and worthy of a sort of admiration, perhaps because he ascribes to them many of the features that he also recognizes in himself.
It should come as no surprise that anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. increased by sixty per cent during the first year of Trump’s Presidency, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The current year is on track to set a record for the number of anti-Semitic attacks. The latest appears to have occurred on Tuesday, when shooters reportedly connected to a fringe group targeted a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, killing four people.
The new executive order will not protect anyone against anti-Semitism, and it’s not intended to. Its sole aim is to quash the defense—and even the discussion—of Palestinian rights. Its victim will be free speech.
The president’s order would allow the government to withhold money from campuses deemed to be biased, but critics see it as an attack on free speech.
Peter Baker and
WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Wednesday targeting what he sees as anti-Semitism on college campuses by threatening to withhold federal money from educational institutions that fail to combat discrimination, three administration officials said on Tuesday.
The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. In recent years, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions — or B.D.S. — movement against Israel has roiled some campuses, leaving some Jewish students feeling unwelcome or attacked.
In signing the order, Mr. Trump will use his executive power to take action where Congress has not, essentially replicating bipartisan legislation that has stalled on Capitol Hill for several years. Prominent Democrats have joined Republicans in promoting such a policy change to combat anti-Semitism as well as the boycott-Israel movement.
But critics complained that such a policy could be used to stifle free speech and legitimate opposition to Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in the name of fighting anti-Semitism. The definition of anti-Semitism to be used in the order matches the one used by the State Department and by other nations, but it has been criticized as too open-ended and sweeping.
For instance, it describes as anti-Semitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” under some circumstances and offers as an example of such behavior “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said Mr. Trump’s order is part of a sustained campaign “to silence Palestinian rights activism” by equating opposition to Israeli treatment of Palestinians with anti-Semitism.
“Israeli apartheid is a very hard product to sell in America, especially in progressive spaces,” Mr. Munayyer said, “and realizing this, many Israeli apartheid apologists, Trump included, are looking to silence a debate they know they can’t win.”
Administration officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the order before its official announcement, said it was not intended to squelch free speech. The White House reached out to some Democrats and activist groups that have been critical of the president to build support for the move.
Among those welcoming the order on Tuesday was Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, who said the group recorded its third-highest level of anti-Semitic episodes in the United States last year.
“Of course we hope it will be enforced in a fair manner,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is we see Jewish students on college campuses and Jewish people all over being marginalized. The rise of anti-Semitic incidents is not theoretical; it’s empirical.”
David Krone, a former chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada when he was Senate Democratic leader, has lobbied for years for such a policy change and praised Mr. Trump for taking action.
“I know people are going to criticize me for saying this,” Mr. Krone said, “but I have to give credit where credit is due.” He added, “It’s too important to let partisanship get in the way.”
Mr. Reid helped push for legislation similar to the order called the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016. It passed the Senate in December 2016 unanimously but died in the House as that session of Congress ended. It has been reintroduced by Democrats and Republicans but has made little progress to Mr. Trump’s desk.
Mr. Krone continued to work on the issue after Mr. Reid retired and reached out through a mutual friend last summer to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. The Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors, Mr. Kushner embraced the idea, which also had been explored over the past year by the president’s domestic policy aides. With Mr. Kushner’s support, the White House drafted the order and Mr. Trump agreed to sign it.
Mr. Trump over the years has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks, turning a blind eye to anti-Jewish tropes or emboldening white supremacists like those in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. Just last weekend, he drew criticism for remarks in Florida before the Israeli American Council in which he told the Jewish audience they were “not nice people” but would support his re-election because “you’re not going to vote for the wealth tax.”
But he has also positioned himself as an unflinching supporter of Israel and a champion of Jewish Americans, moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem, supporting settlements in the West Bank and recognizing the seizure of the Golan Heights. He also assailed Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, when she said support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins,” meaning money.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal Israel advocacy group, said the president’s order was a cynical effort to crack down on critics, not to defend Jews from bias. “It is particularly outrageous and absurd for President Trump to pretend to care about anti-Semitism during the same week in which he once again publicly spouted anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and money,” he said in a statement.
The president’s action comes soon after the Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remake their joint Middle East studies program on the grounds that it featured a biased curriculum. The move was part of a broader campaign by Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and her civil rights chief, Kenneth L. Marcus, to go after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education.
The order to be signed by Mr. Trump would empower the Education Department in such actions. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the department can withhold funding from any college or educational program that discriminates “on the ground of race, color, or national origin.” Religion was not included among the protected categories, so Mr. Trump’s order will have the effect of embracing an argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin in the Middle East, like Italian Americans or Polish Americans.
The definition of anti-Semitism to be adopted from the State Department and originally formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance includes “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” However, it adds that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
The American Civil Liberties Union was among the groups that opposed using the definition in the 2016 legislation, deeming it overly broad. “It cannot and must not be that our civil rights laws are used in such a way to penalize political advocacy on the basis of viewpoint,” the group said in a letter to Congress at the time. Kenneth S. Stern, the original lead author of the definition, also objected to using it, saying that “students and faculty members will be scared into silence, and administrators will err on the side of suppressing or censuring speech.”
But Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida, who was among the sponsors of the 2016 legislation, wrote in an op-ed article in The Times of Israel last week that the definition “was drafted not to regulate free speech or punish people for expressing their beliefs.” Instead, he wrote, “This definition can serve as an important tool to guide our government’s response to anti-Semitism.”
Last week, a group of 80 education, civil rights and religious organizations sent a letter to Ms. DeVos complaining that some Middle East studies centers on college campuses financed by the government under Title VI have sought to boycott Israel or shut down their universities’ study abroad programs in Israel.
“Recent incidents have demonstrated the willingness of faculty across the country to implement the academic boycott of Israel on their campuses,” the letter said.
The president is expected to be joined at the signing by several prominent Republican lawmakers, including Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma and Representative Doug Collins of Georgia. But Democrats who have advocated the legislation in the past are not expected, including Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, who on Tuesday released articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump.
While an executive order is not as permanent as legislation and can be overturned by the next president, Mr. Trump’s action may have the effect of extending the policy beyond his administration anyway because his successors may find it politically unappealing to reverse.
Peter Baker reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from Hershey, Pa.
Etats-Unis/Antisémitisme – Donald Trump cible l’antisémitisme et le boycott israélien sur les campus universitaires
Publié le 10 décembre dans le New York Times sous le titre Trump Targets Anti-Semitism and Israeli Boycotts on College Campuses
Traduction proposée par le Crif
Le président Trump prévoit de signer mercredi un décret visant à cibler ce qu’il considère comme de l’antisémitisme sur les campus universitaires en menaçant de retenir l’argent fédéral des établissements d’enseignement qui ne parviennent pas à lutter contre la discrimination, ont déclaré mardi trois responsables de l’administration.
L’ordonnance interprétera efficacement le judaïsme comme une race ou une nationalité, et pas seulement comme une religion, pour inciter une loi fédérale pénalisant les collèges et universités réputés pour se dérober à leur responsabilité afin de favoriser un climat ouvert pour les étudiants issus de minorités. Ces dernières années, le boycott, le désinvestissement et les sanctions – ou B.D.S. – le mouvement contre Israël a troublé certains campus, laissant certains étudiants juifs se sentir importuns ou attaqués.
En signant l’ordonnance, M. Trump utilisera son pouvoir exécutif pour agir là où le Congrès ne l’a pas fait, reproduisant essentiellement une législation bipartite bloquée par le Capitol Hill depuis plusieurs années. D’éminents démocrates se sont joints aux républicains pour promouvoir un tel changement de politique afin de combattre l’antisémitisme ainsi que le mouvement de boycott d’Israël.
Mais les critiques se sont plaints qu’une telle politique pourrait être utilisée pour étouffer la liberté d’expression et l’opposition légitime à la politique d’Israël envers les Palestiniens au nom de la lutte contre l’antisémitisme. La définition de l’antisémitisme utilisée dans l’ordonnance correspond à celle utilisée par le Département d’État et par d’autres nations, mais elle a été critiquée comme étant trop ouverte et trop générale.
Par exemple, il y est décrit comme antisémite « nier au peuple juif son droit à l’autodétermination » dans certaines circonstances et offre comme exemple de ce comportement « affirmer que l’existence d’un État d’Israël est une entreprise raciste ».
Yousef Munayyer, directeur exécutif de la Campagne américaine pour les droits des Palestiniens, a déclaré que l’ordonnance de M. Trump faisait partie d’une campagne soutenue « pour faire taire l’activisme pour les droits des Palestiniens » en assimilant l’opposition au traitement israélien des Palestiniens à l’antisémitisme.
« L’apartheid israélien est un produit très difficile à vendre en Amérique, en particulier dans les espaces progressistes« , a déclaré M. Munayyer, « et réalisant cela, de nombreux apologistes de l’apartheid israélien, Trump inclus, cherchent à faire taire un débat qu’ils savent qu’ils ne peuvent pas gagner… «
Les responsables de l’administration, qui ont insisté sur l’anonymat pour discuter de l’ordonnance avant son annonce officielle, ont déclaré qu’elle n’était pas destiné à étouffer la liberté d’expression. La Maison Blanche a contacté certains démocrates et groupes militants qui ont critiqué le président pour obtenir un soutien à cette décision.
Mardi, Jonathan Greenblatt, directeur général de la Ligue anti-diffamation, a déclaré que le groupe avait enregistré son troisième épisode antisémite aux États-Unis l’année dernière.
« Bien sûr, nous espérons qu’il sera appliqué de manière équitable », a-t-il déclaré. « Mais le fait est que nous voyons des étudiants juifs sur les campus universitaires et des Juifs partout marginalisés. La montée des incidents antisémites n’est pas théorique; c’est empirique. «
David Krone, ancien chef de cabinet du sénateur Harry Reid du Nevada lorsqu’il était leader démocrate du Sénat, a fait pression pendant des années pour un tel changement de politique et a félicité M. Trump d’avoir pris des mesures.
« Je sais que les gens vont me critiquer pour avoir dit cela », a déclaré M. Krone, « mais je dois donner du crédit là où le mérite est dû ». Il a ajouté: « Il est trop important de laisser la partisanerie faire obstacle. »
M. Reid a aidé à faire pression pour une législation similaire à l’ordonnance appelée Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016. Elle a été adoptée à l’unanimité par le Sénat en décembre 2016, mais est décédée à la Chambre à la fin de cette session du Congrès. Il a été réintroduit par les démocrates et les républicains mais a peu progressé sur le bureau de M. Trump.
M. Krone a continué de travailler sur la question après que M. Reid a pris sa retraite et a contacté l’été dernier un ami commun avec Jared Kushner, gendre du président et conseiller principal. Le petit-fils juif des survivants de l’Holocauste, M. Kushner, a adopté l’idée, qui avait également été explorée au cours de l’année écoulée par les aides à la politique intérieure du président. Avec le soutien de M. Kushner, la Maison-Blanche a rédigé l’ordonnance et M. Trump a accepté de la signer.
Au fil des ans, M. Trump a été accusé de faire des remarques antisémites, de fermer les yeux sur les tropes antisémites ou d’enhardir les suprémacistes blancs comme ceux de Charlottesville, en Virginie, en 2017. Le week-end dernier, il a critiqué les propos tenus dans La Floride devant le Conseil israélo-américain au cours de laquelle il a déclaré au public juif qu’ils n’étaient « pas des gens sympas » mais qu’ils appuieraient sa réélection parce que « vous n’allez pas voter pour l’impôt sur la fortune ».
Mais il s’est également positionné comme un partisan indéfectible d’Israël et un champion des Juifs américains, en déplaçant l’ambassade des États-Unis à Jérusalem, en soutenant les colonies en Cisjordanie et en reconnaissant la saisie des hauteurs du Golan. Il a également agressé la représentante Ilhan Omar, démocrate du Minnesota, lorsqu’elle a déclaré que le soutien à Israël était « tout au sujet des Benjamins », ce qui signifie de l’argent.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, président de J Street, un groupe de défense libéral d’Israël, a déclaré que l’ordre du président était un effort cynique pour réprimer les critiques, pas pour défendre les Juifs contre les préjugés. « Il est particulièrement scandaleux et absurde que le président Trump prétende se préoccuper de l’antisémitisme au cours de la même semaine au cours de laquelle il a de nouveau publiquement jeté des tropes antisémites sur les Juifs et l’argent », a-t-il déclaré dans un communiqué.
L’action du président intervient peu de temps après que le département de l’éducation a ordonné à l’Université Duke et à l’Université de Caroline du Nord à Chapel Hill de refaire leur programme d’études conjointes sur le Moyen-Orient au motif qu’il comportait un programme biaisé. Cette décision faisait partie d’une campagne plus large menée par Betsy DeVos, la secrétaire à l’Éducation, et son chef des droits civiques, Kenneth L. Marcus, pour s’attaquer aux préjugés anti-Israël perçus dans l’enseignement supérieur.
L’ordonnance à signer par M. Trump habiliterait le Département de l’éducation à de telles actions. En vertu du titre VI de la loi sur les droits civils de 1964, le ministère peut retenir le financement de tout collège ou programme éducatif qui établit une discrimination «fondée sur la race, la couleur ou l’origine nationale». La religion n’était pas incluse dans les catégories protégées, donc l’ordre de Donald Trump aura pour effet d’embrasser un argument selon lequel les Juifs sont un peuple ou une race d’origine nationale collective au Moyen-Orient, comme les Italo-Américains ou les Polonais américains.
La définition de l’antisémitisme qui doit être adoptée par le Département d’État et formulée à l’origine par l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste comprend « une certaine perception des Juifs, qui peut être exprimée comme de la haine envers les Juifs« . Cependant, elle ajoute que « des critiques d’Israël similaires à ce niveau contre tout autre pays ne peut pas être considéré comme antisémite ».
L’American Civil Liberties Union faisait partie des groupes qui se sont opposés à l’utilisation de la définition dans la législation de 2016, la jugeant trop large. « Il ne peut et ne doit pas être que nos lois sur les droits civils sont utilisées de manière à pénaliser le plaidoyer politique sur la base du point de vue », a déclaré le groupe dans une lettre au Congrès de l’époque. Kenneth S. Stern, l’auteur principal de la définition, s’est également opposé à son utilisation, affirmant que « les étudiants et les professeurs seront effrayés dans le silence, et les administrateurs se tromperont du côté de la suppression ou de la censure du discours. »
Mais le représentant Ted Deutch, démocrate de Floride, qui était parmi les sponsors de la législation de 2016, a écrit dans un article d’opinion dans le Times of Israel la semaine dernière que la définition « avait été rédigée pour ne pas réglementer la liberté d’expression ou punir les gens pour avoir exprimé leur opinion ». Au lieu de cela, il a écrit: « Cette définition peut servir d’outil important pour guider la réponse de notre gouvernement à l’antisémitisme ».
La semaine dernière, un groupe de 80 organisations de l’éducation, des droits civils et des organisations religieuses a envoyé une lettre à Mme DeVos se plaignant que certains centres d’études du Moyen-Orient sur les campus universitaires financés par le gouvernement au titre VI ont cherché à boycotter Israël ou à fermer les programmes d’études de leurs universités à l’étranger en Israël.
« Les récents incidents ont démontré la volonté des professeurs à travers le pays de mettre en œuvre le boycott universitaire d’Israël sur leurs campus », indique la lettre.
Le président devrait être rejoint lors de la signature par plusieurs éminents législateurs républicains, dont les sénateurs Tim Scott de Caroline du Sud et James Lankford d’Oklahoma et le représentant Doug Collins de Géorgie. Mais les démocrates qui ont préconisé la législation dans le passé ne sont pas attendus, y compris le représentant Jerrold Nadler de New York, qui a publié mardi des articles de destitution contre M. Trump.
Bien qu’un ordre exécutif ne soit pas aussi permanent que la législation et puisse être annulé par le prochain président, l’action de M. Trump peut avoir pour effet d’étendre la politique au-delà de son administration, car ses successeurs peuvent trouver politiquement peu attrayant à renverser.
Voir de plus:
Alors que le décret présidentiel vise à défendre les étudiants juifs, les détracteurs de Donald Trump dénoncent une atteinte à la liberté d’expression.
Le président américain se retrouve au cœur d’une nouvelle controverse. Donald Trump a signé, mercredi 11 décembre, un décret visant à lutter contre l’antisémitisme sur les campus américains. Ce texte élargit la définition de l’antisémitisme utilisée par le ministère de l’éducation lorsqu’il fait appliquer la loi sur les droits civiques de 1964. Il ordonne en particulier d’utiliser la définition de l’antisémitisme donnée par l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste (IHRA).
« C’est notre message aux universités : si vous voulez bénéficier des énormes sommes que vous recevez chaque année de la part de l’Etat fédéral, vous devez rejeter l’antisémitisme », a déclaré M. Trump à l’occasion d’une cérémonie à la Maison Blanche pour célébrer Hanouka, la fête des lumières. Avec ce décret, Donald Trump « défend les étudiants juifs » et « indique clairement que l’antisémitisme ne sera pas toléré », a insisté son gendre et conseiller Jared Kushner dans une tribune publiée dans le New York Times.
Un décret pour « limiter » les critiques visant Israël
Mais des défenseurs de la liberté d’expression redoutent qu’une définition trop large et trop vague de l’antisémitisme soit utilisée pour interdire tous les propos critiques envers la politique du gouvernement israélien.
Pour Jeremy Ben-Ami, président de l’organisation progressiste juive J-Street, le décret présidentiel « semble moins destiné à combattre l’antisémitisme qu’à limiter la liberté d’expression et sévir sur les campus contre les critiques visant Israël ».
Voir encore:
Ambassade des Etas-Unis en France
« Le poison vil et haineux de l’antisémitisme doit être condamné et combattu quel que soit le lieu et le moment auquel il surgit. »
Président Donald J. Trump
COMBATTRE L’ANTISÉMITISME : Le président Donald J. Trump prend un décret présidentiel pour renforcer la lutte contre la montée de l’antisémitisme aux États-Unis.
- Le décret du président Trump indique clairement que le Titre VI de la loi sur les droits civils de 1964 s’applique à la discrimination antisémite fondée sur la race, la couleur ou l’origine nationale.
- Dans le cadre de l’application du Titre VI contre la discrimination antisémite dissimulée, les agences se référeront à la définition de l’antisémitisme de l’Alliance internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste (IHRA) ainsi que ses exemples contemporains.
- Le président demande également aux agences fédérales d’identifier d’autres moyens par lesquels le gouvernement peut utiliser ses pouvoirs en matière de lutte contre la discrimination pour combattre l’antisémitisme.
- Cette action démontre en outre l’engagement indéfectible du président Trump et de son administration à lutter contre toutes les formes d’antisémitisme.
LUTTER CONTRE LA MONTÉE DE LA HAINE : Ces dernières années, les Américains ont assisté à une augmentation inquiétante des incidents antisémites et à une montée de la rhétorique correspondante dans l’ensemble du pays.
- Au cours des quelques dernières années, on a assisté à une tendance inquiétante à la montée de l’antisémitisme aux États-Unis.
- Les incidents antisémites se sont multipliés en Amérique depuis 2013, en particulier dans les écoles et sur les campus universitaires.
- Il s’agit en particulier d’actes de violence horribles à l’encontre de Juifs américains et de synagogues aux États-Unis.
- 18 membres démocrates du Congrès ont coparrainé cette année une législation en faveur du mouvement antisémite « Boycott, désinvestissement, sanctions » (BDS).
- Dans leur résolution, ces membres du Congrès comparaient de manière choquante le soutien à Israël à celui à l’Allemagne nazie.
AGIR : Le président Trump et son administration ont pris des mesures à plusieurs reprises pour lutter contre la haine et soutenir la communauté juive.
- Lors du discours sur l’état de l’Union de cette année, le président Trump a promis de « ne jamais ignorer le vil poison de l’antisémitisme ou ceux qui répandent cette idéologie venimeuse ».
- Depuis janvier 2017, la division des droits civils du département de la Justice a obtenu 14 condamnations dans des affaires d’attentats ou de menaces contre des lieux de culte.
- La division a également obtenu 11 condamnations dans des affaires de crimes motivés par la haine en raison des convictions religieuses des victimes.
- Le département de la Justice a lancé un nouveau site web complet qui constitue un portail centralisé permettant aux forces de l’ordre, aux médias, aux groupes de défense des droits et à d’autres organismes d’accéder à des ressources sur les crimes motivés par la haine.
- Le service des relations avec la communauté du département de la Justice a facilité 17 forums axés sur la protection des lieux de culte et la prévention des crimes motivés par la haine depuis septembre 2018.
- Le président a signé la loi JUST Act en faveur des efforts de restitution à la suite de l’Holocauste.
- L’administration Trump a expulsé le dernier criminel nazi connu des États-Unis.
Voir enfin:
NYT
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WASHINGTON — The House, brushing aside Democratic voices of dissent over American policy in the Middle East, on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution condemning the boycott-Israel movement as one that “promotes principles of collective guilt, mass punishment and group isolation, which are destructive of prospects for progress towards peace.”
The 398-to-17 vote, with five members voting present, came after a debate that was equally lopsided; no one in either party spoke against the measure. The House’s two most vocal backers of the boycott movement — Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, freshman Democrats and the first two Muslim women in Congress — did not participate in the floor debate.
However, earlier in the day, Ms. Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American, delivered an impassioned speech in defense of the boycott movement. She branded Israel’s policies toward Palestinians “racist” and invoked American boycotts of Nazi Germany, among others, as an example of what she described as a legitimate economic protest to advance human rights around the world.
“I stand before you as the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, parents who experienced being stripped of their human rights, the right to freedom of travel, equal treatment,” Ms. Tlaib said. “So I can’t stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government and the state of Israel.”
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or B.D.S., movement is intended, among other things, to pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the West Bank, and backed by some who advocate a single state with equal rights for all, instead of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Opponents warn it would lead to the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state; during Tuesday’s debate, they repeatedly quoted from a founder of the movement, Omar Barghouti, who has argued for the creation of a “secular democratic state” and has called for Israel to “accept the dismantling of its Zionist apartheid regime.”
“Boycotts have been previously used as tools for social justice in this very country,” said Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida and a backer of the resolution. “But B.D.S. doesn’t seek social justice. It seeks a world in which the state of Israel doesn’t exist.”
For months, Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar have been the target of intense criticism for statements about Israel and Israel’s supporters that many have regarded as anti-Semitic tropes, including insinuations that Jews have dual loyalty to the United States and Israel. Ms. Omar drew the condemnation of House Democratic leaders, and was forced to apologize after invoking an ancient trope about Jews and money by suggesting that American support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins” — a reference to $100 bills.
At a hearing last week, Ms. Omar spoke out forcefully against Israel, and the resolution.
“We should condemn in the strongest terms violence that perpetuates the occupation, whether it is perpetuated by Israel, Hamas or individuals,” she said. “But if we are going to condemn violent means of resisting the occupation, we cannot also condemn nonviolent means.”
Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Omar and two other freshman Democratic women of color — Representatives Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — have lately been under fire from President Trump, who has accused them of being anti-American and suggested they should “go back” to their home countries, even though just one of them, Ms. Omar, was born outside the United States. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez voted against the resolution, as did a number of other progressives; Ms. Pressley voted in favor.
The timing of the vote drew complaints from Palestinian rights activists and supporters of Ms. Omar and Ms. Tlaib, who said House Democratic leaders were effectively isolating them. Both women have also joined with Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil rights icon, in introducing a measure affirming that “all Americans have the right to participate in boycotts in pursuit of civil and human rights at home and abroad,” as protected by the First Amendment.
“They are displaying leadership even as the president is attacking and marginalizing people of color,” said Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
But Democratic backers of Israel were eager to have their votes on record before Congress goes home for its six-week August recess. Earlier Tuesday, Representative Josh Gottheimer, an ardent supporter of Israel, was joined in his home state, New Jersey, by Elan Carr, the State Department’s envoy to combat anti-Semitism, at an event billed to address anti-Semitism.
The coming vote proved to be a central topic.
“There is of course nothing wrong about having a robust debate about our foreign policy, as I said, but that debate veers into something much darker when there is talk of dual loyalty or other ancient tropes,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “These are not legitimate opinions about our foreign policy. We have often seen such anti-Semitic tropes and rhetoric when it comes to the global B.D.S. movement.”
Asked if he thought the timing of the vote was inopportune, Mr. Gottheimer said, “We should look for any moment to stand up to anti-Semitism, and I think, to me, the sooner the better.”
Backers of the boycott movement say the resolution threatens free speech rights, and they argue that boycotts are a legitimate form of economic protest. In her remarks, Ms. Tlaib cited civil rights boycotts, boycotts of apartheid South Africa and American boycotts of Nazi Germany “in response to dehumanization, imprisonment and genocide of Jewish people” — a comment that raised eyebrows among Republicans.
Proponents of the resolution argue that nothing in it abridges the right to free speech; indeed, House Democrats rejected a more far-reaching bill, passed by the Republican-led Senate, that would allow state and local government to break ties with companies that participate in the boycott movement.
The chief sponsor of the Senate bill, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, on Tuesday accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of promoting a watered-down measure and allowing “the radical, anti-Semitic minority in the Democratic Party to dictate the House floor agenda.”
During Tuesday’s floor debate, many Republicans, including Representative Lee Zeldin of New York and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip, argued for the Rubio measure. But in a rare moment of House comity, both sounded eager to join with Democrats in passing the bipartisan resolution.
“If a boycott is being used to advance freedom, that’s one we should support,” Mr. Scalise said. “But if a boycott is being used to undermine the very freedoms that exist in the only real elective democracy in the Middle East, we all need to rise up against that.”
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Publié par jcdurbant 
![Sir Richard Dearlove said there had been 'strong indications in the US and UK [intelligence services] that Chirac received money from Saddam'. French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, left, is seen with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, right, after arriving in Bagdad in 1976](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/09/28/22/19055306-7516175-image-a-128_1569706036022.jpg)
