State Dept on what is considered Antisemitism: https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
These definitions are intentionally broad and designed to censor criticism of Israel. You have more freedom to criticize the US Government than to criticize a foreign country.
> “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
In IHRA’s defense, this definition was never intended for legal use. But here we are.
Imagine if DHS said they are going to ban anyone who criticizes china or russia or saudi arabia from traveling to the US? Both the republicans and democratics would be raising hell. Why the silence when it comes to israel?
What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel? Why is it that so much of our political class openly and unabashedly act like agents of israel? Doesn't matter who you vote for. Republican or democrat. As soon as they are elected, they all grovel for israel. How many wars are we going to fight for israel? How many american colleges are we going to attack for israel? How many people are we going to censor for israel? Just doesn't make any sense.
There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against?
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incid...
Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US? I will definitely avoid travelling to the US due to the Trump Administration's hostility towards immigrants. These screening policies will probably remain in place under the next administration.
There are more chinese in the US than jews. So is DHS going to ban anyone who makes anti-china posts? We have a lot of arabs and palestinians. Why isn't DHS protecting them? Shouldn't DHS check every israeli's social media for anti-palestinian comments?
> Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US.
What does that have to do with israel and "antisemitism"?
Or this is the story line that US politicians have bought and unpacked after being hand delivered by AIPAC with a brief case of money plus a set of blackmail love letters waiting to be leaked if they don’t take it.
I am convinced that our govt never had spine to stand up for freedom unless Israel/lobbyists were behind it. They quarrel amongst themselves because of Israel and agree in large numbers because of Israel.
That comment was in response to : "Or who knows, maybe they ban Trump critics or commies from entering the US." I was asking what trump critics or commies have to do with israel or "antisemitism".
> That being said, I don’t think this has anything to do with Israel, and everything to do with Trump trying to steal more power.
Right. A policy specifically tailored for israel has nothing to do with israel. The prime minister of israel asked the US government to attack US colleges for "antisemitism" because so many college students were protesting against israel's genocide against palestinians. I'm sure that has nothing to do with israel also.
> I’m not Jewish so I can’t speak authoritatively, but the Jews have a very long memory and the Holocaust was only 60-ish years ago.
What does this even mean? Also, do you think just randomly throwing in the "holocaust" is making an argument?
> I can’t imagine the majority of Jews in the US would support fascist government surveillance.
What?
I asked a simple question of why so many US politicians act like lackeys to israel. And every response so far has been awkward and obvious. Let me guess, you're next door neighbor is a holocaust survivor.
It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested":
Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.
https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/
https://ca.usembassy.gov/visas/
https://in.usembassy.gov/visas/
etc.
> Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
> Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
There are plenty of dual citizens that would proudly admit that their first loyalty is to Israel.
Other examples from the document use the term "Jews as a people", whereas this example seems to apply to accusing any individual.
Although perhaps a generous interpretation of the example, is that it excludes Israeli dual citizens, because Israel would be one of "their own nations"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal...
> 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.
One does not entail the other. You can support our right to self-determination while not supporting Israel's apartheid-style policies, but this sentence conflates them.
> Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
This is pure whataboutism. Israel is actually given incredible leeway by America, and I usually see this trotted out to shut down legitimate criticism. There's a good discussion to be had about why we don't criticize China, or why we ignore atrocities in African countries, but none of that absolves Israel from its misdeeds.
> Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Call it "sparkling ethnic cleansing" then. Ironically, actual genocide scholars have pointed out that when the Shoah is your metric, then almost nothing can compare, rendering the word useless.
The reasons given are extremely broad, so it makes nuances like this largely irrelevant. If an immigration officer perceives their duty (or maybe it's just their own personal opinion) to be to reject applications which are critical of Israel, then that's exactly what they're going to do. And you have no ability to appeal decisions, not that you'd even know what caused those decisions.
FWIW the people I'm referencing were also completely upstanding, educated individuals with high competence in English. It's a great way to make one loathe the double standard given to people who just illegally cross the border. Even moreso when you consider that each of these applications costs hundreds of dollars in places where that's often a rather substantial sum of money (just as it would be in most places in e.g. South America).
The smart ones won’t sign to it. The dumb ones will take too long to arrest and charge.
This is legitimately debatable. If your allegiance is first to a foreign state, in my view, you should have to relinquish your American citizenship.
In general, you should be wary of "forms of antisemitism" (or similar "forms of x-ism/x-phobia/etc"). Such things usually consists of the defensible but vacuous notion that "doing X in an antisemetic way is antisemetic", while attempting to imply that doing X is antisemetic in general, regardless how it's done, or at the least that doing X is suspect. But the only proof that has been provided in such cases is that X has ocassionally been done in an antisemetic way, which you could say for just about anything. Since X in these cases is not per se anti semetic, it is more helpful to identify what antisemetic thing has often been done alongside it, and be on the lookout for that, instead of for X.
Lots of folks are being gunned down. Nobody, particularly not those who claim to represent Jewish interests, gives a fuck.
Literal thoughts and prayers.
I have no horse in this race. But what folks say, whether prayers for peace or death to Israel, shouldn’t matter in a hot war.
Hence debatable.
Let me escalate: I think such a bill would find bipartisan support. Right now might be a good time to attempt it.
I hate the idea of revoking citizenship. But a question about swearing, on naturalisation, that your supreme allegiance is to America should be incredibly popular to secure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%...
> 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
> Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
> Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
...
Many of the examples make sense, but these four above are absurd.
It's going to be impossible to get reliable polling on Iran right now because Israel's going extremely authoritarian with domestic 'information warfare.' But it's fairly certain that most Israelis will oppose what's happening, once they can speak again. For instance in early 2024 Israeli decided to destroy the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing multiple generals amongst others. This led to a largely performative counter-strike by Iran. And here 74% of Israelis opposed continued escalation if it harmed security alliances. [2]
And the Israeli government decided to carry out the recent invasion when global support for Israel is already at record lows, which means it is obviously going to hurt security alliances, especially in the mid-term (double entendre intended). Search my post history and you'll find I've been notably favorable towards most Trump policies. If an election was held tomorrow I'd happily vote against him (and anybody else who supports this stupidity), a million times over, if he drags us into another forever war. And I think that corresponds to a sizable chunk of his support. People think "we" wanted out of Ukraine out of preference to Russia. In reality "we" just want the US to stop getting involved, and wasting money (to say nothing of lives), in stupid wars all around the world, period.
[1] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/69-of-israelis-54-of-coalition...
[2] - https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-74-of-israelis-oppose-cou...
More importantly, most Americans don’t care about foreign policy.
The decades-long failure by the American left has been projecting Vietnam-era protests against the draft to modern foreign policy.
Surely you aren't suggesting political power is just about the numbers? That one group of 6 million people has the same political sway as any other block of 6 million?
(It's usually difficult to decisively prove that someone is applying a double standard, but I think here we're assuming that was somehow firmly established.)
You specified that. The excerpt did not.
But I could have double standards for all type of countries! I tend to hold the US at a higher standard than most countries for almost anything, and I think everyone holds Germany to a much higher standards with respect to minority rights (particularly, Jews) than other countries.
I think people overindex on Israel as "the only Jewish state", and less as "just another country". I wish we could entirely separate the identity of the Jewish people and the state of Israel at least in the discourse. It would make everything healthier.
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
I know more born citizens with a second nationality than naturalised ones who gave up their first.
And despite the difficulty of revoking US citizenship, the rate of revocations has increased over the last decade or two. If there was such a simple way to toss out that old rag, I'm sure there would be many more (and a little less tax revenue).
So I'm afraid* the USA is much more transactional than you think, at least regarding citizenship.
*I must admit this is sarcasm. Thank god the US is transactional rather than so stubbornly patriotic about citizenship.
While I think there's quite a lot of antisemitism out there, I find it questionable trying to deduce antisemitism. Explicitly expressed antisemitism itself is something else. I also find it very questionable to redefine the term that it includes deductions.
I admit the phrasing of the excerpt does look vague out of context, but it is about the collective of Jewish people. That is suggested by the excerpt saying "Jewish citizens" rather than "a Jewish citizen". It should also become more clear if you click through to the original and see all the other examples are about the Jewish people as a collective too. So yes, this text is specifically about the "because of" even if the excerpt doesn't make that explicit. It is not saying that any accusation of disloyalty is inherently antisemitism. For example, if a Jewish American citizen was arrested with real evidence of them being an Israeli spy, there would not be a serious discussion of whether the arrest was an act of antisemitism.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=74ZA-GdeQP4&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5t...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=74ZA-GdeQP4&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5t...
Also
I have one or two friends in that situations, and they want to do that. But it also cost a $2,350 fee to give up your US of A citizenship.
Also, to be pedantic, you don’t have to have citizenship of a foreign country in order to have a greater allegiance to it.
The behavior of the christian conservative cult is a bit more than a pedantic detail at this point. Why is trying to get Israel into a conflict to get Jesus to come and accelerate the end of all jews on Earth not antisemitism? I don't see wanting to use the Jew for cockfighting making it to the State Department's summary of antisemitism.
I'm sure this definition is going to be applied to Zionist organizations that do this on a regular basis.
Everything from Tiktok bans to banning social media for teens. Who's going to fight US wars if your canon fodder witnessed Israel's inhumane behaviour as teens growing up. Nothing todo with China.
It's a national security threat alright.
And, frankly, while this is most prominent with Islam, that religions describe their goal to be a single state and trying to be a single state is the norm, not the exception. Christianity is the exception here that does not want to have state power (even though that rule screams "compromise with the Roman emperor", and hasn't exactly been followed very well once Christians were well established)
So no more muslims allowed in the US then? In fact no religion allowed except Christianity or revering the US directly somehow?
According to Jimmy Carter:
"The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians."
https://www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-carter8dec08-story.html
Carter was of course widely (and absurdly) slandered as an antisemite. He probably wouldn't get a visa.
And secondly why would US government target only anti-semits, will they check for anti-white racism, African-American racism, anti native-American racism, homophobia etc. This is a mess of a policy. And Trump is openly homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+, what that should tell us?
Abraham Lincoln said: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
In terms of what dictates your action, true allegiance is more significant: it is possible to really love somebody and not do something for their sake, but if you really are a part of something then it’s not much of a choice.
Some people, culturally or temperamentally, have an allegiance to their family and do not care beyond that. Some feel allegiance to a community (whether defined religiously or geographically or elsewise). Some people feel allegiance to nothing. In the US specifically feeling belonging to one’s state I presume could be more powerful than belonging to the country. It is not always or not everywhere that people feel a strong allegiance to a country, even if they always lived in one and never thought of moving.
Among people who do feel country allegiance, I would imagine it is rare to feel belonging to two different countries with a similar force. Perhaps those people do exist (e.g., someone who mostly lived in country A but was born to immigrants from country B and also spent a lot of time in country B), and then it would be mighty unfair if they had to pick one, but people I know can usually classify one citizenship as “convenience” and another one as “true”.
Comprehensively assessing true allegiances (or lack thereof) of a prospective citizen is fraught, but as phrased the question does not actually require that. For 99.9% of people, “do you feel allegiance first to a foreign state?” is pretty unobtrusive and has a clear answer. The main caveat is, of course, that those for whom the answer is positive will almost certainly just lie.
In case using tangentially related quotes is considered smarter than original thought, I looked one up too and I raise you Orson Scott Card:
“Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to and the ones she doesn’t belong to… a person who really believes she doesn’t belong to any community at all invariably kills herself, either by killing her body or by giving up her identity and going mad.”
Plenty of dual citizens that are not Israeli citizens and would admit the same thing, but we don't go around throwing such accusations at them.
> this example seems to apply to accusing any individual.
Does it? It would be accusing the individual just because they are part of a certain group.
It almost always targeted at the tribal Anglo, Celtic or Germanic peoples. And in these circumstances it was really an insult at their style of government rather than their ethnic identity.
However, I disagree with your conception of Islam as a state, even if it was explained to you by Muslims. The strongest argument I can build from your statements is that, according to the reference to the end of the Sunni Caliphate in 1923,
p1) only Sunnis are Muslims, and
p2) the Caliphate is unique, and
p3) the Sunni Caliphate of 1923 is the original one, thus
c) it was the state of Islam.
We can disprove all of these premises. p1) is obvious, there are more Muslim religions than just Sunnis. The earliest schism was the Sunni-Shiites split, happening immediately after the first prophet's death.
About p2), while I'm fuzzy on the details, I'm pretty sure that between the 900s and the 1900s there were at least 3 major, parallel Caliphates and also a bunch of smaller Caliphates. Geographically they were even sometimes overlapping. It might be interesting that the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire (the one in question) was a Hanafist (a Sunni splinter group) Caliphate.
On p3), the Sunni caliphate of 1923 was reestablished after a 300 year "hiatus" by the Ottoman Emperor to lay claim on Crimea. It had no representation besides a leader, the Sultan. Before the dissolution of the major Sunni Caliphate in the 1500s it relocated several times, from today's Syria to today's Iraq, to then and now Egypt. Thus we can say that the Caliphate had no continuous existence. We can furthermore say that the time the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was the Caliph, it was because it was a diplomatic ploy of the secular power of the Ottoman Empire.
Therefore, c) must be wrong. There are more Muslims than Sunnis, the Sunni Caliphate wasn't unique, and the Caliphate that ended in 1923 was not the original one.
A less philosophical counter-argument could be the vigorous infighting between different Muslim groups we see today. I'm curious how the war on Iran changes that, if at all.
This is absolutely not true.
There isn't a single country in the world with absolute freedom of speech to begin with. And even if we take the very permissive freedom of speech of the US, it is matched by only very few countries, even in the west.
As a simple example, here's a map of the countries where it's at least an offence to insult the head of state: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Lese-maj...
Simply not true. There is plenty of rhetoric about immigrants (even 2nd gen+) in Western countries being accused of being disloyal to their Western citizenship in favor of their ethnic origin countries. Chinese, Indians, Middle Easterners, Latin Americans etc are all accused of this; see the recent riots in LA for a very recent example. Yet this insinuation is made illegal only with respect to one country only for whatever reason.
If a censor is trying to determine if a particular post doesn’t contain antisemetic content, this paragraph is not helpful.
Well, they do state one negative criterion:
> However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
I have never seen this principle successfully cited as an affirmative defense, however. They give examples that contradict this quote, so I don’t think we’re supposed to take it seriously.
... every group of every monotheistic religion says and believes they're the only "true" group, their group is the only valid group, and the entirety of that religion. Islamic dogma states very clearly, and every muslim will repeat it, that there is "only one islam".
This despite the fact that what you say is correct. There's 100s, minimum, of different versions of islam.
Your idea, that history is clear proof to the contrary ... well history is clear proof that there is no god and therefore no valid religion. In the case of islam, one might point out that the central promise of islam as a religion is that muslims will win militarily, because god will intervene directly (but "of course" what is currently happening in Iran proves they are wrong and every other group of muslims is right - this is the sort of argument you're up against). The fact that any caliphate fell at all is a pretty damn obvious contradiction to the entire religion.
Frankly, I must say, I like the "goal" of Christians and Jews a whole lot better.
> One does not entail the other. You can support our right to self-determination while not supporting...policies, but this sentence conflates them.
Uh...exactly? You're criticizing the state. Per the definition you can do that, but you can't generalize to the people. And certainly, calling the state a "racist endeavor" should cross the line?
Basically, all three of your examples boil down to the same thing: you want to accuse a nation of something bad, and think it’s somehow unfair that, under this definition, you can’t then accuse a people of the act. That isn’t ambiguous. If you did the same thing for, say, Chinese people and the CCP, you’d be equally wrong. Jewish people are not of one mind about current events, and that seems like a fairly obvious point.
As far as the third item, specifically, any comparison to the Nazi party is so hyperbolic as to be in obvious bad faith.
They accuse others of being nazis so that they themselves can be nazis.
Some interesting maps thankyou.
There are obviously issues of subjectiveness here, but that’s also nothing new in the world of immigration. These decisions are made by humans, not robots (or at least, robots trained by humans).
But obviously this is not an excuse for Israel government supporting religious orthodox extremists and their settlements and aggression against Muslims in the area near Jordan. If you just take the situation there then it is basically a war zone.
If West Bank was considered part of Israel then I can see elements of apartheid but people who say it's apartheid also say West Bank is a separate country. You can't have apartheid in another country. Call it invasion/occupation or apartheid, but pick one? (Also yes this is whataboutism but what Russia is doing is orders of magnitude worse if invasions are considered.)
They literally say the opposite, right in the paragraph I quoted at the top.
Yes, they give examples of criticizing Israel. But the point of the examples is that you a) can't apply standards unique to Israel, and b) if you do criticize the country, it's not fair game to extend it to an entire people.
Anyone who truly believes this administration, or the American right wing in general, cares about antisemitism suffers from extraordinary levels of gullibility. The incantation of George Soros as the master manipulator behind everything "the left" does in the US is a pretty transparent placeholder for "The Jews Control Everything". White replacement theory is predicated on the belief that "The Jews" are for some reason trying to water down every white nation with masses of immigrants by sneaking in and sneakily changing immigration to open borders. Virtually every crazed conspiracy among the US right somehow ends up at "The Jews".
But it is utterly perverse that questions or criticism of the actions of a pretty vile sovereign can be dismissed as antisemitism. Many if not most American Jewish people are deeply critical of the things the Israeli government is doing (all under the cover of "to question it is antisemitism"). Israelis, though....polling of Israelis is extraordinarily uncomfortable, to such a degree that I would hardly consider the country "Western" as it is often called.
> Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
That's awfully anti-Semitic thinking of you, buddy. ICE HSI would like to know your current location for your free trip to the gulag.
This is untrue. It's untrue to such an extraordinary degree that it's hard to believe you're arguing in good faith.
Accusing people of being loyal to some other nation or cause is levied regularly against almost all peoples to some degree or other, particularly if the person holds any ancestral pride or accoutrements. Even just refusing to adapt to food customs is enough to arouse suspicions.
Look at the outrage about the "invasion" because some protestors hoisted Mexican flags. Various members of Trump's administration declared this a demonstration of "occupied" territories.
If you're Chinese in America you must never, ever, show an iota of association with your homeland -- or even just your grandparents home if you're 3rd generation -- or you will be ostracized and considered a deep agent. An Indian that has an Indian flag in their bio or the like is going to be frequently asked why they don't move back if they "love it so much".
Similarly, a frequent criticism of some Muslims is din wa dawla, which is a belief that religion and politics/the state are one. Indeed, if someone has religious beliefs that can go in conflict with the needs/goals of the state, there is a discord there that needs to be considered.
There are Americans who are more loyal to Israel than the US. Like, they will literally tell you this without an ounce of compunction or question (which is utterly verboten among virtually any other group. Similarly a US congressman wore his IDF uniform into congress, which is simply insane). On the flip side, there are many Jewish Americans who are deeply critical of Israel. Like does anyone think Bernie is a deep agent of Israel? Bernie, like much of Jewish America, is deeply critical of Israel.
Trump and his friends are fascists (corporatism, corruption, strongman rule, us vs them with human rights abuses vs the "them", etc).
"Nobody accuses AOC of secretly working for Mexican government"
It would be an incredibly weird accusation given that her ancestry is Puerto Rican.
And FWIW, there is a credible observation that the US evangelical "death cult" right has a bizarre, self-sabotaging loyalty to Israel. This group is not remotely Jewish, but they -- again not Jews -- are the reason the US government is subservient and in the service of Israel. All because their mythology holds Israel as some end times revelations battleground or some other bizarrely ignorant, archaic belief.
I'm an Evangelical, and like many others, I don’t prioritize foreign policy through the lens of Israeli politics. Our core mandate is global discipleship, not geopolitical allegiance.
I think citizens is meant to mean “American citizens” as opposed to Jewish people that are citizens of other countries. It seems intended to prevent people saying Jewish people cannot be loyal to America, though I agree the wording is clumsy.
The invasion angle is simply entering a country without permission. Protesting against the laws of the country while holding the foreign flag adds to the poor optics but the root of the invading accusation is the people actually invading.
It sort of made sense if I thought just of West Bank. One reason, freedom of movement. I did not see from the inside but from what I read it is semi closed like a warzone with checkpoints and all. What's worse is that it is supposed to be closed for everybody but allegedly it is not equal and Israel military tolerates Jews but can be way overly strict to Muslims. Some people mad at Netanyahu for it.
But it's a weird limbo, people say it's apartheid and then the same people also say it's occupied and not really part of Israel. (Except for people who also say Israel shouldn't exist but I wouldn't listen to them, because then why a shitton of militant Muslim countries are allowed to exist right there but Israel isn't considering it is much more democratic and Jews were there as early if not earlier than Muslims)
> Look at the outrage about the "invasion" because some protestors hoisted Mexican flags
Because LA Chicanos did not realize how inflammatory using the Mexican flag is in anti-government protests outside the California.
In CA, it's well understood it's used as an identity marker (though still exclusionary, as a growing portion of the Hispanic community in CA isn't Mexican anymore), but outside CA using another country's flag at the expense of the US absolutely is viewed as a severe faux pas.
I don't know that it's specifically required for a visitor visa, but 'Good Moral Character' is required for naturalization in the US. Activity on social media is probably an indication of moral character, so it's not unreasonable to check social media before issuing visas that have a path towards citizenship. Student visas may technically be visitor visas, but there's a clear path F-1 -> OPT -> H-1B -> EB-2 or EB-3; if you're going to check on moral character at the end of all that, you may as well check at the beginning too.
What constitutes good moral character might not be a great question for a government to decide. There is certainly potential and precident of the government using good moral character as a proxy for discrimination that has nothing to do with morality.
To be completely clear, what you are saying is that a US citizen -- I have no idea what the relevance of foreign citizenship means, unless you're saying that everyone with a foreign citizenship is suspect -- of Indian or Chinese origin cannot have an opinion on anything. On foreign wars. On immigration levels or sources of intake. On government structure or laws or budgetary spending. Because literally anything can be cast by some hate monger as being at the "expense of the US's strategic goals".
Let's just be completely clear about your position here.
>but outside CA using another country's flag at the expense of the US
What does "at the expense" mean? People are protesting masked groups of thugs kidnapping people and renditioning them (illegally) to foreign gulags, and that is absolutely in the service of the US.
Though there have been a number of pro-Israel protests that are nothing but a sea of Israeli flags. Jim Jordan hilariously said "We fly the American flag in America", while he has a giant Israeli flag festooned outside his office. There is zero consistency about this "who gets to be proud of their heritage / fly a foreign flag" position beyond "who should be cowed and shut their dirty migrant faces".
Evangelicals are also probably the most reliable base for the Republican party (though remain a minority within it), and they have an extremely positive relationship with Israel.* And then on top of this the Israel lobby is well funded and tends to shower pro-Israel politicians in money in public, and I doubt the support ends there.
This is a somewhat long-winded way to say that - yes I do believe this administration is completely and sincerely focused on Israel and the interests of Israel, and I think there are a million reasons to think this is the case. And I also don't think this is a good thing, because the Israeli government seems to have lost their minds, and I think the world was already far closer to WW3 (and has been for a number of years now) than most appreciate.
What would be billions dead because of a nutter government and US politicians love affair with Israel would make just about as much sense as Brits killing Germans because a Bosnian Serb assassinated an Austro-Hungarian royalty.
----
* - that's actually changing with younger generations, but it still remains mostly true.
Certainly is news to japanese americans ( literally put in concentration camps ), chinese americans, german americans, mexican americans, arab americans, italian americans, catholics in general, indian americans, russian americans, etc.
> so of course they are more aligned with their country than ours, even if they have no direct ties to it whatsoever.
But there are plenty of jewish americans who are pro-israel. Such as jewish americans who joined the israeli military rather than american military.
It doesn't help that jewish americans were the main proponent to allowing dual citizenship in the US.
For example, "support for Israel among evangelicals is largely based on age and Biblical knowledge and has not been substantively impacted by the current Israel-Hamas war in Gaza... a belief that "God's covenant with the Jewish people remains intact today" has the greatest impact on support for Israel among a number of potential political, theological, sociological, and demographic factors... evangelical support for Israel remains stable from 2021 to 2024, though earlier surveys did show a sharp decline in evangelical support for Israel between 2018 and 2021...A decrease in core evangelical behavior like attending church and reading the Bible. Past studies have shown that these religious practices increase support for Israel."[2]
In addition, "The only U.S. religious groups that have a majority favorable view toward Israel are Jews (at 73%) and Protestants (at 57%), according to the survey. In particular, 72% of white evangelicals view Israel favorably... Among American Jews, 53% do not have confidence in Netanyahu and 45% do. The only U.S. religious group to demonstrate confidence in Netanyahu is white evangelical Protestants."[3] And once again, these groups are not comparable in size meaning there are a lot more supportive Evangelicals than supportive Jews.
There is also the matter of the US's current ambassador to Israel being an Evangelical who texts the president stuff like this[4].
[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/israel-poll-gen-z-biden-election-19...
[2] - https://religionnews.com/2024/06/03/new-study-measures-senti...
[3] - https://www.jta.org/2025/04/09/united-states/most-americans-...
[4] - https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2025/06/17/trump-posts-fa...
But are somehow—without any apparent reason, given that nothing binds them to the country—in favor of Israel being allowed to continue their war of agression against pretty much everyone around.
100%, and I completely agree with you. This administration seems positively subservient to Israel.
But they don't care an iota about antisemitism. Many in Trump's circle are infamous antisemites. It has long been an observation that Trump is pro-Israel yet paradoxically simultaneously an antisemite. Trump himself seems to view Jewishness as being loyal only to Israel -- he has quite literally stated this -- and that those that aren't loyal to Israel are not actually Jews. Trump has frequently repeated stereotypes and caricatures about Jews.
I don't for a moment think Trump cares an iota about antisemitism, even though I think he's a strong ally of Israel. Which is fair because it's possible to be critical of Israel without being an antisemite. The simple conflation of the two -- as this administration does -- is itself antisemitism. I conflates Jews worldwide as mere vassals of Israel.
It really isn't. Where did you get that information?
You can have dual citizenship if your Chinese citizenship is of the Hong Kong/Macao flavor
Plus it acts this way with the blessing of so-called liberal democracies so that we must confront the absolute hypocrisy by voicing our criticism.
And the corruption within USAID was off the charts..billions of dollars shovelled out the door to Democrat friends.
The bypassing of the first amendment by pressuring social media companies to self-censor.
And the weaponisation of the legal system to take out a political opponent.
I think your description far more accurately describes the Democrats than the Republicans.
They probably shouldn't do that and should just say fascist.
As such, it is an edge case or rounding error - especially in the Chinese American community. With the amount of effort it takes to get HK citizenship, you may as well take Canadian or American citizenship and try to break Chinese nationality law by lying about not having American citizenship (but they are cracking down on this)
He didn't say that.
> know two members of Congress speaking frequently in defense of Palestine
This is your evidence? Really? I mean, do you guys hear yourselves?
Two members of congress? Out of hundreds? Two members who, might I remind everyone, are constantly accused of being anti-American communists?
> Was it almost politically suicidal for them?
Yes! These two are treated like the scum of the Earth by 100% of the American right and 80% of the American left!
It's not even debatable that the US is absurdly pro-Israel. I don't know what we're even arguing here. Zionists should all agree that Zionism is good, right? So why are we arguing that Zionists are some sort of minority? You should be ecstatic that our government is explicitly Zionist!
The fallacy here is thinking Judaism and Zionism are related. They're not at all. I would wager most Jews worldwide are not Zionists. What Zionism is is the belief that Jews are entitled to a Jewish Ethnostate and they may create that state through violence and colonialism.
I'm not going to fact check that because it's probably wrong, but regardless, it doesn't matter.
Trump literally appointed a billionaire to be a minister of his, after said billionaire spent hundreds of millions on his campaign. Same billionaire also has government contracts, was in charge of "optimising" government spending. Oh and he runs a social media with blatant censorship. Trump had a coronation event where billionaires had to donate big sums of money to be able to attend. He launched shitcoins and collectibles and a fucking mobile phone.
Nothing any recent politician in any western country has done comes even close to this level of brazen corruption. Hell, well known corrupt autocrats like Putin are more delicate in public about their corruption.
> And the corruption within USAID was off the charts..billions of dollars shovelled out the door to Democrat friends
Like preventing HIV from being transmitted to babies in Africa? Darn Democratic HIV infected babies!
Sure, you replace "Jews" by "Zionists" and then every trope is ok. It's Zionists who have the power to influence or direct US government behavior (i.e., control it).
> Two members of congress? Out of hundreds?
Well yeah, to show something possible it's enough to show one example.
> Yes!
How is being elected to Congress political suicide?
> It's not even debatable that the US is absurdly pro-Israel.
I'm not debating that. I'm debating the idea that this is somehow doing of evil Zionist lobby or that repeating antisemitic tropes is not antisemitic because you euphemize Jews by Zionists
"more nonsense"
Great rebuttal.
I don’t think I’m particularly pro-Israel, but since HN seems fixated with this particular conflict over others I certainly post in those submissions - just like everyone can see you do. This unnecessary personal attack is completely off topic (you’re responding to a post about me realising I believed in a myth about Israel) and easily proven false by looking at my post history - and also yours.
> Contemporary examples of antisemitism ... could, taking into account the overall context, include...:
Context is important. The examples are not true in all cases, but rather context dependent.
Accusing Jewish citizens of your country of being more loyal to Israel than their country simply because they're Jewish? Antisemitic.
Accusing a specific Jewish citizen that has said they are more loyal to Israel? Not antisemitic.
True! But kids under 18 aren't voters not supposed to be a part of the political process, so any opinions they may have is moot.
> Also, attractive female snow boarders are also allowed dual citizenship but those are exceptions.
Yep! Plenty of exceptions all around if you are important enough or related to someone important enough.
In any case I think Trump cares about things like preventing violence/intimidation against Jews. And I do think that's a reasonable concern. A certain political orientation in the US has become increasingly violent over the years and as Jews (which are distinct from the Israeli government) fall out of fashion with them, concerns of a progression towards violence are not entirely unfounded. By contrast, I do not think he cares about things like memes of long nosed bankers rubbing their hands or claims Jews are more loyal to Israel than the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Mountain_Mandate
Worth noting: Senator Ted Cruz's father is a pastor and follows this ideology. There's a pretty good article on the topic:
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/quiet-rise...
And the Dominionists require Israel to be strong because Jews rebuilding the temple is part of their apocalyptic beliefs.
https://sojo.net/articles/evangelical-support-israel-fueled-...
Please share evidence. Links to X of people simply stating the same thing does not count as evidence.
> The bypassing of the first amendment by pressuring social media companies to self-censor.
The platforms never claimed to be coerced, the platforms themselves said in court filings they were not coerced, SCOTUS determined they were not coerced.
The actual way this played out was that random crybabies on the Internet were sad their posts were moderated, so they complained to the courts that the government pressured the platforms. The platforms responded "no, we did that because you broke our ToS."
Here's Twitter's own lawyer in their legal filing on the matter:
> Such requests to do more to stop the spread of false or misleading COVID-19 information, untethered to any specific threat or requirement to take any specific action against plaintiffs is permissible persuasion, and not state action... as [SCOTUS] previously held, government actors are free to urge private parties to take certain actions or criticize others without giving rise to state action. The evidence provided does not support a plausible inference of state action because they suggest neither the degree of deep public, private entwinement necessary for joint action, nor the kind of threatened sanction necessary for coercion.
And here are Zuckerberg's own words:
> Ultimately it was our decision whether or not to take content down and we own our decisions.
Both platforms receive millions of government requests per year, the vast majority of which (from the US government) they are free to decline and frequently do decline.
> And the weaponisation of the legal system to take out a political opponent.
The entire purpose of a legal system is to "take out" criminals. Do you think running for office somehow gives someone criminal immunity? That has to be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard in my life, and I've heard some astoundingly stupid ones!
It's a delicate balance and I'm glad you can strike it so consistently.
I think your main issue seems to be that I don’t agree with you on Middle Eastern history, science, law and social matters.
> Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to
One stands out though
> Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
That seems to be a perfectly fine thing to do, comparing one government's policies with another. Maybe instead of saying "Nazis", maybe one can say "Government of Nazi Germany" and one wouldn't be labelled as an antisemite.
If such a ruling was later appealed and eventually overturned, then of course that would not count. But a judge ruling on a case is technically the only way something can be considered provably "illegal" in the US.
I realize that you want to believe there are certain inalienable rights that somehow no longer exist, but I do not believe that to be the case. The courts exist for a reason, and just because people are sometimes arrested or charged with things that are not actually legal, that doesn't mean it won't later get thrown out in court, and it doesn't mean that your rights have disappeared.
Even if all of that did happen, such a case would most likely be appealed to the Supreme Court and ruled unconstitutional.
This is a pointless concern because "the excerpt" has no motivations behind it that were imbued by its author. The only reason it exists as an excerpt is that someone pulled it out of its original context. Either go to the source and read it in context to get a better idea of the motivations of the full text or attribute the motivations to the person who decided to excerpt that specific text.
There is >0 consistency, check skin color.
