Trump's declaration that "Jew" is a nationality is a frightening development

ChristianProgressive

Master Poster
C
Joined
Nov 17, 2014
Messages
2,860
Trump's declaration that "Jew" is a nationality is a frightening development

Given his propensity of accusing people of non-US nationality inside the US of having "divided loyalties".

20 million people died the last time Jews were "othered" in this way...
 
ChristianProgressive said:
Given his propensity of accusing people of non-US nationality inside the US of having "divided loyalties".

20 million people died the last time Jews were "othered" in this way...
Click to expand...


Source for Trump's statement? I haven't seen this on the news.
 
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/10/politics/trump-order-judaism-nationality/index.html

The move would trigger a portion of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 that requires educational institutions receiving federal funding to not discriminate based on national origin, according to senior administration officials. The Department of Education can withhold federal funding from any college or educational program that discriminates based on race, color or national origin, according to the Civil Rights Act.

Religion is not covered in that portion of the law so the administration would have to interpret Judaism as a nationality in order to potentially punish universities for violations.

Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, pushed for the move, according to the Times.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Wow, fake news much? From Zooterkin's CNN link:

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday to interpret Judaism as a nationality and not just a religion, a move that the Trump administration believes will fight what they perceive as anti-Semitism on college campuses, a White House official said.
The impending order was first reported by The New York Times.
It's an order that would allow Trump to take further steps to combat anti-Israel sentiments and divestment movements on college campuses by requiring colleges and universities to treat those movements as discriminatory in order to keep their funding.
Click to expand...

In fact it is the BDS movement that hopes to exterminate the Jews in a oven they call Palestine.
 
If true, that sounds more like a solution trying to create a problem rather than solve one. Jews aren't different from any other American, and they don't have anything to do with Palestine.
 
While I think the OP is well off the page on this one, being Jewish is not a nationality. If they want to change things, get congress to add religion to the legislation... oh wait, yeah, that'd protect Muslims...

What are they going to do next, declare that being black is a nationality?
 
It's probably worth pointing out that Kushner is Jewish, and that Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism before marrying him.

I think PhantomWolf is right, this is designed to afford Jewish people protection against discrimination without affording the same protection to Muslims, rather than being intended as a precursor to rounding them up and putting them into camps.

I think the far right in is somewhat divided over the whole Jewish issue. You still get your more traditional Nazis who see them as the ultimate evil and want them all wiped out, but then there are also prominent far-right figures who are themselves Jewish (Milo Yiannopoulos being one of the most famous), and support for Israel and Zionism is common.

This article details some of the connections between Israel and the far-right across the globe.

Mexicans and Muslims (aka "brown people") are currently bigger targets.
 
PhantomWolf said:
While I think the OP is well off the page on this one, being Jewish is not a nationality. If they want to change things, get congress to add religion to the legislation... oh wait, yeah, that'd protect Muslims...

What are they going to do next, declare that being black is a nationality?
Click to expand...

If I were more CT-oriented I might suggest that once Jews are a nationality you could ask them to affirm their loyalty by renouncing said nationality and switching to a more, er, Christian one, lest they be branded as traitors.

Fortunately I don't think Trump and his underlings are that clever.
 
Another play by the Republicans to criminalize criticizing the policies of Israel. BDS isn't a movement targeting Jewishness, it's a movement targeting the nation of Israel.

Republicans keep running into 1A problems as they try to use government force to prohibit BDS speech and activity. Don't see how this will really improve their stance. Criticizing a foreign government's policies is obviously 1A speech, and this gambit with the CRA will not change that.

FIRE's statement opposing this executive action: https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-regarding-executive-order-on-campus-anti-semitism/
 
Last edited:
SuburbanTurkey said:
Another play by the Republicans to criminalize criticizing the policies of Israel. BDS isn't a movement targeting Jewishness, it's a movement targeting the nation of Israel.
Click to expand...


We've seen in the past that Trump considers all Jews to be part of Israel, regardless of their actual nationality. For example, when he referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "your Prime Minister" when speaking to Jewish Republicans in April.
 
Armitage72 said:
We've seen in the past that Trump considers all Jews to be part of Israel, regardless of their actual nationality. For example, when he referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "your Prime Minister" when speaking to Jewish Republicans in April.
Click to expand...

Sure, Trump seems to to be fully in on the "dual loyalties" smear of American Jews.

The anti-BDS movement is something that is bigger than just Trump though. It was a feature of mainstream republican politics prior to the Trump era.
 
Meh. That being said, jewish is both a religious label and an ethnic label, which is only marginally different from a national label.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I think PhantomWolf is right, this is designed to afford Jewish people protection against discrimination without affording the same protection to Muslims, rather than being intended as a precursor to rounding them up and putting them into camps.
Click to expand...

No, it is meant to shield the Israeli government from criticism. This is specifically designed to stifle participation in the BDS movement. That has nothing to do with Jews as a population. Instead, the weakling is trying to appease the far right Christian death cultists who want to trigger a war in the Middle East and right wing Jewish bigots who donate big bucks. The fact that it lets the Weakling cuddle up to Likud's equally corrupt leader Netanyahu i s a bonus.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Sure, Trump seems to to be fully in on the "dual loyalties" smear of American Jews.

The anti-BDS movement is something that is bigger than just Trump though. It was a feature of mainstream republican politics prior to the Trump era.
Click to expand...

I'd say its pretty tied to mainstream American politics over all.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Another play by the Republicans to criminalize criticizing the policies of Israel. BDS isn't a movement targeting Jewishness, it's a movement targeting the nation of Israel.
Click to expand...

People keep making excuses for BDS, to pretend that the movement isn't antisemitic. But it is. The denials can't change that.
 
Ziggurat said:
People keep making excuses for BDS, to pretend that the movement isn't antisemitic. But it is. The denials can't change that.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty agnostic regarding whether BDS is anti-semitic. What specifically about it is anti-semitic? On the surface, it seems similar to the anti-appartheid boycotts of the 80s. What am I missing?

I am suspicious of BDS because they do seem to be supported by anti-semites, but that doesn't necessarily mean the movement/idea itself is. NAZIs tend to support generous social welfare programs, (albeit, only for the right sort of folk). That hardly means anyone else that does is also a NAZI.
 
If the proposal is to make in law a "Jewish" nation, I suppose then there must follow a "Christian" nation, a "Muslim" nation, a "Buddhist" nation, et al, etc., and so forth, ad nauseum...

Why not just amend the law so as to include religion as a disallowed discriminatory criterion?
 
ahhell said:
Meh. That being said, jewish is both a religious label and an ethnic label, which is only marginally different from a national label.
Click to expand...

I vote Ethnic. As in Race. Trump has a moot point.
 
ahhell said:
I'm pretty agnostic regarding whether BDS is anti-semitic. What specifically about it is anti-semitic? On the surface, it seems similar to the anti-appartheid boycotts of the 80s. What am I missing?

I am suspicious of BDS because they do seem to be supported by anti-semites, but that doesn't necessarily mean the movement/idea itself is. NAZIs tend to support generous social welfare programs, (albeit, only for the right sort of folk). That hardly means anyone else that does is also a NAZI.
Click to expand...


That's no different from Trump being supported by American ultra-conservatives, alt-righters, Nazis and all the other scum on the far right end of American politics.

The problem here is that some people seem unable to distinguish between criticism of Jews and criticism of Israel - they see both as anti-Semitic.
 
smartcooky said:
The problem here is that some people seem unable to distinguish between criticism of Jews and criticism of Israel - they see the latter as anti-Semitic.
Click to expand...

I'm sure some do. Others just pretend to find it antisemitic so they can try to shut down criticism.
 
To be clear, I do want the end of the Jewish state. But that is because I reject all ethnic or religious states as unacceptable.
 
ahhell said:
I'm pretty agnostic regarding whether BDS is anti-semitic. What specifically about it is anti-semitic? On the surface, it seems similar to the anti-appartheid boycotts of the 80s. What am I missing?
Click to expand...

For one thing, the origins of the movement:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/12/the-real-history-of-the-bds-movement/

I am suspicious of BDS because they do seem to be supported by anti-semites, but that doesn't necessarily mean the movement/idea itself is.
Click to expand...

But it isn't simply supported by antisemites. It's primarily driven by antisemites, and has been from the very beginning.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/...stile-toward-jewish-students-not-just-israel/
 
casebro said:
I vote Ethnic. As in Race. Trump has a moot point.
Click to expand...

Not even that.

I have Jewish friends and clients who are 4th and 5th generation New Zealanders, whose forebears came from the USA, Canada and Europe. They are ethnically white - one of them is Maori. They've never been to Israel and have no family connection with that country.

Jews are adherents and practitioners of Judaism, a religion. Nothing more, nothing less. Jews are no more Israeli than Roman Catholics are Italian.

This executive order is a ploy to give people of Jewish faith protection without affording the same protection to people of Islamic faith - its a slap in the face to Muslims everywhere.
 
Last edited:
Lurch said:
Why not just amend the law so as to include religion as a disallowed discriminatory criterion?
Click to expand...


Because then the law would also protect Muslims, which is completely unacceptable. It's kind of like when the Louisiana state legislature allowed state education vouchers to be used for religious schools, and were horrified to realize that Muslim schools were eligible. A few people even admitted that they hadn't intended it to apply to anything other than Christian schools.
 
Fair warning to all - Ziggurat's link to legal insurrection launched me into a series of spam redirects for norton antivirus with a bogus url.

What I saw before the spam got me didn't tell me about anti-semites being the origin of the BDS movement, but I was just skimming.
 
smartcooky said:
That's no different from Trump being supported by American ultra-conservatives, alt-righters, Nazis and all the other scum on the far right end of American politics.
Click to expand...
That's basically my point. If you find something supported by a bunch of deplorables, it doesn't mean that something is necessarily deplorable but some scrutiny is probably merited.
The problem here is that some people seem unable to distinguish between criticism of Jews and criticism of Israel - they see both as anti-Semitic.
Click to expand...
That's true, sometimes, its not that easy though.

smartcooky said:
Not even that.

I have Jewish friends and clients who are 4th and 5th generation New Zealanders, whose forebears came from the USA, Canada and Europe. They are ethnically white - one of them is Maori. They've never been to Israel and have no family connection with that country.

Jews are adherents and practitioners of Judaism, a religion. Nothing more, nothing less. Jews are no more Israeli than Roman Catholics are Italian.
Click to expand...
This is a fairly ignorant anecdote. Heh, I know these guys that are basically just like me so, that's true of all of them. By that logic, once folks get to New Zealand they no longer have an ethnicity. Italian, Irish, Arab.....ect none of that exists as an ethnicity.
This executive order is a ploy to give people of Jewish faith protection without affording the same protection to people of Islamic faith - its a slap in the face to Muslims everywhere.
Click to expand...
It single's out Jews, not muslims. You may as well say its a slap in the face to christians and buddhists.
 
It seems that nobody read the article I posted. Let me quote:

Initial reporting indicated that the order would include language defining Judaism as a “national origin,” setting off a frenzy among major Jewish organizations, activists and lawmakers. The draft text of the order obtained by JI makes no such reference.
Click to expand...
 
carlitos said:
Fair warning to all - Ziggurat's link to legal insurrection launched me into a series of spam redirects for norton antivirus with a bogus url.
Click to expand...

That's odd. I'm running Firefox, don't have Norton, don't have any problems with the site.

Legal Insurrection is a blog run by Willaim Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell. He has a decidedly conservative viewpoint, but he's pretty reliable.
 
ahhell said:
This is a fairly ignorant anecdote. Heh, I know these guys that are basically just like me so, that's true of all of them. By that logic, once folks get to New Zealand they no longer have an ethnicity. Italian, Irish, Arab.....ect none of that exists as an ethnicity.It single's out Jews, not muslims.
Click to expand...

It isn't really.

There is, in reality, no such thing as "ethnically Jewish". Its a complete and total falsehood with no scientific basis whatsoever. Its no more valid than saying Roman Catholics are ethnically Italian, or Anglicans are ethnically English.

Ethnicity can be traced genetically. There is no such thing as a genetic marker for "Jewishness". There is even a scientific paper on this...

Abstract

Humans differentiate, classify, and discriminate: social interaction is a basic property of human Darwinian evolution. Presumably inherent differential physical as well as behavioral properties have always been criteria for identifying friend or foe. Yet, biological determinism is a relatively modern term, and scientific racism is, oddly enough, largely a consequence or a product of the Age of Enlightenment and the establishment of the notion of human equality. In recent decades ever-increasing efforts and ingenuity were invested in identifying Biblical Israelite genotypic common denominators by analysing an assortment of phenotypes, like facial patterns, blood types, diseases, DNA-sequences, and more. It becomes overwhelmingly clear that although Jews maintained detectable vertical genetic continuity along generations of socio-religious-cultural relationship, also intensive horizontal genetic relations were maintained both between Jewish communities and with the gentile surrounding. Thus, in spite of considerable consanguinity, there is no Jewish genotype to identify.
​

Full Paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301023/

No genetic markers = no ethnicity.

Its that simple!

ahhell said:
You may as well say its a slap in the face to christians and buddhists.
Click to expand...

1. It is, and

2. There is no widespread persecution of Christians and Buddhists in the US
 
The twentieth century aphorism was that the Jews are a people, not a race or religion. In context it meant both things together in general, but not mandatorily either one.

But in many ways the prior century allowed subtlety this one denies. Clear categories must be made and rigidly adhered to! Except in the areas where the mere notion of categorization is anathema. Good luck!
 
Ziggurat said:
That's odd. I'm running Firefox, don't have Norton, don't have any problems with the site.

Legal Insurrection is a blog run by Willaim Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell. He has a decidedly conservative viewpoint, but he's pretty reliable.
Click to expand...

I got a warning (a red "get me out of here" banner) when I clicked on the link.

I took the advice!
 
If a Japanese person who was born and raised in Japan decides to convert to Judaism... would their nationality then automatically become "Jewish"?

Or what?
 
smartcooky said:
It isn't really.

There is, in reality, no such thing as "ethnically Jewish". Its a complete and total falsehood with no scientific basis whatsoever. Its no more valid than saying Roman Catholics are ethnically Italian, or Anglicans are ethnically English.

Ethnicity can be traced genetically. There is no such thing as a genetic marker for "Jewishness". There is even a scientific paper on this...

Abstract

Humans differentiate, classify, and discriminate: social interaction is a basic property of human Darwinian evolution. Presumably inherent differential physical as well as behavioral properties have always been criteria for identifying friend or foe. Yet, biological determinism is a relatively modern term, and scientific racism is, oddly enough, largely a consequence or a product of the Age of Enlightenment and the establishment of the notion of human equality. In recent decades ever-increasing efforts and ingenuity were invested in identifying Biblical Israelite genotypic common denominators by analysing an assortment of phenotypes, like facial patterns, blood types, diseases, DNA-sequences, and more. It becomes overwhelmingly clear that although Jews maintained detectable vertical genetic continuity along generations of socio-religious-cultural relationship, also intensive horizontal genetic relations were maintained both between Jewish communities and with the gentile surrounding. Thus, in spite of considerable consanguinity, there is no Jewish genotype to identify.
​

Full Paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301023/


No genetic markers = no ethnicity.

Its that simple!



1. It is, and

2. There is no widespread persecution of Christians and Buddhists in the
US
Click to expand...
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ethnicity
an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like:
Click to expand...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group
An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry or on similarities such as common language or dialect, history, society, culture or nation.[1][2] Ethnicity is often used synonymously with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from but related to the concept of races.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom