FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Capitol building viewed through the bars of standard barricades in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
House Republicans' "antisemitism" bill is a thinly-veiled effort to target left-wing organizations and criticism of Israel, global affairs journalist Emily Tamkin wrote in a column for MSNBC published on Wednesday evening — and a last-minute amendment they slipped in is a "blatant giveaway" of this fact.
"That bill — the Antisemitism Awareness Act — would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as the sole definition to be used by the Department of Education when investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination," wrote Tamkin. The problem is, "elevating it to the only definition under the law, some critics (admittedly including me) warn, would lead to it being used to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism."
For instance, she noted, under the law, it would formally be considered antisemitism to call Israel a racist state.
"There are many Jews to whom that is indeed a deeply offensive statement. But let’s say a Jewish studies professor writes that she’s abandoning Zionism because she’s come to believe that its application in real life is effectively racist. Would that professor have broken the law, if the law of the land is IHRA? Is she an antisemite, making campus less safe for her students?" Tamkin wrote.
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Ultimately, she said, what really shows the GOP's intentions with this bill is an amendment pushed by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), that would protect the freedom to say that Jews killed Jesus.
"The trope is widely considered antisemitic, but to these Republicans, not being able to say so infringed on their religious liberty," she wrote — and when a similar antisemitism bill came up last spring, a number of Republicans voted against it, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), because the IHRA lists accusing Jews of killing Jesus as antisemitic. But Cassidy's amendment effectively neuters that by taking the sentence, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,” and adding, “including the free exercise of religion.”
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ultimately adjourned without voting on the bill — but Cassidy's language remains in it.
"The Cassidy carve-out ... revealed that this legislation, if passed, would not be used to tackle antisemitism across the political spectrum, but would focus specifically on the political left and criticism of Israel," wrote Tamkin. "A plan to fight antisemitism that is actually about boosting Christian nationalism while chilling speech around Israel would look a lot like what the Trump administration is doing, bolstered by legislation that renders free speech illegal — unless it’s to say that Jews killed Jesus."