The Daily - A Fight Over How to Fight Anti-Semitism

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

President Trump has issued an executive order cracking down on anti-Semitism. But some Jewish Americans fear that the plan could end up deepening prejudice instead of curbing it. Guest: Max Fisher, a Times international reporter and columnist for The Interpreter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:The executive order touches on a defining issue of our time: Who belongs, and who decides?Some students across the United States said they were afraid that the order would backfire, worsening anti-Semitism on college campuses.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the president has issued an executive order cracking down on anti-Semitism on college campuses. Why some Jewish Americans fear that the logic behind it could provide a rationale that ultimately furthers anti-Semitism. It's Wednesday, December 18th. So, Max Fischer, tell us what happened last week at the White House.

So, last Wednesday, Trump, as part of his annual Hanukkah party, announced that he was going to sign an executive order targeting what he described as anti-Semitic speech on college campuses. Which seems like a worthwhile goal. Right. It seems totally straightforward. But it has set off because of the kind of way it has touched on this, the way it presented it, the politics of it, what has been this really big, divisive debate, especially among American Jews about basically how to receive this and whether this is a good or a bad thing. And why has it touched off this debate? Oh, man. So you can actually see the complications in this order, what makes it so sensitive in the event where President Trump announced it. Melania and I are delighted to welcome so many friends and families to this incredible house, the White House, to celebrate this really sacred season and a very special time, to everyone here today, happy Hanukkah. At that Hanukkah party.

You know, the way that he kind of starts it is he starts talking about, you know, the scourge of anti-Semitism. As we gather this afternoon, our thoughts turn to the grieving families in New Jersey. This afternoon, our thoughts turn to the grieving families in New Jersey. Yesterday, two wicked murderers opened fire at a kosher supermarket and killed four innocent souls, including a brave police officer. He talks about this recent shooting in Jersey City. He promises to crush anti-Semitism. My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people. He then kind of, you know, introduces the people who he has gathered into the room, which includes some Republican donors who are Jewish, Bob Kraft. My wife, a blessed memory, would be smiling now because she loved America first and Israel and wanted to build bridges between the two places and

have tikkun olam. And I think this more than anything is going to help do that. So thank you. This is the owner of the Patriots? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Big Republican donor, some Orthodox figures who were there, some evangelical leaders. And then he kind of starts to talk about the things that he has done for the Jewish community, and the big three accomplishments that he lists are... So two years ago, I recognized the true capital of Israel, and we opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. Moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I've also recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Recognizing Israel's annexation of a region

called the Golan Heights, which Syria considers part of its territory. And I said to Bob, so what, Bob Kraft, I said, so what was bigger, Bob? What we did for Israel in terms of Jerusalem and moving the embassy to Jerusalem, becoming the capital of Israel, or the Golan Heights, which you've been looking to do. For 52 years, they've been having meetings on the Golan Heights. Nothing happened until I came along. I said, Bob Kraft, which is bigger?

Which is more important to the Jewish people? They said, neither. I said, what does that mean? He said, what you did by terminating the Iran nuclear deal is bigger than both. I think that's true. Withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, which had been a big request of the Israeli government. So this is kind of his big wind-up to introduce the executive order

that he's there to announce. Before I sign the executive order, I'd like to ask Oscar to say a few words, and Jonathan will light the menorah. And what's notable to you about this framing from the president, this list that he wraps this into? Well, I mean, American presidents have always treated policies towards Israel as something that is of great interest to the American Jewish community because it has always been a great interest to the American Jewish community. But Trump is really leaning into the idea that pro-Israel policies are something that serve American Jews specifically. are something that serve American Jews specifically. And it's specifically policies that are big requests of the Israeli right and of the kind of American pro-Israel right.

But it's also, for Trump himself, it's kind of especially sensitive to set things up in a way that a little bit implies that Israel is an extension of the American Jewish community, because that is something that he has actually said. He, once speaking to an American Jewish group, referred to the Israeli prime minister as your prime minister. But I stood with your prime minister at the White House. Famously, he criticized Jewish Democrats who were critical of Israel by saying that they were disloyal to Israel. And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.

So, you know, while it's not unusual for a president to kind of tout their pro-Israel policies as something they think the American Jewish community were like. For Trump, the way that he leans into it does a little bit leave the suggestion that he sees Israel and the Jewish community as kind of one in the same. Right, that he conflates them. That he conflates them, yes. So then from there, he moves to this new executive order. This action makes clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits the federal funding of universities and other institutions that engage in discrimination applies to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate. What exactly does that mean? So the way that it works

is that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act allows the federal government to withhold money from colleges that are deemed as not protecting people based on nationality, race, or color. So it means that if your local college did nothing to stop

the student KKK from holding a big rally with racist banners saying horrible racist things against black people, then the federal government could intervene to withhold federal funding from that college in order to pressure them to act against the student KKK and tell them, you know, no, you're not allowed to hold your racist rallies on our campus. And what it does is it adds Jews to that. It says, we now consider Jews to be under the consideration of foreign nationality, race, or color for the purposes of this act. And then we also have this definition of antisemitism that has a few specific phrases and accusations that we're going to consider discriminatory. And so colleges and universities are now required to basically

stop students from saying these things. So this is an expansion of existing protections under that title. That's right. To include Jews. That's right. Kind of reinterprets it to say Jews are now, but not other religious minorities, are now included under this. We'll be right back. So what's the significance of these protections now, including Jews? And what does this have to do with your point that this is the latest example of the president equating Israel with American Judaism? Well, when President Trump introduces the order. We have also taken a firm stand against the so-called divestment and sanctions movement or BDS. You know that very well.

The way that he describes it is a firm stance against BDS. BDS refers to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. It is an activist movement, including on campuses, that is aimed at pressuring the Israeli government over its policies towards the Palestinians. This is our message to universities. If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism. It's very simple. He describes the executive order as targeting what he calls the anti-Semitic campaign against the state of Israel.

The state of Israel and its citizens. The way that it's written actually includes calling Israel a racist state as one of the banned anti-Semitic phrases. Really pitches this as something that is about promoting and protecting Jews because it happens to overlap very neatly with this division kind of among the American Jewish community where there are some who consider BDS to be, you know, beyond the pale anti-Israel, consider it to be anti-Semitic, and so have been asking for this for a long time. Why does BDS single Israel out alone for condemnation? There's only one word for it, anti-Semitism. Let us call out the BDS movement for what it is. But there is also a very large segment of the American Jewish community that has been feeling very cool towards Israel, especially over the last 10 or 15 years. The main reason why, you know, I just say I support BDS and I don't pick and choose, is the point is that this comes from a very, very broad cross-section of Palestinian civil society with very, very few tactics at their disposal.

And finds the idea of kind of hardline pro-Israel policies generally and curbs on anti-Israel activism specifically to be something that don't really align with their values and with what they want. And so I think for them, pitching this as something that is serving American Jews when a lot of American Jews, even if they don't like or agree with BDS itself, are not that comfortable with a lot of Israeli government policy, so might be sympathetic towards student activists who are critical of Israel, and maybe just generally don't love the idea of the federal government curbing anti-Israel activism just as a matter of free speech. I mean, this is the Civil Rights Act. This is meant to stop Southern universities that allowed students to systematically harass black students. It's strong protections that are meant to protect students from really severe discrimination. from really severe discrimination. But that is what is kind of so complicated about putting Jews into that set of categories and into that bucket of protected race, color, and nationality.

Because, you know, on the one hand, Jews for a long time, a lot of Jews have considered themselves to be a distinct race, a distinct nationality. Certainly that is how Jews have been treated. So setting aside Jews and not other religious groups, in a sense, and I think for a lot of Jewish groups, feels like recognition in this really powerful way. And the fact that it's recognition in a protected class is kind of, you know, granting Jews a little bit of a special status in American life. But on the other hand, that's also really sensitive because there has been this longstanding Jewish sensitivity towards being deemed as foreigners within, which obviously is this very longstanding anti-Semitic trope. And so the threat that some Jews feel is embedded in

this is that it chips away at their identity that American Jews fought really hard for as full Americans and as fully white. What do you mean? You know, Jews like Italians, like Irish, were not considered white for a long time. And that obviously came with a lot of discrimination. It wasn't really until after World War II that Jews, again, like Irish, like Italians, were accepted as white at a time when that was a condition for being seen as fully American. when that was a condition for being seen as fully American. I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime.

I learned many things. And it's part of why Jews developed this tradition of getting really involved in the civil rights movement, which was partly about expanding that kind of full cultural and social citizenship to non-whites. Bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence. shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence. But that whiteness has been valuable to Jews since then, because it's something that says you're safe and welcome as Americans. And this, to some Jews, puts that at risk. It puts that at risk because it highlights them as racially or nationally

distinct at a time when there is this really big rising white nationalist movement that is saying the exact same thing in a very threatening way that says that Jews are foreigners in our midst working to undermine the United States and that uses that narrative to justify really serious, rising anti-Semitic violence. We begin this hour with a developing story, a shooting at a synagogue in California. It happened in the town of Poway, that's northeast of San Diego. Here is a young man standing with a rifle, pointing right at me. A disturbing discovery just steps from the Holocaust Memorial.

Here you see the headstones that were toppled at a Jewish cemetery in Fall River. Two bloody swastikas on a retaining wall about two feet by two feet each. What it does is it dredges up what's happening in the United States today. That kind of thing is not hidden anymore, that it's out there. A group of men assaulting a victim in traditional religious attire on Saturday. A second victim was randomly slapped in the face by his attacker. We believe that the suspects held views that reflected hatred of the Jewish people. And what happened at the Tree of Life synagogue

is the deadliest attack on Jewish Americans in U.S. history. And so this kind of irony to this is this order that is principally written as about curbing and addressing anti-Semitism also is written in a way that echoes this white nationalist worldview that says that Jews are other, that they're racially other, that they're not American, and specifically that they are these kind of clandestine secret Israelis and these agents of Israel. Nobody intended that worldview to end up in this executive order. And it's not that it's written into it, but the way that it others Jews, even if that was clearly just a legal mechanism, ends up echoing that. And I think that that is a real fundamental irony and a source of a lot of people's discomfort with it. Max, thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. In a scathing letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Trump denounced the impeachment vote scheduled for this evening, saying that Pelosi has, quote, cheapened the importance of the very ugly word impeachment and has declared war on democracy. impeachment and has declared war on democracy. Trump accused Pelosi of attempting to undo his election and wrote that Democrats are determined to distract from his success. And...

It appears that the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history is about to wind down after just 12 weeks and that a slapdash work product will be dumped on us over here in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected demands from Democrats to call four White House officials as witnesses during President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate. Such a trial is expected to begin in January, following an impeachment vote in the House. McConnell said that calling such witnesses was the role of the House, not the Senate, despite the fact that the president blocked White House officials from testifying before the House throughout the impeachment inquiry.

If the House Democrats case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it over here in the Senate. The answer is the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.