[Zaheer]

Original DHS Announcement on Social Media Screening: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-sc...

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.

[WatchDog]

Wow these are incredibly broad, in particular:

> 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"

[Aloisius]

The preface to the list of examples is rather important:

> 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.

[mjlee]

The vast majority of American Jewish citizens are not dual US/Israeli citizens. Very roughly, there are about 1,000,000 Israelis living abroad worldwide and the US Jewish population is around 7,000,000.

[plextoria]

> There are plenty of dual citizens that would proudly admit that their first loyalty is to Israel.

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.

[cherryteastain]

> but we don't go around throwing such accusations at them

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.

[tdeck]

> 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.

I'm sure this definition is going to be applied to Zionist organizations that do this on a regular basis.

[notjulianjaynes]

Yeah this one is funny because it's literally the stated mission of several U.S. based Zionist/anti-antisemetic organizations.

[dgellow]

> Although perhaps a generous interpretation of the example

Absolutely zero reasons to give the current US government the benefit of the doubt

[bsoles]

I find it ironic that the current administration wants to filter out students based on their negative views of Israel when the same administration has literal Nazis in their ranks. I think that the quoted definition/criteria is just a ploy to ban students from undesirable countries from entering the country.

[wolfcola]

Donald Trump has done this multiple times, saying that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats are disloyal or traitors because he treats Israel better.

[nailer]

> whereas this example seems to apply to accusing any individual

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.

[lazyeye]

It's all so confusing. Defending Jewish people is very unexpected behaviour for someone, who we've been told for years now, is a nazi...

[viraptor]

It's just convenient right now, not a part of ideology of protecting minorities. Consider how this is effectively a type of targeted affirmative action just a short time after all dei was the devil and had to be erased. If Israel does something the gov doesn't support, I expect all of this to go away.

[lazyeye]

Not sure how much value your "expectations" have but thanks for sharing...

[sofixa]

That's because people confuse generic fascism with nazism. A big part of the difference is the virulent antisemitism.

Trump and his friends are fascists (corporatism, corruption, strongman rule, us vs them with human rights abuses vs the "them", etc).

[lazyeye]

I dunno...the Dems campaign funds were 3 times the Republicans at the last election so the corporate donors were very much on their side.

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.

[sorcerer-mar]

> And the corruption within USAID was off the charts..billions of dollars shovelled out the door to Democrat friends.

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!

[sofixa]

> the Dems campaign funds were 3 times the Republicans at the last election so the corporate donors were very much on their side.

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!

[_pigpen__]

It's pretty simple, Trump hates Muslims more than he hates Jews ("Fine people on both sides", Kanye & Feuntes, cancelling funding for domestic anti-semitism programs...). This is the Muslim ban under a different guise.

[lazyeye]

Yes I guess it is pretty simple in your mind.

[const_cast]

When people say that Trump is a Nazi, they mean in the fascist "enemy from within" type of way. As in they're using Nazi as a drop-in for fascist because Nazi Germany was the most popular fascist nation that everyone knows.

They probably shouldn't do that and should just say fascist.

[lazyeye]

Yes I guess nazis were the "most popular fascist nation". Interestingly there were alot of themes in nazi ideology that could almost be considered left-wing. They believed in the dignity of the German working class man for example and that the Jewish people represented big business and were a corruption on society etc.

[shadowgovt]

Indeed. Their socialist program was left-wing... But it was socialism only for the people they considered actually people. That'd be the key difference between Nazi beliefs and any modern democratic socialism.

[lazyeye]

So both different forms of socialism then....

[corimaith]

New-Left/Progressives are influenced by Carl Schmitt and his views on power that the Right also draws from. It's one of the key distinctions from Liberals who reject him entirely.

[const_cast]

Okay, whatever.

[lazyeye]

Yep exactly, whatever....

[immibis]

A common misconception. Hitler was a big supporter of creating Israel (which didn't exist at the time) too. Why? Because the point of Israel was to make the Jews go far away from Europe, where Hitler didn't want them to be.

[lazyeye]

So ummm..are you saying Trump is defending the Jewish state so that eventually all the Jewish people in the US can be moved there? Trying to understand your logic here...

[assbuttbuttass]

I don't think Trump personally is anti-semetic. But it's pretty common for right-wingers, even neo-Nazis, to support Israel because of the argument "The Jews get to have a state to call their home, why not Whites?"

[FirmwareBurner]

>But it's pretty common for right-wingers, even neo-Nazis, to support Israel because of the argument "The Jews get to have a state to call their home, why not Whites?"

It really isn't. Where did you get that information?

[JumpCrisscross]

> There are plenty of dual citizens that would proudly admit that their first loyalty is to Israel

This is legitimately debatable. If your allegiance is first to a foreign state, in my view, you should have to relinquish your American citizenship.

[mathieuh]

> How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

[strogonoff]

Allegiance is not love. Allegiance is recognising yourself as part of some whole. It’s not impossible to feel that and also dislike or even hate the whole, though it probably would not come without psychological issues unless you channel that into political activity to effect what you think is a positive change to the whole. It’s complicated.

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.”

[jaoane]

I love when people come here with quotes from books like this is the ultimate argument or something.

[pelagicAustral]

https://youtu.be/cHoVtHyqOu4?si=3SsGBo2ORB7eWWJV

[Mashimo]

> If your allegiance is first to a foreign state, in my view, you should have to relinquish your American citizenship.

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.

[llsf]

And exit tax...

[rietta]

And being permanently barred from possessing firearms in the USA.

[ben_w]

I doubt that will matter to them, even if they like guns. How many dual nationals give up the citizenship of a nation they still live in?

[ses1984]

If that's your view then the only logical conclusion is to not allow dual citizenship at all.

[FirmwareBurner]

Many country don't allow dual citizenship precisely for these issues.

[GrantMoyer]

Any law that allows a government to renounce people's citizenship for broad, vague reasons is a very, very bad law. Regardless of its intentions, it will be used as a tool to subvert the rights of citizens even outside the target group.

[larrled]

Amazed to see such a take after what happened in LA. Obviously the median immigrant has strong feelings of loyalty to their mother soil as can be witnessed by the huge Mexican flags and the direct testimony of many individuals. Should we deport all those people who swear loyalty to “La Rasa”? If we want immigrants, and we should because we need them to lead us into the future, we need to be realistic about their loyalties. People are proud of their race/nationality, and immigrants often even moreso.

[alephnerd]

The Chicano movement made their own flag back in the Cesar Chavez era. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Gen Los Angeleños of Mexican origin could have used (and plenty did) and a sign finger portion of protestors made sure to incorporate the US flag as well, but a significant portion simply did not realize that the Mexican flag is not viewed as an ethnic marker outside of CA.

[_pigpen__]

The US State of California WAS Mexico in 1848. Much of California still is Mexico. The personal notion of "mother soil" may have nothing to do with current political boundaries.

[spwa4]

Wow ... this will suck. Islam, the ideology, either is a state, or meant to be a state (just ask a few muslims, they'll explain. Also historically islam was a state until 1918/1923, and died in WW1, with the leader of islam, the caliph, abandoning islam)

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?

[Propelloni]

Yes, this will suck. No argument from me.

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.

[spwa4]

You're applying logic to dogma. I hope you understand your error at this point, but as to exactly what's wrong:

... 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.

[Propelloni]

I'm not going to argue, because I think you are right. It's still fun to think rigorously about some random statement ;)

[victorbjorklund]

Does that mean all Americans should be stripped of their other citizenship since they have allegiance to a foreign state? For example Barron Trump is a dual citizen.

[peterlada]

Totally disagree.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Totally disagree

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.

[WastedCucumber]

Hate to break it to you, but you'd have to find support from the IRS / Ways and Means Committee first. For these institutions, the primary characteristic of US Citizenship is filing your taxes, no matter where to live or if you've ever even lived in the country. This puts the USA in the same odd category as Eritrea, Hungary, and I believe one other country.

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.

[birn559]

That would have the consequence that naturalized citizen would be second class. Because they have to watch out for what to say, otherwise somebody might denounce them and they have to fight against their live being destroyed.

[JumpCrisscross]

> would have the consequence that naturalized citizen would be second class

I know more born citizens with a second nationality than naturalised ones who gave up their first.

[adastra22]

You are conflating naturalization with born citizens.

[simondotau]

Revoking citizenship for any reason (other than for abject fraud) means that citizenship means nothing.

Also, to be pedantic, you don’t have to have citizenship of a foreign country in order to have a greater allegiance to it.

[lipowitz]

> 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.

[account42]

Letting some people have dual citizenship while others only have one is already making a mockery of the concept.

[tdeck]

I think it would take more than an act of Congress.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroyim_v._Rusk

[victorbjorklund]

You know Trumps own wife and son are dual citizens right? Is he going to strip them of their citizenship and deport them?

[slg]

That is a strange one to call out as too broad because it is literally an ancient form of antisemitism going back to the Romans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_loyalty#Jewish_Believers

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal...

[f33d5173]

The point is that is may be admitedly true on the part of the one accused.

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.

[slg]

What is a context in which it is acceptable to say that an American's loyalty to this country can't be trusted because of their ethnicity/religion? Some of these definitions are too broad, but this is not the example to use in that argument. Accusations of dual loyalty are widely recognized as antisemitism.

[DangitBobby]

> because of their ethnicity/religion

You specified that. The excerpt did not.

[slg]

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are calling attention to the phrasing of the excerpt rather than insinuating that Jews collectively are more loyal to Israel than the US.

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.

[Zaheer]

This isn't theoretical. There's literally cases of ICE kidnapping people off the streets for writing an innocuous op-ed in a magazine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil

[slg]

What did I say that made you think I support the ICE kidnappings? I was making a very specific point that you seemingly received as a much different general point.

[chasd00]

Thanks for some actual information. I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet. This article mentions everything in the wsj article that I could read (no sub) but makes no mention of requiring profiles be “public”. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/social-media-screen...

[ddeck]

>I’m trying to find the directive to force student social media profiles to be public but can’t find anything yet.

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.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's on all the US embassy sites, although it says "are requested"

The smart ones won’t sign to it. The dumb ones will take too long to arrest and charge.

[ascorbic]

They'll just deny them a visa.

[hearsathought]

Does the DHS also screen for people who post anti-chinese, anti-russian, anti-canadian, anti-mexican, etc social media posts? Why screen for anti-israel comments only? I'm guessing they are not screening for anti-palestinian or anti-muslim posts.

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.

[jampekka]

> Why is it that so much of our political class openly and unabashedly act like agents of israel?

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.

[nashashmi]

It is a litmus test: Israel is the most controversial western (not middle eastern) country and if you don’t criticize it, there is a good chance you will not criticize any western nation including the US. You will be easily bullied by the US govt with a tape over your mouth.

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.

[mahirsaid]

Most likely the very same people that passed it are part of the lobbying of you know who ( i don't want to say the exact names or party). Any future bills in favor of that foreign country will be hard to protest against. petitioning will be heavy criticized for being anti-semitic in nature firstly, which will delay any reverse action to a bill, such as a arms deal package or some aid in war effort such what's happening right now. another way to block none align congress vote or civil pushback.

[ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7]

Maybe because Israel is accused of committing blatant crimes against humanity at the moment, and you can't let that potential reality seep into the country. Or its just more anti-freedom (speech) moves by the current administration in an effort to control public perception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

[kotaKat]

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

> 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.

[petre]

> What Homeland is DHS securing? The US or Israel?

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.

[KingMob]

There are more Jews in Israel than the US, but it's close. Roughly, 6mil to 7mil.

[slg]

There are also roughly 100 million Evangelical Christians in the US who are strongly in favor of political support of Israel too. It is a little silly to think the American position on this is exclusively about wooing the votes of 6 million people who will overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats anyway.

[afpx]

Not true. That assumption reflects a dated and oversimplified narrative. Most Evangelicals under 50 give no special status to Israel. No scripture instructs modern Christians to give political Israel special treatment.

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.

[slg]

You are right that young Evangelicals are less supportive of Israel, but that is an overall trend in the US[1] and not specific to Evangelicals. Maybe the rest of what you said is true about your specific church, but it doesn't seem to match the general polling data.

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...

[jasonfarnon]

" exclusively about wooing the votes of 6 million people "

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?

[slg]

I wasn't comparing any two blocks of 6m people. I was comparing a specific group of 6m to a specific group of 100m. Do you think the 6m American Jews have more political power than the 100m American Evangelical Christians?

[hearsathought]

> There are more Jewish people in the US than Israel. I guess this is what they're securing against?

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"?

[petre]

> Why isn't DHS protecting them?

I'm not sure the DHS is protecting anyone other than the Trump Administration's narratives at this point.

[peppers-ghost]

Israel is a defacto extension of the US. They're a part of us as much as Texas is.

[account42]

Just not bound by the US constitution when they spy on American citizens.

[CommanderData]

It's always been about Israel.

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.

[barbazoo]

> However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

[somenameforme]

Of course when people's applications are rejected, exactly 0 reason will be given other than that they failed the screening process. So nuances like this are, in practice, irrelevant. When the obvious motivation is to eliminate criticism of the Israel, all they're going be looking for is criticism of the Israel.

[Aeolun]

I find it very hard to believe any current student would not be critical of Israel.

They haven’t exactly been model citizens these past few years.

[krunck]

It's easy for one to criticize Israel in a way that one does not criticize other countries because there are no countries acting like Israel is at the moment: Genocide, apartheid, unprovoked war, etc, etc.

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.

[barbazoo]

That doesn't prevent people from labelling you as an antisemite unfortunately. I'm not on social media but if I was, I wouldn't make negative statements about Israel if I actually cared about entering or staying in the US.

[KingMob]

...which is immediately followed by a bunch of counter-statements carving out exceptions.

[barbazoo]

Not really at least not most of them.

> 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.

[keernan]

>>You have more freedom to criticize the US Government than to criticize a foreign country.

I doubt that. I would honestly be shocked if anyone with anti-Trump posts would 'pass' DHS screening.

[TimorousBestie]

The IHRA definition of antisemitism is so vague that it includes otherwise innocuous and/or factual statements.

> “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.

[timr]

They go on to discuss more than a page of examples, all of which sound completely reasonable to me. Or perhaps you could just quote the very next paragraph, which is pretty specific:

> 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.

[somenameforme]

A key issue in this is that the screening process is completely opaque. I have acquaintances who have tried to get visas to the US, and it usually takes several attempts - with nothing really changing in between. It mostly comes down to the exact immigration officer working somebody's application, and the waxing and waning of the moon.

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).

[timr]

Yeah, I’m not saying anything about the idea of screening someone based on the content of their thoughts (i.e. their social media feed). I’m only commenting about the purported unreasonableness of the definition of antisemitism.

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).

[TimorousBestie]

“X might include Y”, “X frequently Z”, “X is often W”: these phrases do not legally define anything, they’re merely vibes. If I argue that a particular statement is neither Y, Z, or W, that doesn’t logically imply that it isn’t X.

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.

[KingMob]

Many are reasonable, but several are not.

> 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.

[timr]

> > 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...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.

[harimau777]

Accusing a nation of something bad is precisely what their definition of anti-semitism includes. The examples they gave are all from the controversal definition of anti-semitism.

[mrkramer]

This is dystopia in the making, 1984 coming alive, first of all; why someone's social media activity would be the matter of the government? Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right. US will no longer be free if it peruses politically motivated persecution and segregation. This is political hysteria akin to anti-communist and anti-Japanese hysteria during WW2 and after.

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."

[toast0]

> This is dystopia in the making, 1984 coming alive, first of all; why someone's social media activity would be the matter of the government?

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.

[iLoveOncall]

> Everybody in the world has freedom of speech, it is a human right

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...

[immibis]

The US doesn't even have free speech, as we can see from this event happening right now. Many European and European-style countries have weaker constitutional protections, but stronger actual protections in reality, than the USA. The USA's constitution significantly differs from the USA's reality.

[ranger_danger]

The US absolutely has free speech, please don't spread misinformation.

[immibis]

No, it doesn't - it's illegal to say we should boycott Israeli products.

[ranger_danger]

According to who? Please cite a specific court case where a judge ruled that calling for the boycott of Israeli products was deemed illegal.

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.

[majorchord]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-orders-rel...

[claudiulodro]

For context, I'd also recommend the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther playbook which the administration has clearly been following: https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther...

[834h3o9hf]

The facts are in — just delete social media.

[Aerbil313]

Couldn't be happier - I am the single person I know among my peers (college) who doesn't have social media (except HN). The reason is not some concern for privacy though, I have ADHD and can't handle having social media installed on my phone lol, I become dysfunctional pretty quick.

[huevosabio]

> 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.

> 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.

[mrkramer]

> Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

I draw comparisons to Roman Empire, would that please them better? Because Roman Empire also had racist expansionist state policies.

[suddenlybananas]

You can call the Roman Empire many things but to call them racist is very anachronistic

[mrkramer]

Romans called barbarians anyone who is not from the Roman Empire, I don't think Israel thinks any better of its Muslim neighbors. And Jews had pretty bad experience under the Roman Empire in then called Judaea and now Palestinians have pretty bad experience under Israel. Palestinians are Jews of the Islamic world as well as Kurds.

[sillystu04]

The Romans never referred to the Greeks, Jews or Egyptians as barbarian. If they did it certainly wasn't with great frequency.

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.

[rightbyte]

Wasn't the insult to the way their languages sounded, i.e. a onomatopoetic word?

[grafmax]

Genocide is human beings at their worst. Suppressing the condemnation of genocide means any speech can be suppressed.

[dlubarov]

How so? Double standards for the only Jewish state seems like a pretty clear example of antisemitism, at least.

(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.)

[huevosabio]

On that one (and many of the Israel-related ones) I think the problem is that it implicitly assumes that because you do, you do it because of antisemitism.

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.

[birn559]

All of the mentioned bullet points could be applied to other countries.

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.

[dlubarov]

If there's some universal principle underlying your treatment of the US, I wouldn't really call that a double standard, assuming the principle is based on things like economic or military capabilities and not race, national identity, etc.

[jaoane]

Why is criticism of the only Jewish state antisemitism but then whites can’t even think of having their own state?

[cyanydeez]

Its mostly strange because antisemitism is bad, but Holocaust denial, pronazi viewpoints are ok.

Just a bundle of mixed messages and doublethink to allow the right kind of hate.

[georgeburdell]

The criticism of Israel thing is not what you think it’s for.

[lurk2]

What do you think it is for?

[georgeburdell]

It’s Trump’s latest incarnation of a “Muslim ban”. As a side bonus, it also targets the Left

[lurk2]

I think that’s what most people thought it was for.

[somenameforme]

This is nonsense. At this point in time anybody who isn't of a very specific political persuasion is going to be criticizing Israel, including most Israelis!

[KingMob]

> including most Israelis!

Not quite. Don't confuse criticism of Netanyahu with criticism of Israel. Many dislike Netanyahu for various reasons, but are still broadly supportive of Israeli policies.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Many dislike Netanyahu for various reasons, but are still broadly supportive of Israeli policies

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.

[somenameforme]

This is definitely not true. For instance 69% of Israelis support(ed) ending the Gaza 'war' after a hostage exchange. [1] Only 21% opposed.

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...

[llm_nerd]

But they are spot on. The performative declaration of war on so-called antisemitism by this administration is 100% just a façade to target Muslims.

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.

[somenameforme]

Trump's daughter is married to an Orthodox Jew and also converted to Judaism herself. That's something that's not like other religions where you can just say you're a Christian (of this denominator or that) - it's an official, tested, and very extended affair, particularly in the Orthodox tradition. In other words, it's "real." And Trump has always been deferent, come obsequious, to Israel, like many US politicians. In fact he was the first sitting President to visit the Wailing Wall back in his first term - traditionally US Presidents do that before elections.

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.