Trump's Anti-Palestinian Agenda Comes Home

Today Donald Trump signed an executive order that directs government agencies, including the Department of Education, to consider a distorted definition of antisemitism designed to censor human rights activists, after failed attempts to pass similar legislation in Congress. 

“This is a cynical ploy by the Trump administration, exploiting genuine concern about rising antisemitism to censor advocates for Palestinian rights,” said Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi. “The definition’s track record, coupled with the Trump administration’s antisemitic statements and embrace of white supremacist rhetoric, make it clear that this executive order is not intended to combat antisemitism, but instead is a tool to chill and punish the growing movement for Palestinian freedom.”

Right-wing Israel front groups have been using the definition for years to intimidate and censor the movement for Palestinian freedom, particularly on university campuses. For example, attorneys cited the definition in a federal complaint against a November 2018 vigil organized by Jewish and Palestinian students at UC Berkeley to jointly mourn the deaths of Palestinian children killed in Gaza and Jewish people killed in the Pittsburgh massacre. Claiming the vigil portrayed “Israel as a barbarian and racist nation,” the attorneys argued that the university should block the event and expel the students who organized it because the vigil was antisemitic under the distorted definition. 

In 2017, pro-Israel advocates used a manufactured crisis of antisemitism at the University of Tennessee Knoxville in calling for the Tennessee legislature to adopt the redefinition into law. Those involved admitted to ignoring the real concerns of Jewish students facing aggressive proselytism on campus, and focusing their efforts instead on lobbying the Tennessee legislature to adopt the distorted definition. The then-president of the campus Jewish Society told legislators that “we were really confused because we had never heard about any form of antisemitism that was happening on our campus.”

While the 2017 measure in Tennessee failed, and the 2019 version is still pending, the example illustrates how a pro-Israel agenda overshadowed the needs of Jewish students.

Though Trump’s order purports to extend federal civil rights protections, the Department of Education has long regarded Jewish students as falling within its mandate by interpreting antisemitism, based on actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, as a violation of existing civil rights laws. 

The executive order, which would enlist institutions that receive federal financial assistance as censors of pro-Palestine speech, represents the culmination of a censorship tactic pro-Israel organizations have sought to enshrine as state and federal policy for over a decade. 

This strategy was employed in a campaign spearheaded by Kenneth Marcus, who Trump appointed to serve as assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education. Prior to his appointment in 2018, Marcus drove efforts by Israel-aligned groups to codify the same redefinition Trump ordered today. 

The legislation has been strongly contested by civil liberties groups for its clear encroachment on political speech. It failed to pass in Congress in 2016 and 2018, and a similar version was reintroduced this year.

The redefinition has also been rejected by its original author as inappropriate in a university setting.

“The Trump administration is doing everything it can in its foreign policy to bolster Israel’s apartheid policies, legitimize its occupation, and undermine Palestinian rights,” said Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi. “Now, with this unilateral executive order, it is trampling on our free speech rights here in order to intimidate and punish Palestinians and their allies in the US who advocate for Palestinian freedom.”

This tactic of censoring activists based on a distorted definition of antisemitism is part of a much larger effort to undermine the movement for Palestinian rights. Along with the legislative assault on the right to boycott for Palestinian rights, widespread smearing and censorship campaigns and efforts to criminalize advocacy for Palestinian rights aim to chill the still growing grassroots movement.  

We urge activists not to self-censor. This executive order is unconstitutional and will not stand up to a legal challenge.

View our backgrounder on the redefinition of antisemitism here.