People are suddenly paying attention to laws in states quashing free speech critical of Israel.
What most people don’t know is that these laws are being used as a template for legislation quashing free speech on other topics.
A quick thread.
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I warned back in 2018 - U.S. Politicians Are Backing a Free Speech Exception for Israel — & Creating a Template for Broader Assault on the First Amendment.
I warned: "this template could be re-purposed to bar contracts with individuals or groups affiliated with or supportive of any political cause or organization...that the majority in a legislature or the occupant of a governor’s office deemed undesirable.”
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In conjunction with his intro of an outrageous res bashing @Ilhan@AOC & @RepPressley, Waltz (R-FL) has helpfully compiled a doc containing what he apparently sees as the evidence of their anti-Israel, antisemitic ways. Let’s review!
To people who today are either staying silent or arguing that they - as Jewish Israelis or Jewish Americans - just want peace:
Too many “we-support-peace people have for years kept their heads in the sand about the clear intentions behind Israeli policies... 1/
... & about the constant and ever-escalating violations of their basic rights and dignities these policies that inflict on Palestinians. 2/
Good intentions, loving peace, holding on to “hope” - it has long been clear that without turning these into actions, they are just stories people who are privileged by the status quo tell themselves... 3/
@elgindy_ :“They aren’t hands-off in underwriting the occupation; they’re hands-off in terms of things that could help Palestinians or mitigate conflict…"
@elgindy_@elgindy_ : "It’s selectively hands-off; it’s hands-on when it comes to aid to Israel and all the mantras of 'unbreakable and unshakable” U.S.-Israeli ties"
New thread ft. Members of Congress who've been silent re Israeli actions related to Sheikh Jarrah & Haram a-Sharif/Temple Mt, but who are now moved to speak on missiles being fired into Israel (which, to be clear, is a war crime - but the selective empathy/outrage is striking):
"Hundreds of Israeli soldiers age 19 to 21 are deployed every night on missions of state terror when they break into Palestinian homes in the West Bank, without a judge’s warrant or oversight of a body that is not an interested party (there is no such body)…”
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"The authority is a military order from 54 years ago, when we thought the occupation was temporary…”
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