Blame-the-Jews Lawfare Comes To America
Blame-the-Jews Lawfare Comes To America
Momodou Taal is suing the Trump administration to stop the full implementation of the president’s executive order titled “Additional Measures To Combat Anti-Semitism.” The Cornell graduate student and student-visa holder is leading a group of three plaintiffs with the backing of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.
On Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinians from Gaza murdered over a thousand innocent Israelis and subjected victims of various ages to torture and sexual violence, Taal tweeted: “Glory to the resistance!” That same day, he also wrote, “Today has shown us what is possible when you are organized.”
This should surprise no one. We have learned, since 10/7, that a shockingly large number of political activists believe that their rights and the rights of Jews are mutually exclusive: They only feel safe when they are free to put us in danger.
Which brings me to the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the green-card holder who has been made subject to deportation proceedings over accusations of support for Hamas. Khalil was part of the larger, functionally pro-Hamas tentifada movement, but the administration has yet to lay out the specifics of its case. Until it does, the courts will keep Khalil here in the U.S.
Taal and the ADC tie their complaint explicitly to Khalil’s case, using it to bolster their claim that the executive order protecting Jewish rights on campus is illegal.
The implication is clear: Blame the Jews.
It just so happens that the executive order in question does not change immigration law in any way, nor does it advocate for the removal of anybody’s due process rights. One provision of the order, late in the text, adds that “the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with each other, shall include in their reports recommendations for familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
The lawsuit claims that the subsequent statements of administration officials displayed bad faith in the form of their expressions of enthusiasm at the possibility of cracking down on “pro-Hamas” aliens.
But the executive order is not primarily about immigration; it is an across-the-board directive to agency heads to report their findings and progress in cracking down on anti-Semitic harassment in each of their legal domains, and to coordinate where necessary. Nothing about the order dissolves any existing legal rights. It is akin to telling a city cop to crack down on jaywalking.
If the law is illegitimate, it should be challenged. But what is being targeted here is the part of the order (and a separate, immigration-focused executive order) that represents a written encouragement to enforce that law. And why? The most likely answer is to delegitimize as unconstitutional the administration’s attempts to protect Jewish students.
The attempt to dismantle efforts to reduce anti-Semitic harassment on campus is entirely gratuitous here. Taal’s rights and the rights of Jews in America can coexist. Taal’s reaction to the events of Oct. 7, 2023, however, would suggest that that would not be a satisfactory solution to him and to the other parties behind this particular complaint.
Post a Comment