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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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Rueters: U.S. states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness

The requirement applies to at least $1.9 billion that states rely on to cover search-and-rescue equipment, emergency manager salaries and backup power systems among other expenses, according to 11 agency grant notices reviewed by Reuters.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices posted on Friday that states must follow its "terms and conditions." Those conditions require they certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to qualify for funding.

The requirement is the Trump administration's latest effort to use federal funding to promote its views on Israel.

The Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees FEMA, in April, said that boycotting Israel is prohibited for states and cities receiving its grant funds.

I've followed the politicization of FEMA grants through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program which overwhelmingly goes to Jewish organizations. The recent Israel supplemental bill included a $390M increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program with $230M available through Sept 30, 2026. Schumer is pushing for an additional $500M bringing potential 2026 funding to $730M.

The timing of this is interesting also because it's in the middle of a significant back-and-forth between Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. Tucker Carlson had Candace Owens on his show, where Tucker accused Fuentes of being a fed. To justify that claim, Tucker said that Fuentes accused Carlson's father of being in the CIA which was a fact that Carlson claimed to not know until his father's death in March.

Tucker also gave a line of criticism of Fuentes that Tucker himself gave in nearly exact words to Pat Buchanan in 1999.

How does this tie in together? Where is the pushback against the clear Israeli influence in the US government supposed to come from in the Right Wing? It's only coming from Fuentes and DR Twitter. Stuff like this gives Fuentes credibility regarding his criticisms of Israeli influence- it seems Tucker Carlson is trying to ride the fine line between providing an outlet for criticism of Israeli influence among the Right Wing but still gatekeeping Nick Fuentes from going further mainstream.

Yesterday, it was surreptitiously edited to remove all reference to Israel.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices posted on Friday that states must follow its "terms and conditions." Those conditions require they certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to qualify for funding.

I don't see any congressional approval for this condition anywhere in the statute, so I expect it won't last long in court.

To back up a bit, there is a whole area of law concerning when and how the federal government can attach strings to money granted to the states, because doing so can in some cases be coercive (see. e.g. SD v Dole). Since it raises constitutional concerns, the Court has said that Congress must do so in unambiguous terms. This is likewise a parallel with various other kinds of Federal preemption: Congress can preempt a variety of State laws, but respect for State's rights mean that if it wishes to do so, it has to legislate it clearly rather than having the courts infer preemption.

As I see it, this is just a totally illegal addition of "terms and conditions" to the spending that Congress didn't justify. It might arguably within the power of the Federal Government to impose such a condition, but seems very obviously not within the power of the executive, acting without a clear congressional statement, to do so.

The FEMA logic is that BDS is intrinsically racist. They stated this directly in their tweet explaining their policy in reaction to the backlash.

Irrespective of whether that's true, there is no explicit intent by Congress here.

There is not some kind of magic escape hatch from constitutional law that is invoked by putatively combating racism. If anything, I would have expected the Biden DOJ to put forward that kind of wonky theory (e.g. in SFFA) not the Trump one.

There is not some kind of magic escape hatch from constitutional law that is invoked by putatively combating racism.

There is. Christopher Caldwell calls it the Civl Rights Constitution. It's what allows the government to require employers to fire you for racist speech on the job, in order to encourage you not to be racist at home either. (Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Co. 858 F.2d 345). It's also what allows the government to engage in viewpoint discrimination with respect to 501(c)(3) qualification (Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983))

Bob Jones is gonna come in extremely handy in the current administration v university dustup.

It is. I'd prefer it was overturned and we got the First Amendment back, but that ain't going to happen, so sharpening the other edge of that blade is the next best thing.

As I've said before- the people drawing this stuff up are right wing Catholics(because that is who staffs conservative policy-making/writing) who do not believe there is anything special about Jews and are, currently, not fans of Israel due to some recent events in Gaza. This is about making democrats fight each other.

This is about making democrats fight each other.

This seems like a really sad claim. At least "to counter illegal discrimination" would be a somewhat acceptable excuse for cutting emergency aid for tornado/fire/hurricane/earthquake victims, many of whom of course would be centrist/conservative/griller types because even the most partisan of states still tend to be like 60/40-65/35, it'd at least be for a nominal cause of reducing harm elsewhere even if I disagree that BDS is so harmful that it's worth cutting emergency aid.

But to cut aid to own the libs? That's the reason? Just seems cruel then.

Edit: Oh and just obvious thing, the Dem states could also just be like "nah we don't care about helping out the conservative areas either then" if they felt like being cruel in response and focusing their state level recovery resources on the blue areas. Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but it's very easy for them to just shrug and go "welp it's not enough of an emergency for the feds so that rural area can just deal with it themselves"

Oh and just obvious thing, the Dem states could also just be like "nah we don't care about helping out the conservative areas either then" if they felt like being cruel in response and focusing their state level recovery resources on the blue areas

These areas are usually not blatantly violating federal law.

If the goal is just discrimination, why single out Israel specifically? It’s an odd flex considering that there are other trade partners that would qualify under anti discrimination rules (India, Japan, Korea, Latin America, etc.) but they don’t get the same protections. If I passed a law in North Dakota that said “no money goes to Asian countries,” it’s perfectly fine. If I do the same with South Asia, again, fine. It’s only when North Dakota says “we aren’t buying from Israel,” that anything happens.

If I passed a law in North Dakota that said “no money goes to Asian countries,” it’s perfectly fine.

Is it? The Constitution puts almost all powers of international relations at the federal level. States aren't allowed to engage in treaties or establish their own taxes on goods entering or leaving the country.

Arguably some states do this in practice: a few have somewhat banned certain Chinese companies (TikTok, Huawei), but most of those laws/rules at least claim to be following federal guidance.

States aren't allowed to engage in treaties or establish their own taxes on goods entering or leaving the country.

Yes, but they are allowed to choose how to spend their own money. State governments have the same right not to trade with Israel if they don't want to that you or I do.

Per the Constitution as interpreted by SCOTUS, the right not to do business you don't want to do can be revoked by explicit legislation, but there is no such legislation in this case. In a comedic prequel to the Obamacare litigation, there used to be a law (adopted in response to the Arab boycott of Israel) mandating large multinational companies do business with Israel. Naturally, the mandate was phrased as a tax.

That seems possible as applied to state government expenditures (likely subject to federal rules like the one in question, subject to future court rulings).

We never did get a ruling on California's attempt to boycott several red states, which at least seems related. But in a world in which the court accepts Wickard, I suspect the feds would win both the domestic and foreign state expenditures questions if it makes it to court.

"The Feds" aren't a unitary actor here. The point of Wickard etc. is that Congress can regulate anything as long as it does so as part of a coherent scheme which mostly regulates interstate commerce. If Trump tries to punish states and municipalities which boycott Israel, it will be a statutory interpretation case about whether Congress did or not.

Note that they've removed this already. It appears they've been adding the same anti-BDS language to various grant proposals; I would guess it's a result of pressure from the State Department, since Rubio is known to be strongly anti-BDS.

Do they need the protections?

I can see the benefit of writing every law broadly and neutrally based on unchanging principles, but at the same time there's no practical difference between "any country affected by X (it's just Israel)" and "Israel (because it's the only country affected by X)".

As an example, Google negotiated an exemption from Canada's Online News Act (otherwise it would have to pay some unknown hundreds of millions of dollars to journalists, negotiated individually), and the bill calls out the #1 search engine in Canada instead of naming them explicitly.

Numerous Jewish activist organizations have long lobbied for anti-BDS legislation and these sorts of measures for decades. Blaming this on Catholics is just delusional.

The people who actually wrote these policies are not Jewish. The people who made the decision to actually go through with it are not jewish. Jewish organizations have been asking for this for a long long time and not getting their way. This is about a cudgel for hitting democrats with.

You do not know any of that. The question is, whoever wrote it, were they influenced by pressure from Jewish interest groups? Of course they are.

Jewish organizations have been asking for this for a long long time and not getting their way.

Per wikipedia:

As of 2024, 38 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel.[6] Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support.[7] Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.[8] Separately, the U.S. Congress has considered anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the BDS movement. The U.S. Senate passed S.1, which contained anti-boycott provisions, on 28 January 2019, by a vote of 74–19. The U.S. House passed a resolution condemning the boycott of Israel on 24 July 2019, by a vote of 398–17. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Mike Braun (R-IN), Rick Scott (R-FL), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Steve Daines (R-MT) reintroduced the Combating BDS Act of 2023.

This is about a cudgel for hitting democrats with.

No it is it not. It is about Israeli/Jewish influence in American politics and culture. Here's the ADL's stance on BDS which is now the official stance of FEMA- that BDS is intrinsically anti-semitic and therefore racist.

Judging by the violent reaction from Trump supporters and the instant retraction and attempt at ass covering by DHS it seems the actual reaction has been to make Republicans fight each other* instead. I've hardly seen any reaction to this at all from the dems besides "Fell For It Again Award" memes

*or at least, right wingers; I'll grant most are probably 'right wing independents' rather than registered Republicans

Well they're denying it's specifically Israel now. https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1952482455954341930

Nevermind that people could see the original document where it literally said Israel, and that this tweet even reinforces that they plan to deny federal emergency aid over boycotting them ("including as it relates to the BDS movement"

I wonder how they feel about putting tariffs on Israeli goods then? It's the government making the Israeli products more expensive through taxes for the express purpose of reducing sales, seems like that isn't far from antisemitism if boycotting is.

The actual text, for anyone interested (link from twitter):

(2) Grant award certification.

(a) By accepting the grant award, recipients are certifying that:

(i) They do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws; and

(ii) They do not engage in and will not during the term of this award engage in, a discriminatory prohibited boycott.

(iii) They do not, and will not during the term of this award, operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.

As for Fuentes, I think the meaning of 'fed' in these online circles is rather more broad than it ought to be (almost every political radical with a substantial following will deal with the state or states in some capacity), but I don't think he takes himself seriously enough not to be able to justify full cooperation. He has ways of justifying it to himself, as with his Kamala support.

Thanks. I was fairly sure SS would be obfuscating some relevant context, and in this case that includes the text. I'd agree with @DirtyWaterHotDog that this is a legal hammer setup. In this case, mixing something they know states will not refuse (FEMA grants), with something they know the Democratic coalition will struggle to restrain from (DEI / Israeli boycotts / illegal immigration).

Saying this is about Israel is as misleading as saying it is about DEI, or immigration in isolation. It about no one of these things- it's about the collection of progressive/democratic coalition shibboleths, any of which is sufficient for the goal.

Which, in turn, is not 'denial.' That is the provided framing, but there's no provided evidence that the goal is to prevent funding. If anything, it's a hook-setup, which is predicated on someone taking the bait, not refusing it.

Instead, the goal is almost certainly twofold: first, to use the power of the purse to lead state policy (which is very old practice), and second, to punish the states (and state politicians) that would take the money but violate the terms in the name of their political preferences, which would open them up to federal prosecution. The later is not possible without the funding occurring, and if a state insisted on refusing FEMA aid, I am confident the Trump administration would make political hay out of it until they did, on some general theme of how the refusing states are putting politics over lives (and taking the money).

Both of these, in turn, put the Democratic coalition in conflict with itself, by putting the fiscal interests of democratic political machines (the establishment politicians who need federal money, but also want to stay out of jail) against the partisan interests of the progressives (who want the shibboleths and the money, but care less for the Democratic establishment). Given what's already been written about the ongoing Democratic civil war, and the mid-term prospects, the worse the conflict of interests in the Democratic Party, the better.

This, in turn, aligns with the demonstrated practice of the last half year or so of how the Trump 2 administration has been baiting / luring political opponents into untenable positions, where it will happily gleefully enforce the laws against the opposition from a position of legal strength.

This seems like cope.

Saying this is about Israel is as misleading as saying it is about DEI, or immigration in isolation. It about no one of these things- it's about the collection of progressive/democratic coalition shibboleths, any of which is sufficient for the goal.

No, it is about Israel because nobody is getting deported over DEI. Top federal officials aren't devoting their full attention to girls yelling at guys wearing USA shirts. Not a single person has had the book thrown at them for "anti-white racism".

I believe what the Trump Admin does, not what it says.

Both of these, in turn, put the Democratic coalition in conflict with itself, by putting the fiscal interests of democratic political machines (the establishment politicians who need federal money, but also want to stay out of jail) against the partisan interests of the progressives (who want the shibboleths and the money, but care less for the Democratic establishment). Given what's already been written about the ongoing Democratic civil war, and the mid-term prospects, the worse the conflict of interests in the Democratic Party, the better.

Of course, Trump also is pitting the interests of his Jewish donors against the interests of "America First" voters who didn't sign up for endless glazing of a foreign country. The Democrats didn't need any help to provoke a civil war, Joe Biden did that all on its own. By wading in he's provoking an avoidable Republican civil war instead.

This, in turn, aligns with the demonstrated practice of the last half year or so of how the Trump 2 administration has been baiting / luring political opponents into untenable positions, where it will happily gleefully enforce the laws against the opposition from a position of legal strength.

On the contrary, it looks like Trump is himself being baited into an untenable position by his donors/blackmailers. Unconditional support for Israel to the point of punishing American citizens is taking the 20 on a 80-20 issue.

This seems like cope.

I am not surprised it seems like cope to an account created specifically to defend this OP's premise.

Welcome to the Motte, by the way. I look forward to your unique and diverse posting interests going forward.

No, it is about Israel because nobody is getting deported over DEI. Top federal officials aren't devoting their full attention to girls yelling at guys wearing USA shirts. Not a single person has had the book thrown at them for "anti-white racism".

I believe what the Trump Admin does, not what it says.

'Believing what the Trump Admin does' would entail recognizing that no one is getting deported over FEMA funds at all, which is what this is about, whereas this exact event is proposing non-joo-related basis to throw the book at people.

These may not be the doings that the OP and/or you wish to acknowledge, but that is the sort of thing the OP is typically inclined to obfuscate.

Of course, Trump also is pitting the interests of his Jewish donors against the interests of "America First" voters who didn't sign up for endless glazing of a foreign country. The Democrats didn't need any help to provoke a civil war, Joe Biden did that all on its own. By wading in he's provoking an avoidable Republican civil war instead.

There is no Republican civil war about using Democratic Party shibboleths as a potential legal action trigger against members of the Democratic Party.

There has been plenty of wishful thinking by would-be leaders of the right that [their special interest] would be the straw that broke the Trump coalition's back since theirs was the Truly Popular position, but such as it has long been and so it will be going forward.

On the contrary, it looks like Trump is himself being baited into an untenable position by his donors/blackmailers. Unconditional support for Israel to the point of punishing American citizens is taking the 20 on a 80-20 issue.

'Trump is being bribed / blackmailed into unamerican activities to the disgust all true Americans' has been a political attack line longer than his time in office. It remains as credible as ever.

Saying this is about Israel is as misleading as saying it is about DEI, or immigration in isolation. It about no one of these things- it's about the collection of progressive/democratic coalition shibboleths, any of which is sufficient for the goal.

The text literally said

Discriminatory prohibited boycott means refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.

They defined "discriminatory prohibited boycott" solely with Israel and nothing else. They've since removed it, however their tweet still specifically says they're gonna deny federal funds to BDS (i.e boycotting Israel) so it's not even different.

You have re-cited one of three distinct conditionals that would enable the Trump administration to lawfully act against its political opponents breaking the law, as a response to a post arguing that any of the three conditionals would meet the probable intent of seeking to lawfully act against political opponents breaking the law.

But this particular condition is in fact about boycotting Israel and Israel only.

And this particular condition is not characteristic of the whole law either, and as such characterizing the broader law in terms of this particular condition is wilfully misrepresenting the broader law.

Or, to put in other terms, it is missing the forest for a tree. It can indeed be a joo-tree in the forest, but it is not a joo-tree forest. Talking about how the forest is the result of malign joo influence is willfully misrepresenting the forest.

Not least because, and part of that broader context being obfuscated, the joo-tree is coincidentally planted in a specific grove beside the anti-DEI-tree, and the anti-illegal-immigration (ALL) tree, all at the direction of the hated forest-lord. This grove is now being publicized to audiences with people who would like to cut down joo-trees, anti-DEI-trees, and ALL-trees even before their hatred of the forest-lord is considered.

That's bait, and SS fell for it as much or more than the intended targets.

Yet Trump never seems to apply this sort of reasoning to anyone except opponents of Israel.

I've yet to see a foreign student deported for criticizing Britain, or France, or even America.

It doesn't even make sense as a move against "political opponents" since in practice most anti-Israel protesters hate the Democrats and drag down their support, see the R+122 swing in Dearborn.

(ii) They do not engage in and will not during the term of this award engage in, a discriminatory prohibited boycott.

They define that term as:

Discriminatory prohibited boycott means refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.

Discrimination towards Israel is a convenient legal hammer for Trump to pound on adversaries.

Under 42 U.S.C. § 5151, the President’s regulatory authority is limited to ensuring that all disaster assistance is distributed “in an equitable and impartial manner”

Trump is using Israel because he needs to find a credible example of 'partial' behavior by local govts. The American system has special carve-outs for provable hate crimes. There is decades of precedent on methods for associating anti-Israel-movements with antisemitism and therefore provable hate crimes.

Trump's govt (and the project 2025 playbook[1]) are strategic about finding loopholes for executive overreach. For universities, it was provable affirmative action. For local funding, it's Israel.

[1] I have not read project Esther in detail. But at face value, it seems to be the guiding document on how to use antisemitism as a cudgel to beat opposing institutions into submission.

Israel is effectively a forward deployed state of the USA. They do the dirty work on the vanguard, and shield America from criticism. For ex: I don't believe the Israelis could have developed Pegasus without a soft go ahead from the Americans.

I would further add that making democrats spend more effort on Israel-related matters will only benefit the republicans because they fight each other when they do that, they convince talented Jews to accept much higher private sector salaries rather than work in politics(and they get replaced with incompetent and delusional shaniquas), they make the progressive wing more prominent and demanding.

they convince talented Jews to accept much higher private sector salaries rather than work in politics(and they get replaced with incompetent and delusional shaniquas)

Or they get replaced by even more politically talented Brahmin->Islam converts like Mamdani while clearing out the traitors in their midst at the same time.

If our relationship with Israel is characterized by Israel doing America’s dirty work, then: (1) why are our politicians handing synagogues hundreds of millions in free funds, yearly, as SS notes? What does this have to do with our geopolitical interest? This is more readily explained by a group of people having sophisticated lobbying capabilities. (2) Why did Trump specifically go after students who criticized Israel on social media, rather than students who criticize America or the West broadly? (3) Why do we, in effect, subsidize the entirety of Israeli society, from their subsidized colleges and subsidized healthcare to their subsidized religious institutions? We are Israel’s security in the region for free; they gave nothing, not money or troops, for our wars in the region, and they will not be repaying the $1,000,000,000 we spent on their defense vs Iran. If Israel were the client state of our Empire, you would expect them to pay Caesar’s tax, right? Instead, we hand them our resources for no obvious gain. It should be the other way around. As Mearsheimer spoke to Tucker Carlson the other day,

And the lobby is so effective, it is so powerful, that we basically end up supporting Israel unconditionally. What that means, Tucker, is in those cases where Israel’s interests are not the same as America’s interests, we support Israel. We support Israel’s interests, not America’s interests.

[…] anytime the Egyptians or the Jordanians get uppity about Israel, the United States reminds them, “You better behave yourself because we have huge economic leverage over you. You have to be friendly to Israel.” So Jordan and Egypt never cause the Israelis any problem […] as I said to you before, we have a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in recorded history. Just very important to understand it. There is no single case in recorded history that comes even close to looking like the relationship that we have with Israel. Because again, as I said, states sometimes have similar interests, and this includes the United States and Israel, but they also have conflicting interests. And when a great power like the United States has conflicting interests with another country, it almost always, except in the case of Israel, acts in terms of its own interests, America first. But when it comes to Israel, it’s Israel first. And if you go to the Middle East and look at our policy there, there’s just abundant evidence to support that.

I believe there’s one simple answer [as to why this is the case]. The Israel lobby. I think the lobby is an incredibly powerful interest group, and I’m choosing my words carefully. It has awesome power, and it basically is in a position where it can profoundly influence US foreign policy in the Middle East. And indeed, it affects foreign policy outside of the Middle East. But when it comes to the Middle East, and again, the Palestinian issue in particular, it has awesome power. And there’s no president who is willing to buck the lobby.

If Israel were our forward operating base, then it would be easy to support them: Israelis would be working day and night to secure a better future for Americans. Their tax dollars would go to our institutions and their blood would be spilled in Syria / Iraq / Afghanistan for us. Alas, this does not appear to be the case.

A couple asides on Pegasus: its ancestor PROMIS was indeed developed by the CIA and sold to Israel, and then from Israel it was disseminated to other countries. The person doing this dissemination was no other than Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell. But Israel, rather than acting purely as a FOB to America, has its own interests in mind:

"L'Oeil De Washington" contends that a bugged version of PROMIS was sold in the mid-1980s for Soviet government use, with the media mogul Robert Maxwell as a conduit. According to the book, Israel's knowledge of this operation became a bargaining chip in trying to curb U.S. arms shipments to Iraq before the Gulf War; the Israelis threatened to tell the Russians their computers were open to American surveillance. Apparently, the U.S. called Israel's bluff and lost. One of the book's major sources, the Israeli arms merchant Ari Ben-Menashe, told the authors that in 1989 the Soviet spy agency, the GRU, shut down all of its computers for a week after learning that they were bugged by PROMIS.

why are our politicians handing synagogues hundreds of millions

I'm ignorant here. Can you shed light on this ? What were the numbers like pre-Trump ?

Why did Trump specifically go after students who criticized Israel on social media, rather than students who criticize America or the West broadly?

That was the meat of my earlier post. Because Trump can frame criticism of Israel as hate speech in courts. Criticism of America & the West is free game.

Why do we, in effect, subsidize the entirety of Israeli society, from their subsidized colleges and subsidized healthcare to their subsidized religious institutions?

The US has given similar amount in aid to Egypt. Both use the money to immediately buy American weapons. At least Israel operates in tight lockstep with the American military. What does the US get by sending money to Egypt ?

Military funding is very difficult to decode. There's a reason the Pentagon fails every audit. I won't be attempting to itemize it, and neither should you.

no other than Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell

Woah. I didn't know that the Maxwells has such deep ties to the CIA. Strong signal that Epstein was on CIA's payroll.

What does the US get by sending money to Egypt ?

It gets them to make nice to Israel. The reason why Egypt is the second-largest recipient of US aid is the same reason that Israel is the largest recipient of US aid - the Israel lobby wants it that way.

The US has given similar amount in aid to Egypt. Both use the money to immediately buy American weapons. At least Israel operates in tight lockstep with the American military. What does the US get by sending money to Egypt ?

Surely this would be worth a few theories on how the Pharaoh's PAC owns the US government but nope. Zilch.

The US has given similar amount in aid to Egypt. Both use the money to immediately buy American weapons. At least Israel operates in tight lockstep with the American military. What does the US get by sending money to Egypt ?

Well that's an easy one, the US sends money to Egypt to keep the Egyptian military pointing its weapons at its own people instead of Israel. This should have been obvious to everyone when Rubio made Egypt the only country besides Israel to be exempted from the initial DOGE freeze on foreign aid.

In practice, American aid to Egypt and Jordan is also aid for Israel. Which makes it even more egregious.

I'm ignorant here. Can you shed light on this ? What were the numbers like pre-Trump ?

I don't have a link on hand but TL;DR is that there's a grant program for security at houses of worship(it is very common in America for churches/synagogues to hire off duty police officers as security with full police powers during peak hours- and this option is available and used by other organizations as well, it's not specifically a church thing, police are allowed to do security work with police powers when off duty for extra money and this is common at both high security facilities and at places that have regular and predictable peak hours like churches). This program is available to churches but most of it goes to synagogues because Jews are very well integrated in the NGO network that doles out grants. IIRC this is an old program that hasn't really changed over time and it's fairly bipartisan.

The big change is that the grant amounts have skyrocketed in recent years. When the program was created in 2004, funding was around $25 million per year. The program was proposed and lobbied for by Jewish groups. Last year the total was $454 million, and synagogues receive a disproportionate amount of funding.

https://www.fema.gov/grants/preparedness/nonprofit-security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_Security_Grant_Program

I wonder how many ballooning programs like this are there. DOGE was such a waste of opportunity.

Loads, this one only came to prominence because of the recent focus on Israel/Palestine.

Personally as king of DOGE I would have abolished the TSA, fired most of them, and transferred the rest to ICE. It's an obscene waste of time and money on security theater that is universally hated, yet somehow employs over 60,000 people.

The US has given similar amount in aid to Egypt. Both use the money to immediately buy American weapons. At least Israel operates in tight lockstep with the American military. What does the US get by sending money to Egypt ?

An end to semi-regular wars along the Suez Canal and degrading the arms-supplier influence nexus to Egypt from major American geopolitical rivals?

So there are no cases of the local DEI people discriminating against whites and especially typical Trump voting whites? Instead he just happens to chose a small minority that is vastly overrepresented among his donors and his administration. Imagine if a president had recieved a large portion of his funding from China and had a sizeable portion of his administration consist of Chinese people and they were all about owning the libs by taking out DEI efforts specifically hurting Chinese people.

Israel doesn't do work for the US, the US does work for Israel. China doesn't really have a military presence in the region and is the biggest trading partner with most of MENA. Israel wrecks the relationship with middle eastern countries and drags the US into forever wars.

Discrimination against whites is a hard sell when the executives & the board are white[*]. Moreover, 'Trump voting white' isn't a protected category.

The China analogy doesn't work because China is naturally positioned as a competing power while Israel is strategically, culturally and spiritually positioned to be collaborative power.

Broadly, Jews are found in 2 places: US and Israel. When America flourishes, Jews flourish. That's to Israel's benefit. Strategically, Israel's enemies are Islamist. So, they want to ally with an anti-Islamist power : USA. Israel is a liberal & open democracy. It wants to ally with a liberal and open democracy : USA.

Israel wrecks the relationship with middle eastern countries

America wrecked its relationship with the middle east all by itself. Israel fought the Suez Crisis on US & UK's behalf. Saddam Hussein's overthrow was classic American overreach. Intervention in Afghanistan was first a cold war exercise, and later a response to 9/11. Syrian efforts were a proxy war against Russia. Iran-US relationships soured because the Shah was overthrown and Americans were taken hostage. Jordan and Israel actually have pretty decent relations. The Saudi, UAE and Israel relations have been on a consistent up and up. Qatar always plays all sides, Israel or no Israel.

So, can you name a country who's US-country relationships got wrecked by Israel ?

they were all about owning the libs by taking out DEI efforts specifically hurting Chinese people.

The analogy doesn't work because American Jews are 'the libs'. The majority of American Jews live in NY and California. American Jews (pre Oct 23) overwhelmingly voted for deep-blue candidates in deep-blue cities. They subscribed to generally 'blue' opinions such as : 'Netanyahu bad', '2 state solution good' and 'Trump bad'.

There is healthy skepticism towards Israel from within the Jewish community itself. America's temporary sycophancy towards Israel has more to do with recently empowered fundamentalist Christians signalling to their voter-base during Trump2, than a deeply rooted allegiance to Israel.

[*] The discussion of how specific whites are being discriminated against is longer conversation about the sub-racial dynamics among whites people. I think white groups (rich and poor) both benefit from not opening this pandoras box.

Discrimination against whites is a hard sell when the executives & the board are white

Why? They're old, and got into their position before the discrimination regime was implemented. Is there a rule somewhere that we have to wait 2 generations for discrimination to run it's course, before we're allowed to call it discrimination?

Yes, because if the judges don't bellyfeel it, they won't make a useful ruling. Yes, the conservatives on the Supreme Court believe as an intellectual matter that anti-discrimination rules cut both ways and disallow discrimination against whites. But in their gut they know it's all about helping blacks and think that's the right thing, so they make sure to leave a hole any time they make a ruling against discriminating against other races. When it comes to Jews, though, their belly is firmly in line with anti-discrimination.

Moreover, 'Trump voting white' isn't a protected category.

Tell that to the FEMA employee that told workers to skip Trump-voting houses in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. Anti-White discrimination may be a hard sell, but it's not impossible.

Israel is a liberal & open democracy.

Ehhhhhhhh...it's definitely both of those things when compared to its regional neighbors, but in any sort of absolute ranking it has all sorts of problems; a crazy runaway judiciary, excessive military entanglement in politics, endemic public corruption, etc.

Israel fought the Suez Crisis on US & UK's behalf.

UK and France. The US told them quite firmly to stop, which they did. The US was not particularly pro Israel until Lyndon Johnson, who let himself get bossed around by his very pro-Israel foreign policy guys.

Israel didn't directly instigate Iraq 2 of course, but many of the higher ups in the executive branch who were pushing for an invasion of Iraq were ardent Zionists (see the Office of Special Plans, which also involved an espionage scandal involving an analyst passing information to Israel through AIPAC).

The US was not particularly pro Israel until Lyndon Johnson, who let himself get bossed around by his very pro-Israel foreign policy guys.

Also because Israel's leading enemies (at that point they were Egypt and Syria) had recently declared for the Soviet side in the Cold War. The reason why the US Deep State allowed the Israeli lobby in in the first place was mostly Cold War politics.

Israel didn't directly instigate Iraq 2 of course,

A bit of an understatement: the Israelis advocated against it, on the grounds that if any regime changing was to happen, it should prioritize Iran.

The American response was allegedly that Iran would be next. Which actually makes a fair bit of sense if you are planning to take down both, since it's easier to drive from Kuwait and Saudi into Iraq than do a cross-Hormuz amphibious invasion, but no one exactly remembers them of being good planners.

The American response was allegedly that Iran would be next.

Assuming that the purpose of a system is what it does, and liberally applying Occan's and Hanlon's razors, the best explanation of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy was that the US Deep State and Republican-aligned elites wanted to invade Iraq in order to replace Saddam with a government that would allow the US to attack Iran from Iraqi territory, and that 9-11 provided political cover. They obviously failed, but they could have succeeded if 9-11 hadn't made it politically unacceptable to include Al-Quaeda in an anti-Iranian coalition.

I'd add 'and Democrat-aligned elites' to that as well. As the quip went, they were for it before they were against it, and Saddam was a long-running sore that Clinton bombed as well. Had he not been taken out, we'd probably be debating how incompetent / missed opportunities the US had to pre-empt the basis for the Iranian nuclear program, and Saddam's inevitable response to that becoming public knowledge.

Sounds like quibbling over priorities. They also said taking out Saddam would aid in regime-changing Iran.

Also, was what you're mentioning said in public, or in private? Because if it was the latter, you can't blame the public for not knowing what was deliberately kept from them.

Sounds like quibbling over priorities. They also said taking out Saddam would aid in regime-changing Iran.

'Don't do [course of action] unless you're going to do it the right way' may be dismissed as quibbling over priorities, but it is still a caution against, and are not even indirectly instigating the [course of action] either.

On a material-level, if you are going to invade both countries as the neocons intended, then your second sentence is objectively true. It would be far easier for the US to launch from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia into Iraq than into Iran (you could drive), and then from Iraq into Iran (you could drive), than to launch an amphibious invasion of Iran.

Also, was what you're mentioning said in public, or in private? Because if it was the latter, you can't blame the public for not knowing what was deliberately kept from them.

When the result of private discussions are later publicized, and have been public for nearly two decades now, it is a distinction without a difference. Someone can claim the later public revelations were lies, or self-serving after-the-fact deflections, but absent that we can absolutely blame people for not knowing a historical record exists.

'Don't do [course of action] unless you're going to do it the right way

When he says "if you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region... and I think that people sitting right next door, young people, and many others, will say 'the times of such regimes, such despots, is gone'...", to you it sounds like "don't invade Iraq, and if you're going to do it, hit Iran first (or at least do both)"?

When the result of private discussions are later publicized, and have been public for nearly two decades now, it is a distinction without a difference.

If there was no difference, why did they not discuss it in public to begin with?

but absent that we can absolutely blame people for not knowing a historical record exists.

That's like blaming people for being familiar with front page headline news, but not the correction notice on page 19, stuck between obituaries and classifieds.

More comments

the Israelis advocated against it

Netanyahu advocated for it and he's by far the longest serving and most influential modern Israeli PM. All of the people who advocated against it are either politically irrelevant or dead.

EDIT: accidentally a word

While in practice I'll accept that it's complicated, both sides of the aisle seem to have, in some cases begrudgingly, agreed that "discrimination on the basis of national origin" is verboten. Under the lens of the Civil Rights Act, a company saying "We won't do business with Israeli nationals" (note the number of dual-citizenships and US citizens residing in Israel, which is more than in Canada) is a pretty transparent violation.

It is a bit less clear that this applies to foreign companies: "we prefer to buy from domestic suppliers" is well within the Overton Window, even "would prefer not to buy from China" is probably not objectionable (and "do not do business with Iran and North Korea" is effectively mandated, although those congressional mandates presumably trump congressional civil rights law). But in this particular case, "will not buy from Israel-linked companies" is pretty strongly associated with attempts to discriminate against persons of Israeli origin. I think this case is maybe winnable, but you'd likely need to be squeaky clean on the persons (not corporate) level.

Now, there are also good arguments to be made about absolute freedom of association here, but most of those have, to my knowledge, mostly lost in court. Overturning the better part of a century of civil rights law is something that is neither a small ask, nor popular outside of a handful of principled libertarians (and witches). I don't think that's to be done lightly.

Under the lens of the Civil Rights Act, a company saying "We won't do business with Israeli nationals" (note the number of dual-citizenships and US citizens residing in Israel, which is more than in Canada) is a pretty transparent violation.

[...] But in this particular case, "will not buy from Israel-linked companies" is pretty strongly associated with attempts to discriminate against persons of Israeli origin. I think this case is maybe winnable, but you'd likely need to be squeaky clean on the persons (not corporate) level.

Discriminating against Israeli citizens in the US seems bad from a civil rights perspective, yes.

Discriminating against Israeli companies or products seems much less problematic, especially if it is just spending decisions. Both states and companies should be free to chose with which companies they do business. If Texas prefers to arm its police force with weapons produced in Texas, that seems the kind of decision a state should be able to make. If Google decides that it hates South Korea and refuses to buy any computer components produced there, that is something for the market to solve.

I think that the use of financial incentives is pretty disingenuous, because it allows the feds to say "we did not violate your rights, you could just opt out of FEMA or not take tax credits".

If federal funds come with strings attached on how to spend that money specifically, that seems fine. "If you buy emergency shelters from your FEMA grant, you may not discriminate against Israeli companies" - "None of the medicaid funds may be spent on medical marijuana" - "5% of the medicaids funds are earmarked for abortion services. If you can not provide these, you do not get the 5%."

But my understanding is that this is not what is happening here. Instead, it is "follow our rules generally, or you don't get money", which I find bad.

As I often do, I like to consider a counterfactual: suppose there was a movement that existed to boycott only Muslim nations. Now, it wasn't against Muslims, per se, just that for mumblemumble reasons it only called for those nations to be boycotted, and for nations that are demonstrably worse at human rights like the likes of North Korea to be not sanctioned.

I don't think a lot of the people complaining about anti-BDS would also be complaining about being anti-Muslim-Nation-boycotts. Sure, there'd still be some overlap, but not enough to really make the news.

If you want to see this in action, the political arguments are practically reversed on the issue of the "Muslim ban" in Trump's first term: that one even included North Korea! IIRC the administration at the time claimed it was based on security cooperation agreements and just happened to hit mostly Muslim nations (but not all such nations) with poor recordkeeping.

I'm not sure I'm happy with that one either, for the record.

The list of countries Trump used was compiled during the Obama administration, four countries in the original "Terrorist Travel Prevention Act" and three more added by Obama's DHS. But, in Obama's term this was a "countries whose citizens and visitors can't travel to the US under the Visa Waiver Program instead of getting a visa first" list, and Trump turned it into a "countries whose citizens and visitors can't travel to the US at all" list.

All 7 countries listed were 95%+ Muslim, but there are another 19 or 20 95%-Muslim countries that didn't make the list.

On the one hand, the popular phrase "Trump's Muslim ban" seems like an inaccurate descriptor for a ban that applied to some non-Muslims and didn't apply to most Muslims based on a list from the Obama administration; he was pretty transparently trying to get as close to his promised "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on" as he could get legally, but the end result really wasn't very close. On the other hand, that transparency made the order still a pretty clear match to our "for mumblemumble reasons" hypothetical, which is part of why the courts kept shooting him down until he'd repeatedly watered down the order.

As a member of "some overlap" I'll say this works both way. The people screaming bloody murder about BDS, would see the kind of laws directed against it as an egregious violation of their basic civil rights, were they directed at an anti-Muslim boycott.

In the 1980s dozens of cities and states had taken economic action against South Africa. It's not a Civil Rights issue.

I think the vibes of applying civil rights law to "white people" have changed drastically since the 1980s. Certainly not unanimously, but witness the Trump administration's consideration of refugee status for white South Africans (I'm going to choose not to express an opinion on that at this time).

But there have IIRC been a few instances of academic conferences having to walk back "International submissions encouraged. Israeli academics need not apply."

If your goal is the support of civilization - and particularly european-derived civilization - and the flourishing of european-descended individuals, that may not be the best example to cite.

It suffices to dispense with the silly notion that it's a Civil Rights violation to boycott a foreign business. It also demonstrates how a protest towards a white civilization was supported by the government, and also widely supported by Jews (who were very prominent in the anti-apartheid activism), whereas Israel receives strong defense from the highest levels of government and all of a sudden it's racist to support the anti-Israeli activism! It shows how our government and Jews in particular react to protest against a white country versus a Jewish country.

Israel was, quite literally, the only* country which supported the apartheid government until the end.

*excluding bantustans, of course.

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