Trump’s anti-Semitism bill is unlikely to dampen the flames of hatred towards Jewish Americans or make them feel safer; indeed, outlawing criticism of Israel may have the opposite effect.

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order today purporting to target anti-Semitism on college campuses. However, the measure is understood on all sides as an attempt to outlaw the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and criticism of Israel more generally.

The order would mean educational institutions receiving federal money would be subject to losing all funding if the government deems they are not doing enough to stamp out anti-Semitism, which, as the new bill explicitly states, includes critique of the Israeli government. The bill is based on a portion of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 that requires schools and colleges not to discriminate based on race, nationality, or a host of other factors. Under Trump’s plan, Judaism will be reclassified as both a nationality and race, rather than a religion.

For some, it is little more than an attempt to silence criticism of Israel’s apartheid policies and human rights abuses of Palestinians.

Criminalizing dissent

Modeled on the anti-South African Apartheid campaign in the 1980s, the BDS movement is an international attempt to peacefully bring economic and social pressure onto the Israeli government to comply with international law. Its imminent banning in public universities is a testament to the power that the U.S. and Israeli governments judge it to have.

While Israel breaks international law, the United States supports and covers up its actions both internationally and domestically, often by vetoing any organized response from the United Nations or other bodies. By removing First Amendment protections to criticism of the state in universities, organized resistance to its actions becomes far more difficult, as the government outsources the quashing of dissent to academics and administrators, who will have to comply or face financial ruin.

26 U.S. states already require contractors to effectively swear an oath of loyalty to Israel in order to be employed, meaning many students must renounce their beliefs in order to find a job. This is not merely a formality; last year a Texas school speech pathologist was fired for refusing to sign a pledge promising not to boycott Israeli goods.

Yet inside the U.S., and particularly among young Jews, support for and identification with Israel is dropping. One survey found that only 40 percent of San Franciscan Jewish millennials were comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state. Much of the change in recent years has come following the rightward drift of Israel, so far right in fact that even former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has warned the country has been taken over by fascism, but the campaigning of BDS activists has also had an effect.

Jewish American professor Noam Chomsky revealed that when he gave talks at universities criticizing Israel in the past he would need police protection as his meetings were constantly broken up by enraged demonstrators. Today, he says, he gets hundreds of engaged and knowledgeable students listening intently to his critique. “Palestinian solidarity is one of the biggest issues on campus,” he stated in an interview with Democracy Now!: “[There has been an] enormous change in the last few years.”

With Trump’s recent ban, universities are essentially under pain of death to silence any criticism the government deems too radical, which, given the composition of the current administration, is likely to include the likes of BDS or Chomsky, meaning that organized resistance to any of Israel’s actions will be hampered, allowing for more aggressive policies to go unchecked.

Mike Prysner, director of the new documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom and a proponent of BDS, described Trump’s latest move as an attack on Palestine and on human rights, alleging that under the new rule, he would not be allowed to screen his film in universities.

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