Talk about a gross overreaction and overreach!
Feeding right into the tinfoil-hat-wearing crowd's fears about the Jews controlling everything.
Some prominent Jews from the city, like Jerry Nadler (12th district) and Bill Ackman (hedge fund billionaire) have come out against this law. These are two guys that have been pretty vocal in their criticism of the campus protests these past few months... yet they still see how this measure can backfire.
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On a different track... I somewhat sympathize with Jewish-Americans due to the conundrum they find themselves in. They can argue that they've tried to be meek and acquiescent - and it didn't work - and when they try to be assertive - it also backfires.
In the city where I live, New York, you can see this every day. We have more Jewish people than Tel Aviv, and Jewish people disproportionately control the city government, businesses, arts, etc.
After Oct. 7th, they plastered the entire city (literally every light post) with the "Kidnapped" posters, sent trucks with huge screens driving around the city blasting the names of the hostages, rented huge billboards on Times Square, and staged what was obviously fake demonstrations in front of the UN. Most non-Jewish people in the city were a bit bewildered at what we were expected to do to free those hostages.
In the event, this kind of "full court press" pretty much immediately alienated a large part of the non-Jewish majority.
On a sort of peasant-logic level, I think this is why pro-Palestinian marches attract 100X the amount of people that pro-Israeli ones do in NYC. It really doesn't seem like Jewish people need any help in getting their voice heard, while people always naturally gravitate to the underdog.
Now my Jewish friends sometimes complain that they feel suddenly unsafe in the city, and I really have to restrain myself from sharing my hypothesis :).
This is New York, and nobody likes being told what to do or what to think - even if it's the right thing.
