The House approved legislation Thursday designed to keep federal money away from colleges that participate in commercial boycotts of Israel, exposing a deep Democratic rupture over the Jewish state.

Most House Democrats opposed the measure despite rising concern about antisemitism on American campuses.

The bill passed 237 to 169, with nearly every Republican supporting it.

33 Democrats broke from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of his senior leadership, while 167 Democrats voted no alongside Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio.

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The measure would bar institutions involved in nonexpressive commercial boycotts of Israel from receiving federal support.

It would also require funded universities to certify that students are not unreasonably prevented from taking part in study programs in Israel.

Democrats opposing the bill claimed it intrudes on First Amendment rights, even when the speech at issue is ugly or offensive.

Republicans countered that taxpayer dollars should not subsidize campus policies that isolate Jewish students or make them fear for their safety.

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The showdown arrives as Israel's war in Gaza continues to fuel antisemitic incidents across the United States.

It also gives Republicans another clear view of a Democratic Party being pulled leftward by activists hostile to Israel.

That internal rebellion has grown into a serious problem ahead of the midterm elections, with Democratic Socialists and other far left groups targeting Democrats they consider insufficiently critical of Israel.

The purity tests are getting nastier, and the party leadership looks increasingly unable to contain them.

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California congressional candidate Scott Wiener, a gay Jewish Democrat, recently said he was driven from a march supporting transgender rights because he defended Israel's sovereignty.

Wiener told CNN that people in the crowd invoked his "Israeli handlers," language rooted in one of the oldest antisemitic smears.

The same split landed on the House floor when Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey helped lead the bill even as Jeffries and his top deputies opposed it.

Gottheimer's stance put him among a small bloc of Democrats willing to confront the boycott movement directly.

Gottheimer said, "The goal of the BDS movement is the destruction of the democratic State of Israel, America’s critical ally in the global fight against terror.

BDS has no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country.

At a time when our Jewish students are facing death threats, being physically assaulted, and blocked from going to class simply for who they are, we must do everything possible to ensure they can learn safely, speak freely, and get the education they deserve."

Progressives lined up against the proposal, including Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, who said he opposes the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Nadler nevertheless argued that protecting constitutional speech must include views he considers foolish and morally offensive.

"The First Amendment right to free speech does not apply only to agreeable speech. No matter how much I may disagree with BDS, and find it strategically stupid and morally repugnant, I will always fight to protect Americans’ right to speech with which I disagree," Nadler said in a statement.

House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina defended the legislation as a response to campus policies that marginalize Jewish students.

She argued that the government has a duty to protect equal rights when federally supported schools permit discriminatory and hostile environments to take root.

"They are discriminating against people of the Jewish faith," Foxx said. "Now is not the time for talk. It is the time for action."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan offered the progressive counterattack, asserting that Jewish students are often leaders in campus BDS campaigns.

Her remarks went far beyond a narrow constitutional objection and instead accused supporters of the bill of shielding Israel from moral accountability.

"This is an attack on free speech and academic freedom, all in the name of defending a genocidal apartheid state," Tlaib said.

"A vote for this bill is a betrayal of those promising young students...because they want to save lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity."

The vote left Jeffries firmly aligned with the party majority, but 33 Democrats refused to follow him into opposition.

For Republicans, the result was both a legislative victory and fresh evidence that the Democratic coalition remains badly fractured whenever Israel and the radical left collide.

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