On Nov 2 the Maryland’s Montgomery County Council unanimously voted to adopt a resolution that embraces the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition has been criticized by human rights organizations and Palestine advocates because it includes some criticisms of Israel.
The measure was opposed by a multiracial, interfaith coalition of nearly forty organizations including Maryland 2 Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace DC Metro, If Not Now DC, New Synagogue Project, CAIR Maryland, J Street University of Maryland, and Food Not Bombs DC. “We reject the false choice between standing up against anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism,” read a letter from the coalition to the council. “Fighting against anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism go hand in hand, and to mislead policymakers into this false choice threatens our collective safety. Rejecting IHRA is a necessary first step to stop right-wing racism and bigotry from being codified into law, harming our communities, and to reorient towards coherent anti-racist, anti-discriminatory policy.”
The council first began negotiating the resolution in July, but removed it from the agenda after just a few days because over pushback. Activists point out that the item was placed on the consent agenda, which means that the debate would happen behind closed doors without input or engagement from community members. “The process by which amendments were made to this resolution was highly undemocratic,” Maryland 2 Palestine co-chair Hannah Shraim told Mondoweiss. “This entire process has been a rollercoaster ride from hell.”
“We were not consulted for feedback on any of these amendments. Furthermore, over the course of these last months, the resolution was placed and taken off of the consent agenda multiple times. The sly way in which this resolution was introduced and later passed is indicative of why the IHRA definition is so problematic.”
Before the resolution was adopted Council member Andrew Friedson announced that he had revised the references to Israel, but his modification failed to quell the activists’ concerns. A line was added to point out that criticism of Israel was not antisemitic, but the same sentence declares that “modern forms of antisemitism can manifest through anti-Zionism.”
“The IHRA definition of antisemitism wrongfully conflates antisemitism with absolutely necessary criticism of the Israeli government’s horrific violence against the Palestinian people,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Manager of Policy & Advocacy Campaigns Sana Siddiq told Mondoweiss. “In doing so, this racist definition undermines the struggle against right-wing repression and makes us all less safe. We must fight white supremacy wherever it shows up, which means defending the safety of Jewish people and Palestinian people. That’s why there was massive pushback from a coalition of 38 organizations, and yet the Montgomery County Council still passed this harmful resolution.”
IHRA working definition
The IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism has faced criticism since it was first developed in 2016. It states that, “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Critics warn that this definition is vague enough to be weaponized against Palestine advocates and used to stifle critiques of Israel. They also point to the eleven “contemporary examples of antisemitism” that are attached to the definition. “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” is one, “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” another.
This criteria can quite obviously be used to tag anti-Zionists as antisemites. In 2020, over 120 Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals expressed their concerns about these standards. “Through ‘examples’ that it provides, the IHRA definition conflates Judaism with Zionism in assuming that all Jews are Zionists, and that the state of Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews,” read their statement. We profoundly disagree with this. The fight against antisemitism should not be turned into a stratagem to delegitimize the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land.”
Just this week 128 scholars urged the United Nations to refrain from adopting the definition. “What we object to and strongly warn against is that the UN would jeopardize this essential fight and harm its universal mission to promote human rights by endorsing a politicized definition that is instrumentalized to deter free speech and to shield the Israeli government from accountability for its actions,” they explained.
Even the IHRA working definition’s lead author Kenneth Stern opposes the way it has been implemented, especially in schools. “The definition was intended for data collectors writing reports about anti-Semitism in Europe,” he wrote in a 2016 New York Times op-ed. “It was never supposed to curtail speech on campus.”
Despite these criticisms, hundreds of entities throughout the world have adopted the definition. In 2021 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the Biden administration “enthusiastically embraces” it.
Antisemitism used as justification to push definition
The Montgomery County vote came amid national calls for groups to step up their opposition to antisemitism. In recent weeks rapper Kanye West, former president Donald Trump, and NBA star Kyrie Irving have all made antisemitic comments or prompted antisemitic material. Last month the hate group Goyim Defense League hung a banner over the Interstate 405 freeway in Los Angeles that read, “Kayne is right about the Jews,” a reference to West’s recent antisemitic comments. Some of its members made Nazi salutes while cars drove by.
In response to incidents like these two members of the Los Angeles City Council called for the city to adopt the IHRA definition. “As we continue to experience the latest wave of anti-Semitism in LA, we need to expand the tools we have to fight this
bigotry,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield in a statement. “There are very powerful voices fanning the flames of hate toward Jewish people and it’s imperative that those of us who believe in an inclusive Los Angeles, unite in this fight and make it crystal clear that anti-Semitic rhetoric, displays and attacks will not stand.”
The Los Angeles City Council quickly adopted the IHRA working definition in another unanimous vote. “As the son of a Holocaust survivor who has made ‘never forget’ central to my personal mission to lead with compassion and treat all others with dignity, I am incredibly dismayed that growing discrimination and hateful propaganda against Jews is rearing its ugly head in today’s day and age,” said Councilmember Paul Koretz after the vote.” But the color of anti-Semitism is not always overt, and doesn’t necessarily resemble the anti-Semitism that my father experienced, yet.”
“For the first time, having this working definition provides a tool to educate, identify and combat the language and behavior that leads to violence and has been swept under the rug for far too long,” he continued.
Future fights
Shraim told Mondoweiss that, although she’s frustrated by the Montgomery County vote, the organizing will have effects in the community beyond this one setback. “This coalition’s work is not over,” she said. “We plan to remain in touch and unite once more against divisive initiatives in our county. We will remain watchdogs on this Council and incoming Councils.”
“While we are extremely disappointed with the Council’s decision to pass such a highly contentious resolution, we know that our pressure is what led to the resolution’s amendments in the first place. The reason that the IHRA definition has passed in other jurisdictions across the country so seamlessly is because the way in which the definition is weaponized is not obvious on its surface. We will continue to advocate across Maryland to ensure that the IHRA definition does not continue to be adopted unnoticed.”
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Yesterday’s NYT featured a timely, pertinent article by Thomas L. Friedman – “The Israel We Knew Is Gone”.
Said he:
As that previously unthinkable reality takes hold, a fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: “Do I support this Israel or not support it?” It will haunt pro-Israel students on college campuses. It will challenge Arab allies of Israel in the Abraham Accords, who just wanted to trade with Israel and never signed up for defending a government there that is anti-Israeli Arab. It will stress those U.S. diplomats who have reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s values, and it will send friends of Israel in Congress fleeing from any reporter asking if America should continue sending billions of dollars in aid to such a religious-extremist-inspired government.
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Is Friedman, by virtue of this article and all it implies, guilty of antisemitism according to IHRA and the Montgomery County Council? Would they refuse to allow him to appear before them in session because he is suggesting Israel no longer exists? Or that he is predicting a self-sabotaging collapse of Israel’s myriad artificial life-support systems? Or, perhaps most problematically, is he declaring that “Israel is a racist endeavor” which is high on the IHRA’s list of no-no’s?
Moreover, might this mean that every Jewish person who similarly repudiates the IHRA and/or Zionism, such as those Jewish and Israeli intellectuals among the 128 scholars, who two days ago aked the the UN not to recognize tor definition, or who refuse to recognize the Netanyahu government … are guilty of antisemitism according to IHRA?
How would that work, exactly?
And how exactly does the IHRA, and all its institutional acceptance “victories” actually combat or reduce the volume of antisemitism in the world?
Specifically, what changes for the better, as a result of some individual’s or institution’s reputation being sacrificed unjustly in public with no real ability to defend or recover? How is that process helpful to normal Jewish people, Israel or even Zionism?
How did the imperium to dictate meaning and crush-by-fiat fall into the hands of political Zionism, a foreign ideological movement?
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Additionally, he said that as a result of rise of the ultra-nationalist and openly, xenophobic government of Ben Gvir/Smotrich/Netanyahu that the “previously unthinkable reality” was taking hold – i.e., the undeniable realization that the “Israel we knew” has proven to be unsustainable.
“Previously unthinkable”?
Really, Tom?
Consider that for numberless artists, writers, journalists, activists, ecumenicalists, playwrights, diplomats, singers, Congresspeople, Knesset members, LGBTQ, researchers, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Africans, Asians, Latinos, historians, academics, sports figures, Popes, Israelis, celebrities, young people from every corner of the earth as well as Holocaust survivors, human rights organizations, community cooperatives, IDF personnel, pre-1948 Hebrew scholars and philosophers, university student groups in just about every country in the world … the unsustainability of Israel/Zionism is very thinkable and visible and has been for a long time.
That Friedman is just coming to see this now is a testament to the power of collective self-imposed amnesia and a veritable exposé on the futility of hasbara.
Q: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to ask the above questions ?
View here 10 Palestine posters on the subject of the IHRA
“Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”
Am reading Saurez new book. If there is any doubt that Zionism founded Israel and is indeed a racist endeavor, read it.
“Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”
Almost all real democratic nations have standards of behavior far better than Israel. Does the US, for example, consistently break into homes and terrorize and steal from the occupants, bulldoze homes, shoot to kill anyone who opposes them, impose a brutal police state on illegal occupied territory, have separate laws and courts for non citizens and more.
What other democratic nation in the world receives over $3.5B annually the US. There cannot be a double standard because Israel is the worst of democratic nations.
There is much to criticise in the IHRA ‘Working definition’, but it is simply not the case that it ‘has faced criticism since it was first developed in 2016’ because it was drafted for the EU in 2005 and has faced criticism since then. It would have been good if the Montgomery County activists had emphasised that one of these criticisms is that the ‘definition’ is antisemitic in its own terms, as I pointed out in 2007. Kenneth Stern’s repudiation of his brainchild is welcome, but disingenuous. It is too studiously vague to have been of the slightest use in data collection.
Are ex-jews by definition “anti-semetic”? Speaking as an “ex-jew” I hope others will realize jettisoning the problematic tribalism is the only way forward.