According to the new Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, hostility to Israel “…could be the emotion that a Palestinian person feels on account of their experience at the hands of the State.” This, the sole appearance of the word “emotion” in the entire document, is applied exclusively to the direct victims of Israeli crimes, the very people who have the most fact-based, lived-experience for entirely rational “hostility” to the state. Categorizing the Palestinian response as emotional is to deny Palestinians the dignity to simply demand to be free of their shackles.

How I would teach Hanukkah to Palestinian school children, or indeed to their parents? Robert Cohen asks. How comfortable would I find it to tell this story of Jews denied the right to express their culture, identity and history? What would go through the children’s minds as I explained our annual celebration of an armed Jewish revolt against an occupying power? And could I convey convincingly the idea of on-going Jewish vulnerability in Israel, the United States, or anywhere else?

More than 100 Palestinian and Arab academics challenge the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which they say “has been increasingly instrumentalized by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimize the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights.”

Arizona legislation would revise statutes relating to crime reporting to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism as an “aggravating factor” in sentencing decisions. That definition infamously includes some criticisms of Israel.

Congress is trying to expand the federal definition of antisemitism for the third time. The legislation directs the Education Dep’t to use a standard for anti-Semitism written by a Holocaust-remembrance organization that includes some criticisms of Israel, including applying “double standards” to the country and claiming that the state is a racist endeavor.