Defining Antisemitism and the Debate over Palestine-Israel

JVL Introduction

Any fight against racism in general is a political matter, an appropriate matter of public interest, calling, typically, for public policy. But when the fight becomes a political football, serving an ulterior agenda, it has become political in the wrong sense.

Brian Klug argues here that this is what has happened with antisemitism, in particular with the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

It blurred the difference between these two senses of ‘political’: teasing the two senses of ‘political’ apart was a fundamental objective of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.

This talk discusses both documents and attempts to explain how and why it matters to be political in the right way.

Our thanks to Brian Klug for permission to post the text of this talk, given to Justice for Palestinians Leamington Spa on 22nd May 2022. It has been lightly edited by the author for publication here.

Defining Antisemitism and the Debate over Palestine-Israel

Introduction

I’m delighted to be here today – though I would prefer not to be here at home but there in Leamington Spa. I wish we were all ‘there’ instead of meeting on Zoom, and that we could conduct the discussion in person.

Speaking of Zoom, last year the Stroud Green branch of the Labour Party invited me to give a talk online on antisemitism “specifically in the Labour Party.”¹ I was happy to do it and was duly placed on the agenda for the meeting on 6 January. However, about an hour and a half before the meeting was due to start, having just finished writing and printing out my 40-minute talk, I opened my inbox and saw an email from the branch secretary. He said that, at the behest of London Labour, I was, in effect, disinvited. I don’t think it was personal. I think it was because I had not been properly vetted by the Party, which has become, shall we say, hypersensitive on the subject of antisemitism. Compared with the way that the Party has treated some of its members in connection with this subject, my experience was small beer. Nonetheless, it brought two things home to me: first, the degree of confusion about antisemitism; second, the extent to which it has become politicised – politicised in the wrong way. Let me explain what I mean. Any kind of bigotry, prejudice or discrimination against people on the grounds of their group identity, whether ‘racial’, ethnic, national, religious, gender, and so on, is an appropriate matter of public interest, calling, typically, for public policy. That’s the right sense in which antisemitism is political. But when fighting antisemitism becomes a political football, when it serves an ulterior agenda, when it is used as a stick with which to beat opponents: that’s the wrong sense. It is the wrong sense too when someone who opposes Jewish nationalism is branded automatically as antisemitic.² This turns something that is always debatable – opposition to nationalism – into something that is never acceptable: a species of racism. Blurring the difference between these two senses of ‘political’: this was a fundamental failing of the so-called IHRA definition, the definition of antisemitism that was produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and released into the world in 2016. Teasing the two senses of ‘political’ apart: this was a fundamental objective of the JDA, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, published five years later in 2021.

Before I elaborate on the differences between the two texts, there are a few things I’d like to say by way of introduction. Let me start by saying, with the name of your group in mind, that this is an easier venue for me to speak on the subject of tonight’s meeting than some others. It means that we can take certain things for granted; above all, that we share a commitment to justice for the Palestinians. Andy tells me that your group grew out of a Jews for Justice for Palestinians group, which leads me to think, being Jewish myself, that there is still more that I can take for granted. That said, when people are committed to a just cause, they can end up taking too much for granted; for example, the name they go by. What does ‘Justice for Palestinians’ mean? (If you didn’t want this question to be raised, you shouldn’t have invited a philosopher to speak!)

There are three preliminary points I would like to make in this connection. In the first place, not everyone committed to the Palestinian cause has the same idea of what justice would look like. Two separate states, one Jewish, one Palestinian? if so, should they be united in a federation? Or does justice call for a single binational state? Or a secular democratic state? Or what? In other words (alluding to the title of my talk), the debate over Palestine-Israel is not only a debate (or war of words) between pro-Palestinians and defenders of Israel; there is also an internal debate that the former need to conduct.

Second, it is even possible that people who are currently on the other side of the barricades could be drawn into this debate. We must, that is to say, resist the impulse to over-polarise and to demonise our opponents; to assume that they are beyond reach of an appeal to justice. It could be that they have reasons for supporting Israel without being racists or fans of settler-colonialism or advocates of apartheid! What I have in mind are reasons that we might reject but which might be humanly understandable – if only we listen to the account they give of themselves and their attachment to Israel. And, to be clear: listening does not mean condoning or conceding or compromising our commitment to justice for Palestinians.

This leads to the third point. The question we ought to ask is perhaps broader than we think it is. The question is this: how to achieve justice for Palestinians without doing injustice to others. ‘Others’ include the Jewish population of Israel. Those of us who are committed to the cause of justice for Palestinians are, without doubt, pursuing a worthy cause. But it is easy to forget the wider horizon that gives our cause its worthiness. Rabbi Berel Berkovits, who was a distinguished Orthodox rabbi (and an old schoolfriend of mine), once remarked: “If morality has meaning, as Kant pointed out, it must be universal; concern for another must be concern for all others.”³ The same point is made if we substitute the word ‘justice’ for the words ‘morality’ and ‘concern’, thus: If justice has meaning … it must be universal; justice for another must be justice for all others. No doubt it is right, and even necessary, to focus on particular political causes, fastening onto the injustice done to the oppressed and dispossessed. It is right – provided we do not lose sight of ‘the wider horizon’, the universal. Justice for Palestinians must be justice for all others, including Israeli Jews and Jews around the world for whom Israel and Zionism mean something different from the dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people. Justice for Palestinians must be – must mean – justice for all others; otherwise it is not justice but partiality.

The description of this meeting on Facebook says that I will talk about the JDA “and why defining antisemitism matters when seeking justice for the Palestinian people”. This will be my lodestar, orientating my talk. The talk is in three parts. This introduction is Part I. In Part II I give a limited critique of the IHRA definition; limited, but enough to explain the reason why we wrote the JDA. The JDA cannot be properly evaluated without understanding that it was intended to put the IHRA text out of commission, and I shall devote more time to the raison d’être of the JDA than to its content. (I am happy to take questions about its content in the discussion afterwards.) In Part III I turn to the JDA itself, which, though drawn up by a group of academics and scholars, is certainly political – but (I shall argue) in the right sense of that word. If it succeeds where the IHRA text fails, its success begins with the superior definition of antisemitism that it contains. But definitions only take us so far. Even a sound definition can cramp our ability to understand a complex subject, like antisemitism, or the dynamics of the debate over Palestine-Israel and the underlying sensibilities on both sides of the divide. Initially I was going to write a fourth part for the talk: going beyond definitions. But I came to realise that going beyond definitions would be a step too far for a talk this long. Pity, because it would have been far more stimulating and interesting than the talk I have prepared. I apologise in advance for being dull.

That said, there are things I will say – perhaps even things I have already said – which might lie outside the comfort zone of some of the people in the room. I almost hope there are – not for the sake of causing discomfort but because I don’t see the point in merely reiterating what people know or think they know. If I tread on anyone’s toes, I shall be secure in the knowledge that the room is virtual and that I am out of reach of the brickbats they might want to hurl at me. That’s the advantage of being here, at home, not there, in Leamington Spa.

1. The IHRA definition

I was part of a group which, between autumn 2020 and spring 2021, met on Zoom from time to time, under the auspices of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, with a view to drafting “a usable, concise, and historically-informed core definition of antisemitism with a set of guidelines”.⁴ Our aim was to stop – or, rather, derail – a runaway train: the IHRA definition. I call the IHRA definition a runaway train on account of the momentum it has gained in the public sphere. The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union all back it.⁵ The US State Department calls it “the gold standard,”⁶ while the Biden administration “enthusiastically embraces” it.⁷ The Secretary-General of the UN approves it.⁸ The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief “encourages states

to adopt it.”⁹ More than 30 countries have done so.¹⁰ In the UK, a raft of universities have signed on the dotted line. Laggards have been cautioned by Gavin Williams, Secretary of State for Education, that their “funding streams” could be suspended if they fail to come on board.¹¹ The list of bodies in the UK that have adopted it include the Church of Scotland, the Welsh and Scottish Governments, the London Assembly, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and over 120 town councils.¹² It’s nice to know that all these bodies care so much about us Jews. Perhaps our weirdest guardians are the Football Association and the Premier League, which have, so to speak, written the IHRA definition into the rules of the game.^{13 It is, as I say, a runaway train.}

However, despite its host of admirers, it has been fiercely contested. Numerous scholars have criticised it for its lack of clarity and coherence. But the controversy has largely been in a practical, not theoretical, context: the debate over Palestine-Israel. The key question is this: When should political speech about Israel or Zionism be protected and when does it cross the line into antisemitism? People of good will, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate (and on no sides), seek clarity on this issue. But instead the IHRA definition muddies the waters. It neither gives adequate protection to legitimate political speech nor does it sufficiently flag up antisemitic speech. So, it does not give the guidance people seek. But worse, it has become politicised in the bad sense. To put it simply: on the whole, defenders of Israel promote it, while supporters of Palestinians oppose it. This is no coincidence: the text is weighted in favour of the former and against the latter. But how?

There is a broad consensus among supporters of the Palestinian cause that the answer to this question lies in the fact that the IHRA definition treats anti-Zionism, along with much (if not most) criticism of the State of Israel, as antisemitic. By and large, this charge is based on the set of examples that follow the core definition – the bit inside the box – rather than the definition itself. Curiously, defenders of Israel and Zionism often make essentially the same claim: they say the IHRA text rules out much of the opposition to, and criticism of, Zionism and Israel. Thus, on the key question of where to draw the line between, on the one hand, legitimate political speech about Zionism and Israel, and, on the other hand, antisemitism, both camps tend to read the IHRA text in the same way. They agree about what it says. The difference between them is that one camp rejects what the other camp welcomes. Both camps are wrong – wrong about what the text says.

What does the text say? The question assumes that it says something definite. But what it says slips through the fingers. We give the IHRA definition too much credit if we think it contains a coherent position. It doesn’t. It’s a complete mess. The preamble contains a proviso which says that the examples “could, taking into account the overall context”, be examples of antisemitism. Could, depending on context. Defenders of the definition use this proviso as one of their two get-out-of-jail-free cards. (I’ll come to the other in a moment.) “See,” they say, “the definition does not equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. All the examples depend on context.” Of course, the next minute they will hold up the examples as if they were straightforward cases of antisemitic speech or behaviour. It’s a trap. And in order to think about how to escape it, we need to become aware of how this trap works.

Here’s how I see it. There is a tension between the preamble that introduces the entire set of examples and the examples themselves. The preamble, as I said, contains a proviso that makes the examples conditional on context. But several of them – in my view, most of them – do not depend on context. All the examples that clearly do depend on context pertain to Israel or Zionism, where context can make all the difference. Those that do not depend on context include the blood libel, Holocaust denial, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy, and so on: some of the most vivid and clear-cut expressions of antisemitism there could be. Now, instead of differentiating between these two (very different) sets of examples, the IHRA text puts the entire set on the same logical level. Officially, according to the proviso, they should all be applied contextually, but, in practice, the proviso is overpowered by the vividness of those examples that do not depend on context. So, someone whose political agenda is to defend Israel or Zionism can have it both ways. One minute they can say that, according to the IHRA definition, all the examples about Zionism or Israel do depend on context. The next minute they can say they do not. It comes down to which position it suits them to assert at any given time. So, how do we get out of this rhetorical trap? The only way I know is to expose it for what it is, rather than reinforcing the idea that the IHRA definition says something definite, and that what it says is definitely inimical to freedom of speech on Zionism and Israel. It definitely does not, though, partly for the reasons I have just given, it lends itself to being used to prohibit or inhibit opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israel, beyond rapping the state over the knuckles.14

The other get-out-of-jail-free card is a sentence that comes between the core definition and the set of examples: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” At first sight, this seems to provide for free speech, but actually it does the opposite, for it implies that excessive criticism of Israel is, in and of itself, antisemitic. But it is not – any more than excessive criticism of the PLO is necessarily racist against Arabs or Palestinians. Excessive criticism is just a fact of political life, especially when feelings run as high as they do in the debate over Israel and Palestine. The point is this: There is no requirement in human rights ethics or law that, in order to merit protection, political speech has to be measured or reasonable or balanced. This point is fundamental to the principle of freedom of expression, as affirmed by article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also article 10 of the European Convention on Human rights. In the latter, article 14 expressly forbids discrimination on the grounds of political opinion. To the best of my knowledge, no human rights instrument stipulates that an opinion has to be reasonable or that criticism may not be excessive. For purposes of protected speech, applying double standards to Israel (example 8) or alleging that it is a racist endeavour (example 7) is not, ipso facto, illegitimate. The line between reasonable and unreasonable speech is different from the line between racist and non-racist speech (or antisemitic and non-antisemitic speech). It is crucial to distinguish sharply between these two lines, but the sentence in question in the IHRA text blurs the difference and, in effect, merges them. This is perhaps the most trenchant argument that could be levelled against the text. If we fail to make this argument we have missed a trick. By and large we do miss this trick.¹⁵ All our attention is on the set of examples which, moreover, we criticise for the wrong reason.

There is a lot more to say about this which, perhaps, we can broach in the discussion later. But I want to move on to the JDA before I run out of time and you run out of patience.

1. The JDA

In introducing the JDA, let me say what it is not. It is not an attack on the motivations behind the IHRA definition. It is silent on that score. Among people who are committed to justice for Palestinians, it is a commonplace to say that the IHRA text was written with the intention of using (or ‘weaponising’) the fight against antisemitism so as to further the interests of the Israeli state. For sure, the Israeli state does use it this way. But there is evidence to suggest that this was not what the drafters had in mind. Kenneth Stern, who was the lead author of the original version, (which was written 17 years ago) has explained that its intended use was for the monitoring of antisemitic incidents. The point was “to guide data collectors, so they’d have a better sense of what to include or exclude” in their reports.¹⁶ Now, I seem to hear howls of derision reverberating around the virtual room: how can I be so naïve as to swallow this? But, in a recent article, Stern emphasised that the text “was never intended to be a campus speech code …”¹⁷ Subsequently, he spoke even more directly to the concerns of this group. He complained that his text “has been primarily used (and I argue, grossly abused) to suppress and chill pro-Palestinian speech …”¹⁸ The moral of the story is this:

We should not base our opposition to the IHRA definition on allegations of malign intention on the part of its authors; nor, for that matter, on the malevolence of everyone who backs it. Nor on the long hand of Mossad, as if Mossad possessed the preternatural power to pull the strings of governments and the heartstrings of ordinary Jews at will. There are all sorts of reasons why people – different people for different reasons – flock to this wretched text. Certainly, it is necessary to expose cases where the IHRA definition is deliberately exploited to serve an ulterior agenda; in other words, cases where it is political in the wrong sense of the word. But, in the final analysis, it falls on its own sword.

The IHRA website says: “In order to combat antisemitism effectively, it is important to have clarity about what antisemitism is and how it may manifest itself.” But clarity is precisely what the IHRA definition lacks. As such, it fails as a text. But it also fails as a resource for combating antisemitism. Seeing as it lends itself to being used (in the words of Kenneth Stern that I quoted earlier) “to suppress and chill pro-Palestinian speech”, it gives the fight against antisemitism a bad name. It is a double whammy. The JDA targets both whammys. This is reflected in the way the set of 15 guidelines in the JDA text are divvied up. Set A sets out 5 guidelines concerning antisemitism – what it is and how it is manifested – that apply in any context The remaining 10 guidelines apply specifically in the context of the debate over Palestine-Israel. This is not because this context is the main arena for antisemitism. It is because the JDA is a response to the IHRA definition, which, as the Preamble to the JDA observes, “puts undue emphasis” on this arena. Thus, 7 out of the 11 examples in the IHRA text refer to Israel. The crucial difference between the two texts in this connection is this: the JDA separates out what the IHRA muddles up: antisemitic discourse from legitimate political speech. The JDA does this by dividing the 10 guidelines that apply specifically to Israel and Palestine into two sets: 5 give instances that, on the face of it, are antisemitic (set B), and 5 give instances that, on the face of it, are not (set C). The 5 in set C are as follows: “Supporting the Palestinian demand for justice …” (#11), “Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism …” (#12), “Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state” (#13), BDS (#14), and the point for which I argued at length earlier: Political speech need not be measured in order to be protected (#15). Thus, the JDA does not only criticise the IHRA definition, it leads by counter-example. From your point of view, as Justice for Palestinians, you might view the JDA this way: set C is the cutting edge; the rest is the handle.

Someone might ask, “What is the underlying political agenda of the JDA regarding Palestine and Israel?” The answer is: there isn’t one. The authors have diverse views on the subject. In this sense, the JDA is not political. What the authors all share, what brought us together in this project, was the sense that a clear and usable answer is needed to what I have called ‘the key question’: When should political speech about Israel or Zionism be protected and when does it cross the line into antisemitism? We are academics; we sought, accordingly, to meet the highest standards of scholarship in answering this question. But answering it was not, for us, merely an academic exercise. It was an intervention about a matter of public interest, for which there is a need for public policy. As the product of this project, the JDA was political – but in the right sense. Like the pursuit of justice for Palestinians.

 Notes

1 Email from Martin Dolphin, Secretary, 2 December 2020.
2 Zionism, however, is not necessarily political, let alone nationalist.
3 Quoted as an epigraph in my book Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life. Rabbi Berkovits died in 2005.
4 JDA, Preamble, par. 3.
5 “Definition of Antisemitism” at https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental- rights/combatting-discrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/combating-antisemitism/definition- antisemitism_en; “Procedure 2017/2692 (RSP)” at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-8- 2017-0383_EN.html?redirect; “Council Declaration on the fight against antisemitism and the development of a common security approach to better protect Jewish communities and institutions in Europe – Council conclusion” at https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15213-2018-INIT/en/pdf.
6 “U.S. State Dept. Doubles Down on Embrace of IHRA Antisemitism Definition,” Haaretz, June 25, 2021, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-u-s-state-dept-doubles-down-on-embrace-of-ihra-antisemitism- definition-1.9940759.
7 “Blinken: US ‘Enthusiastically Embraces’ IHRA Definition of Antisemitism,” The Jerusalem Post, March 3, 202, https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/blinken-us-enthusiastically-embraces-ihra-definition-of- antisemitism-660768. The report refers to a letter from Antony J Blinken, Secretary of State, to Richard D Heideman, President of the American Zionist Movement, February 23, 2021. Full text available here: https://jewishinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Secretary-of-State-Blinken-Letter-to-AZM.pdf.
8 “Anti-Semitism Rising Even in Countries with No Jews at All, Secretary-General Tells Event on Power of Education to Counter Racism, discrimination” (UN press release), September 26, 2018, www.un.org/press/en/2018/sgsm19252.doc.htm.
9 “UN Releases ‘Unprecedented’ Report on Anti-Semitism,” Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, October 2, 2019, https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/un-releases-unprecedented-report-on-anti-semitism/. The title of the report is “Combating Antisemitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief.”
10 “Switzerland Adopts IHRA Definition of Antisemitism,” The Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2021, https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/switzerland-adopts-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism-670164. 11 “Williamson Accuses Universities of Ignoring Antisemitism,” The Guardian, October 9, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/09/williamson-accuses-english-universities-of-ignoring- antisemitism.
12 This is not an exhaustive list. See ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism,’ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Definition_of_Antisemitism.
13 “FA Adopts International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Definition of Antisemitism,” January 27, 2021, website of the FA: https://www.thefa.com/news/2021/jan/27/fa-adopts-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism- 20210127; “Premier League and Almost All of Its Clubs Adopt IHRA,” The Jewish Chronicle, December 3, 2020, https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/premier-league-and-almost-all-of-its-clubs-adopt-ihra-definition-1.509272.
14 This claim is borne out by the extent to which it has been used in this fashion.
15 It is, however, covered in the JDA, guideline 15.
16 Kenneth Stern, The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (Toronto: New Jewish Press, 2020), 151. The original version was written under the auspices of the (European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, replaced in 2007 by the FRA), an agency of the European Union. Stern’s explanation tallies with the reply I received from the EUMC in an email correspondence in February 2011: the text was developed “for data collection purposes” (email from Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, February 16, 2011). Stern, who had been the “antisemitism expert” of the American Jewish Committee since 1989 (The Conflict Over the Conflict, 7, 10), gives an inside account of the back story on pages 149-55 of his book. Antony Lerman, former Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (UK), fills out the (highly political) picture in “Labour Should Ditch the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Altogether,” OpenDemocracy, September 4, 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/labour-should-ditch-ihra-working-definition-of- antisemitism-altogether/.
17 Kenneth Stern, “I Drafted the Definition of Antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are Weaponizing It,” The Guardian, December 13, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive- order-trump-chilling-effect.
18 Kenneth Stern, “Biden’s Pick for Antisemitism Envoy Will Need to Answer These Tough Questions,”, Forward, July 27, 2021, https://forward.com/opinion/473580/i-was-the-lead-drafter-of-the-definition-of-antisemitism- heres-what-id-ask/. The Forward is a Jewish American news magazine. Founded in 1897, it is now available only online.