Another thoughtful post, Emmett. Thanks for this. I will look at the U of T draft statement. You write that IHRA has "has provisions that could be interpreted to treat certain criticisms of the state of Israel as antisemitism."
I've not seen this in the IHRA definition though it begins with "Manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity". I admit to not being completely clear about this in part because of the last clause in the sentence. However, IHRA does say "criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic" which seems to quite reasonably allow for the criticism of Israel as one might criticize any other state.
I keep hearing that the IHRA definition might be overly restrictive criticisms of Israel, but I don't see it.
Thanks again for seeding the conversation. Best, Jonathan Rose
I think a good recent example of how the IHRA's wording *could be* interpreted as treating valid criticism of Israel as antisemitism is the complaint that accusations that Israel is currently involved in genocide as being antisemitic under its terms. The claim usually proceeds that this is an 'unfair' accusation, one that implies Israel is not free to 'defend itself', and thus is not 'similar to that levelled against any other country.' Whatever we might think about the genocide label, it is surely an accusation that people have the right to make in a free society given that even former Ministers of the Israeli cabinet recognize there are war crimes/ethnic cleansing happening.
Another thoughtful post, Emmett. Thanks for this. I will look at the U of T draft statement. You write that IHRA has "has provisions that could be interpreted to treat certain criticisms of the state of Israel as antisemitism."
I've not seen this in the IHRA definition though it begins with "Manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity". I admit to not being completely clear about this in part because of the last clause in the sentence. However, IHRA does say "criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic" which seems to quite reasonably allow for the criticism of Israel as one might criticize any other state.
I keep hearing that the IHRA definition might be overly restrictive criticisms of Israel, but I don't see it.
Thanks again for seeding the conversation. Best, Jonathan Rose
I think a good recent example of how the IHRA's wording *could be* interpreted as treating valid criticism of Israel as antisemitism is the complaint that accusations that Israel is currently involved in genocide as being antisemitic under its terms. The claim usually proceeds that this is an 'unfair' accusation, one that implies Israel is not free to 'defend itself', and thus is not 'similar to that levelled against any other country.' Whatever we might think about the genocide label, it is surely an accusation that people have the right to make in a free society given that even former Ministers of the Israeli cabinet recognize there are war crimes/ethnic cleansing happening.