[ By failing to push back on problematic definitions of
antisemitism, the White House is missing a golden opportunity in the
fight against hate.]
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BIDEN’S ANTISEMITISM STRATEGY GETS A LOT RIGHT — BUT HAS ONE
PROBLEM  
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Natasha Roth-Rowland
May 27, 2023
+972 Magazine
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_ By failing to push back on problematic definitions of antisemitism,
the White House is missing a golden opportunity in the fight against
hate. _

President Joe Biden takes part in a ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel's
largest Holocaust memorial, Jerusalem, July 13, 2022., Photo: Olivier
Fitoussi/Flash90 // +972 Magazine

 

On Thursday, the White House released
[[link removed]] its
much-anticipated national antisemitism strategy, after a months-long
process that attracted intensive scrutiny over which definition
— or definitions — of antisemitism its task force would choose to
undergird policy recommendations. 

Establishment
[[link removed]] and
right-wing American-Jewish groups had been pushing for the Biden
administration to use only the highly controversial International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of
antisemitism. This definition, which gives examples of antisemitism
that mostly relate to speech on Israel, has for years been promoted by
the Israeli government
[[link removed]] and
pro-Israel actors for widespread adoption and codification.

Progressive Jewish groups, meanwhile, had urged the White House to
either use no definition at all, or to include other definitions that
did not pose a threat to free speech, such as the Jerusalem
Declaration on Antisemitism [[link removed]] or
the Nexus Document
[[link removed]].

As it happened, existing definitions received the most perfunctory
treatment in the strategy — a brief paragraph, which featured the
document’s solitary mention of the IHRA definition and noted the
U.S. government’s embrace of it, while also nodding to the more
progressive Nexus definition.

 

Pro-Israel demonstrators protest Ben and Jerry’s for boycotting
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, New York City, August 12, 2021.
 (Photo:  Luke Tress/Flash90  //  +972Magazine)
The strategy also did not formally adopt the IHRA definition, as
IHRA’s boosters claim
[[link removed]], merely
calling it the “most prominent” of the popularly-circulating
definitions. This is cause for celebration, marking an important
victory in a heated struggle over a definition of antisemitism that is
deployed to stymie criticism of Israel. At the same time, however, the
battle against the IHRA definition and the threat it poses is far from
over.

Multiple Western governments
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and other institutions
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adopted the definition despite concerted campaigning from academics
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activists, progressive groups
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rights
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all of whom have warned of its weaponization to police speech and
activism on Palestine, and to undermine academic freedom.

The chilling effect caused by the IHRA definition’s conflation of
antisemitism and criticism of Israel — as well as by the campaign to
promote it — is just one of its failings, however. The other is that
it is woefully inadequate to tackle antisemitism’s continued
resurgence and entrenchment across the public sphere — in politics,
online, and in the street.

The IHRA definition has become the lazy man’s weapon of choice for
giving the appearance of caring about antisemitism, and by extension
about Jews. But it offers nothing for beating back the wave of
antisemitic conspiracy theories, canards, and sentiment that have been
unleashed by the ascendant global far right over the past few years.
It does not educate about the root causes of antisemitism; it does not
unpack the sources and fuel of conspiracy theories or explore why, if
you peel back their preposterous logic far enough, you will usually
find age-old, insidious ideas about Jews at the center of them; and it
does not offer any suggestion whatsoever that the safety of Jews is
inherently bound up in the safety of all — a point that the White
House strategy makes crystal clear throughout.

What the IHRA definition does do, however, is provide Israel and the
wider hasbara apparatus with a highly effective tool for bashing
Palestinians and the Palestinian liberation movement, and grant the
global far right an equally effective tool for whitewashing its own
antisemitism. The definition’s adoption at various levels by the
likes of Hungary, Poland, and the U.S. under the Trump administration
— and the public appreciation they won from Israel
[[link removed]] for
doing so — highlights not only its meaninglessness, but also its
dangerous capacity for allowing antisemites to deny their anti-Jewish
prejudice with barely more than a wink and a nod.

Indeed, as problematic as it is, the IHRA definition remains a
symptom, rather than the cause, of much of what ails the fight against
antisemitism. The IHRA publicity machine is part of a much broader
effort to shield Israel’s oppression of Palestinians by portraying
any negative commentary about Israel as a manifestation of latent
— or even explicit — antisemitism. The corollary of this process,
which benefits actual antisemites, is that hasbarists feel able to
propose
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the absence of criticism of Israel indicates a lack of animus toward
Jews.

There are too many examples of this mechanism at work to list here.
But a recent episode encapsulates perfectly, and horribly, why
positioning the Israeli government as the ultimate authority on and
solution to antisemitism — and lobbying for the universal adoption
of a definition of antisemitism based on this inner logic — is so
terribly bad for Jews around the world.

In the latest installation of the long-running antisemitic campaign to
portray the Hungarian-Jewish financier George Soros as a singular,
sinister threat to global society and politics — an outlandish
accusation rooted in age-old tropes about Jews, money, and shadowy
influence — Elon Musk tweeted that Soros “wants to erode the very
fabric of civilization,” comparing him to a Marvel supervillain who,
like Soros, is a Holocaust survivor. The tweet, for which Musk later
apologized because it “was really unfair to Magneto,”
was described
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Vox as “perhaps the world’s loudest dog whistle.”

 

Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Minister for Social Equality Amichai
Chikli in the Knesset, Jerusalem, March 6, 2023.  (Photo:  Yonatan
Sindel/Flash90  //  +972Magazine)
Condemnation swiftly followed — and so did applause, including from
the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism,
Amichai Chikli, who tweeted
[[link removed]] that “the
Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon
Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and role model.” Criticizing Soros,
Chikli continued, is “quite the opposite” of antisemitism. Foreign
Minister Eli Cohen, too, rejected criticism
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Musk, and slammed his own ministry for its tweet
[[link removed]] contending
that Musk’s remarks had an “antisemitic feeling.” Musk was
also backed
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the likes of famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who pointed to Musk’s
lack of “hostility to Israel” by way of a defense.

What should we make of the fact that officials in the Israeli
government, which is the key driver of the campaign to adopt the IHRA
definition, embrace comments such as those made by Musk
— especially given that Israel has an established track record of
backing anti-Soros conspiracy theories? Should Jewish safety be
entrusted to an oppressive regime that lauds and gives cover to one of
the most pernicious and widespread antisemitic campaigns poisoning
political discourse around the world? And what does it say about the
pro-IHRA camp that their focus continues to be on anti-Zionism and the
Palestinian liberation movement, when one of the richest, most
powerful men in the world seems bent on turbocharging antisemitic
conspiracy theories? 

The White House strategy, by largely sidestepping the IHRA definition,
mostly avoids exacerbating these issues. But by failing to name these
problems head on, it missed a golden opportunity to push back on much
of the misdirection undermining the global fight against
antisemitism. 

_[NATASHA ROTH-ROWLAND is an editor and writer at +972 Magazine. She
has a PhD in History from the University of Virginia, and wrote her
dissertation on the history of the Jewish far right in
Israel-Palestine and the United States. Natasha previously spent
several years as a writer, editor, and translator in Israel-Palestine,
and is now based in New York.]_

_This article originally appeared in “The Landline,” +972’s
weekly newsletter. Subscribe here
[[link removed]]._

_FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS, WE AT +972 HAVE BEEN WARNING AGAINST THE
POISONOUS OUTCOMES OF ISRAELI SOCIETY’S GROWING RACISM, THE
ENTRENCHED OCCUPATION, AND AN INCREASINGLY NORMALIZED SIEGE ON GAZA._

_Our work has never been more crucial. And as dark as it seems, there
are still glimmers of hope. The popularity of outright fascism has
woken people up, both in Israel-Palestine and across the world, to the
dangerous repercussions of what may soon come. Palestinians and
Israelis who believe in a just future are already organizing and
strategizing to put up the fight of their lives._

_CAN WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT
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* anti-Semitism
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* IHRA
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* Joe Biden
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* Biden Administration
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* zionism
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* Jewish community
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* Israel
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