In his open letter to the acting president of Columbia University (I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump, 1 August), Rashid Khalidi announces that he will not teach his scheduled course in the fall term, “specifically […] in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism”. The IHRA definition, Khalidi explains, “deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews”.
The IHRA is an intergovernmental body with a mandate to address contemporary challenges related to the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma. It has 35 member countries, including every member of the EU except Malta. So this is a serious allegation. But what does the IHRA definition actually say?
Prof Khalidi does not quote a sentence of it, and perhaps we can see why. It says that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. But the following “could, taking into account the overall context” qualify as antisemitic: “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”, “requiring of [Israel] a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterise Israel or Israelis”, “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”, or “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel”.
It must be obvious to Prof Khalidi that these things are sometimes antisemitic. No doubt, antisemitism and anti-Zionism are sometimes tendentiously conflated. Equally, antisemitism is sometimes cloaked in political discourse or mixed with political criticism, and that is what the IHRA calls out. Denying that this happens is absurd. Here, for example, is the Hamas charter: “In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all. […] The Zionist Nazi activities against our people will not last for long. […] The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.”
The IHRA definition has been a target in anti-Zionist campaigns for years, in the same way as Black Lives Matter became a target for the right during Donald Trump’s first term. A question about how to recognise antisemitism has been weaponised by anti-Zionists, just as antisemitism is weaponised by some on the Israeli right.
John Hyman
Grote chair in philosophy of mind and logic, University College London
Anthony Julius
Chair of law and the arts, University College London
