A global organisation behind a controversial definition of anti-Semitism has misled the general public about that definition, in line with a brand new report by the British marketing campaign group Free Speech on Israel, obtained completely by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.
The report, written by Oxford College researcher Jamie Stern-Weiner and set to be formally printed on Sunday, reveals that statements made by spokespeople and publications of the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) have misrepresented the “Working Definition of anti-Semitism” by claiming that it features a hotly contested checklist of “examples” of anti-Semitism.
At a Could 2016 assembly in Bucharest, the IHRA’s decision-making physique, then representing 31 international locations, adopted a doc that included two separate sections.
The primary part is a two-sentence definition of anti-Semitism:
“Anti-Semitism is a sure notion of Jews, which can be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and bodily manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish people and/or their property, towards Jewish group establishments and spiritual amenities.”
The second part is a listing containing 11 “modern examples” of probably anti-Semitic statements or behaviours.
Of those eleven examples, seven comprise references to the Israeli state. One controversial instance claims it might be thought-about anti-Semitic to explain Israel as a “racist endeavour”, whereas one other claims it might be thought-about anti-Semitic to “apply double requirements” to Israel.
The organisation’s determination to undertake the doc got here after heated debate regarding the inclusion of the examples within the IHRA definition. In accordance with a confidential inside memo from an envoy to the 2016 IHRA plenary assembly, seen by Al Jazeera, Sweden and Denmark objected to the definition being rushed by in addition to to “the examples added to the definition”.
Ultimately, the governing plenary determined to undertake solely the two-sentence passage as its definition, excluding the controversial examples. The examples weren’t endorsed as a part of the working definition however as “illustrations” to “information IHRA in its work”.
Limiting free speech
Regardless of this determination taken by the plenary, Stern-Weiner’s report reveals how the controversy surrounding the standing of the examples has been omitted from the general public report by high-ranking members of the IHRA.
Main pro-Israel advocacy teams have depicted these examples as a very powerful a part of the IHRA definition. A senior official at Israel’s Ministry of International Affairs defined that, whereas “the IHRA definition is in itself … minimalist”, what makes it “a vital definition in our eyes is the checklist of examples”.
Critics of the examples have expressed concern concerning the methods during which they limit free speech, particularly, that of Palestinians to explain the occupation of their land and their persevering with oppression by the Israeli state.
The examples have additionally been utilized by Israel foyer teams to disrupt the actions of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) motion all over the world by claiming {that a} boycott of Israel is anti-Semitic.
In a foreword to the report, Oxford College Professor Avi Shlaim argues that its findings “ought to steer any authorities or organisation that’s contemplating the adoption of the IHRA definition to assume once more”.
False statements
Stern-Weiner identifies repeated public statements made by IHRA, its spokespersons and representatives which misrepresent the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism by conflating it with the checklist of examples.
In Could 2018, the IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial appeared to go towards the choice taken by the plenary two years earlier, stating that “the definition and the examples constituted the total definition, and that the topic was not open to additional dialogue”. This was prompted by a pro-Israel foyer group lively within the IHRA.
An article on the IHRA’s web site, printed later that yr, falsely acknowledged that “the Working Definition, together with its examples, was reviewed and determined upon unanimously throughout the IHRA’s Bucharest plenary in Could 2016”.
In June 2020, the IHRA’s Chair, Ambassador Michaela Küchler of Germany, alleged that IHRA member international locations had “agreed” on “the textual content of the working definition” each the two-sentence passage “and the examples included”.
This inaccurate declare was repeated by a European Fee handbook on the IHRA definition, co-published by the IHRA in January 2021.
These statements run counter to different public statements the place the IHRA applauded selections by the German and French parliaments to endorse the working definition with out the inclusion of the examples.
Regardless of repeated makes an attempt by the report’s creator to hunt readability from the IHRA on the standing of the 11 examples, no reply from the organisation on this query was forthcoming.
Palestinian rights
This misrepresentation has affected these campaigning for Palestinian rights. For instance, in early 2017, the IHRA Working Definition was leveraged to have pro-Palestine occasions on UK college campuses cancelled.
In 2018, Britain’s Labour Social gathering was on the centre of a nationwide controversy as pro-Israel advocacy teams, together with the Jewish Labour Motion, pushed the get together to undertake the examples, which these teams inaccurately depicted as integral to the IHRA definition.
But Labour had adopted the two-sentence IHRA Working Definition, precisely as agreed by the IHRA plenary.
Al Jazeera’s four-part investigation The Foyer, launched in January 2017, revealed how the Jewish Labour Motion and others labored carefully with the Israeli Embassy in London with a view to affect the Labour get together to incorporate the examples referring to Israel within the definition and current the get together management as “anti-Semitic” for not doing so.