When Anti-Semites Demand to Define Anti-Semitism

When anti-Semites claim victimhood for not being able to define anti-Semitism, they’re probably not the aggrieved party in the conversation.

When does criticism of Israel cross the line into antisemitism?

In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) set out to answer that question with their “working definition of antisemitism.” Since then, this definition of antisemitism has been adopted by 38 countries, including the United States, and supported by the UN Secretary-General and the European Union.

In October 2022, a number of anti-Zionist groups at CUNY came together to protest against CUNY adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

With a large degree of audacity, the event, a virtual teach-in, was titled:

“IHRA AND THE CO-OPTATION OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ANTISEMITISM: INTERSECTIONAL PALESTINE ORGANIZING AT CUNY AND BEYOND.”

It promised to “discuss current students' organizing to defeat IHRA for the second time in two years.”

One of the featured speakers was notorious anti-Semite Nerdeen Kiswani. Kiswani is the founder of the anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime (WOL), which espouses “resistance by any means.”

Kiswani, a recent graduate of CUNY Law School, and her ilk are popular at CUNY. At her recent graduation, Kiswani was featured as the keynote speaker.

The event ironically coincided with the two-week anti-Semitic rant by Kanye West, which served to heighten awareness of the dangers of anti-Semitism in America.

See Canary Mission’s blog “Question for Kanye: Why the Jews?”

The impetus for the event was a press release sent out by CUNY Chancellor Felix V. Matos Rodriguez in September in which Rodriguez vowed that CUNY would introduce initiatives to improve the experience for Jewish students.

In the release, Rodriguez said the university would be using the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism as an “educational tool” to help train diversity, equity and inclusion staff as well as administrators and student leaders in “understand[ing] and recogniz[ing] the various forms of anti-Semitism.”

The statement comes on the heels of a complaint filed in July 2022 with the U.S. Department of Education that charges CUNY has created a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students.” The complaint also asserts that CUNY committed violations of the federal Civil Rights Act.

In fact, CUNY has been a hotbed of anti-Semitism since at least 2015, when the first report investigating antisemitism at CUNY was commissioned by CUNY’s chancellor.

In April 2021, Jewish groups at CUNY proposed to the student senate that the university adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. The senate rejected the proposal.

Rodriguez’s statement that CUNY would be using the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism outraged anti-Semites like KIswani and her crowd who demand they should be the ones defining anti-Semitism.

When an “anti-Zionist” group of 200 academics (including explicit anti-Semites) gets together to define anti-Semitism, it’s cause for concern. Especially when the purpose is to “respond” to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) does just that.

Where the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism states that making comparisons between Israel and Nazi policies is anti-Semitic, the JDA definition removes this condition. Instead, it allows for the comparison to be made, contending:

“even if contentious, it is not antisemitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid”

The IHRA definition says it is anti-Semitic to deny the Jewish people the right to self-determination. In contrast, the JDA essentially says it is not anti-Semitic to call for the complete destruction of Israel. As the JDA states:

"Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism, or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean [is not anti-Semitic]."

It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea,” whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.”

Finally, the JDA states that actions that fall under the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement – which by definition single Israel out from all the world’s conflicts – are mere:

"commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states."

As Dr. Dave Rich notes, it would be strange if a definition of anti-Semitism “went out of its way” to protect the right to campaign for banning quintessential Jewish practices like kosher slaughter or circumcision, yet,

“the Jerusalem Declaration’s authors felt the need to explicitly say it is not antisemitic to call for the world’s only Jewish state to disappear.”

Signatories of the JDA include Princeton University professor Richard Falk, who blamed the September 11, 200, terrorist attacks and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing on “American global domination” and “Tel Aviv.” Falk also endorsed a book in which the author declared “Hitler might have been right after all.” The book also argued that Jews were

“the only people who managed to maintain and sustain a racially orientated, expansionist and genocidal national identity that is not at all different from Nazi ethnic ideology.”

Only in an upsidedown world could former Al Jazeera journalist Medhi Hasan, who regularly spreads slander against Israel (to the point of anti-Semitism), bring anti-Semitic House Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) Omar on his MSNBC show to opine about anti-Semitism.

Omar has a long and loathsome history of making anti-Semitic statements. A short list includes:

• Invoking the “Jews control the government” trope by claiming that Jews have undue influence over the U.S. government because of their money. It’s “all about the Benjamins,” she tweeted about Jews (a reference to a song about $100 bills)

• Saying, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel"

• Repeatedly comparing Israel to some of the worst terrorists across the globe, including Hamas and the Taliban

• Invoking the dual loyalty trope trope. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she stated. 

On Hasan’s show, Omar hypocritically accused former President Donald Trump of invoking the dual loyalty trope against Jews after Trump called out American Jews for not being as appreciative as he would have liked them to be for his support of Israel.

Omar then sanctimoniously opined to Hasan,

"Antisemitism is on the rise and all of us have a responsibility to condemn it."

Omar is certainly correct on the first part of her statement. As for the second part, she could start with herself.

Omar is part of a growing cadre of anti-Semites whose goal is to hijack the conversation about anti-Semitism. While actual violence against Jews is on a dangerous upswing, we cannot ignore the part each of these “pundits” play in fomenting hate in our society.