By Suzanne Weiss
Here’s what I had to say about the “IHRA re-definition” of anti-Semitism September 30, 2019, during a meeting with Gordon Perks of the Toronto City Council. Another councillor has given notice of intention to ask for formal council support of the ill-conceived IHRA document.
The proposed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism is self-contradictory.
The last of the Definition’s eleven proposed examples of anti-Semitism condemns “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”
I agree. Jews are not collectively responsible for the actions of Israel’s government. But this principle must be applied to the Definition itself. Put to that test, the IHRA Definition itself is anti-Semitic in conception.
Until this new Definition, we all knew what anti-Semitism meant. As the Oxford Canadian dictionary puts it: “Hatred of Jews. Unfair treatment of Jews.” Other dictionaries say much the same thing.
What’s new in the IHRA is the definition of negative attitudes to the government and state of Israel as anti-Jewish.
Seven of the eleven examples concern negative attitudes toward Israeli political institutions. Some of these attitudes are highly objectionable. However, defining such criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish only reinforces the doctrine of collective Jewish responsibility for Israel’s actions – the very concept that the Definition correctly condemns.
In addition, condemning negative attitudes to Israel as anti-Jewish obstructs clarification of troubled issues in Israeli-Palestinian relations. It is now difficult to find meeting space in this city for a discussion on Palestine. The adoption of the IHRA statement would make it harder. It’s an infringement on the right to dissent.
I appeal to the Council to stand by the city’s present policy of supporting free political debate in the city, subject only to the existing “hate speech” restrictions.
The IHRA definition, by contrast, can only reinforce misconceptions about collective Jewish responsibility for Israel’s actions against which the IHRA statement itself warns us. Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic.
The Canadian Independent Jewish Voices, of which I am a member says that Fighting antisemitism is essential. But the IHRA definition is the wrong approach.