"Jewish academics" write an open letter against the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Another larger group responds.

From the EU Observer, November 3:

Israel is trying to gag its critics by formally labelling them as antisemites in the UN, Jewish academics have warned, but the EU Commission says there's no cause for alarm.

Some 128 scholars of Jewish history and Holocaust studies from around the world raised the red flag in a letter published in EUobserver on Thursday (3 November) entitled: "Don't trap the United Nations in a vague and weaponised definition of antisemitism".

Yes, once again Israel haters have written a letter. 

And once again, it is meaningless to have 128 academics sign anything because there are millions of academics worldwide, and one can find a few hundred to sign any fringe opinion. 

And once again, the criticism of IHRA has nothing to do with what it actually says.

Yet once again, the letter - since it comes from Jews and supposedly (but not really) scholars of Jewish subjects - gains an outsized amount of publicity.

It is all a game, and one where the media plays its part to inflate issues it agrees with.

But without the pro-Israel side countering the meaningless letter, it appears to be the consensus among Jewish academics.

So other Jewish academics who support the IHRA definition wrote their own letter - and gathered more signatures than the anti-Israel academics did. The effort was spearheaded by the Jewish Studies Zionist Network, which was organized this year.

 JSZN co-coordinator, Adam Fuller, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Youngstown State University, said, “This isn’t about criticizing Israel. You can criticize Israel’s government all you want like you can criticize any other government in the world. But the hostility toward Israel rises to something well beyond mere criticism. It’s demonization of Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. The demonization parallels any other antisemitic trope that paints the Jewish people as thieving and conniving.”  

Jarrod Tanny, Associate Professor of Jewish History at University of North Carolina Wilmington, and founder of JSZN, said, “Contrary to what the IHRA WDA’s opponents think, this document is not some sort of legal code intended as a weapon to silence critics of Israel. It is a working definition, a tool to offer guidance to those who need to grapple with antisemitism but are unfamiliar with the issues at hand. Our critics maintain that the JDA {Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism)  is a far superior definition of antisemitism, but upon careful examination it is obvious that it is intended as a get out of jail free card for the demonization of Israel.”

 “Unlike the JDA,” Tanny added, “the IHRA ensures that Israel is treated like any normal internationally recognized independent state and its supporters are afforded the same rights as anyone else."

Indeed, the JDA definition spends as many paragraphs on what they claim antisemitism isn't - obsessive criticism of Israel - than on what it is. 

Hate for Israel is no less antisemitic as hate for Jews. There is a clear distinction between demanding a boycott of the world's only Jewish state - which includes silencing Zionists - and mere criticism of Israel. 

It is a shame that these "open letters" force others to respond, but the game has to be played. 

On another note, I really need to get hold of the JSZN to see if they want to hold a seminar on my (IMHO, superior) definition of antisemitism. 

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