Do we need a (legal) definition of anti-Semitism?

Professor Yehuda Bauer, Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre speaking at the Commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day event at the FCO in London, 25 January 2017. Wikicommons/FCO. Some rights reserved.

On
26 May 2016 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a controversial and
problematic
working definition on
anti-Semitism.
On 12 December 2016 it was reported that the IHRA
working definition would be adopted by the UK government, so as to ‘ensure that culprits
will not be able to get away with being antisemitic because the term is
ill-defined, or because different organisations or bodies have different
interpretations of it’. On 19 December 2016, the chief historian of Yad
Vashem, Professor Dina Porat, endorsed the IHRA
definition
and its adoption by the UK government quoting David Hirsh’s statement, a sociologist of contemporary
antisemitism at Goldsmiths, that ‘The new definition of antisemitism is only a
threat to antisemites’.

The
debate regarding the IHRA working definition and particularly the examples for
anti-Semitism it offers is ongoing, especially in light of last week’s decision
of the National Executive
Committee of the Labour party in the UK to approve a new code of conduct on
anti-Semitism.
Labour’s new code of conduct still draws on the IHRA working definition albeit
without some of its controversial examples, especially those referring to
criticism of the State of Israel.

What,
therefore, are the problems with the IHRA definition and examples of
anti-Semitism?[1]
And, do we really need a specific legal definition of anti-Semitism? Drawing on my earlier
critique of the IHRA definition I published in December 2016, I would argue that the
attempt to legally define anti-Semitism and the specific examples the IHRA document
offers are problematic as (1) they essentialise what they seek to dislodge,
that is, the prefiguration of Jews as a homogeneous collective and the
naturalisation of the figure of the Jew; (2) they strengthen the mounting
racist-nationalist forces in Israel and Europe; and (3) they conflate
anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

First,
focusing on anti-Semitism in an open society is an odd choice since the fight
ought to be against racism in all shapes and forms rather than particular
manifestations of hate/racism. Emphasising anti-Semitism might give the
impression that there is a hierarchy of hatreds in which hate towards Jews
supersedes all others. Are racist and violent acts towards BME in the UK and
Europe, more broadly, less important?! There is no doubt room to define
anti-Semitism and its uniqueness in historical, sociological and political
analyses (see, for example, the
work of Professor David Feldman). But defining anti-Semitism for legal purposes
as a unique form of hatred is a dangerous path to take and may end up
essentialising the figure of the Jew rather than dislodging it.  

We
specifically see this with the IHRA examples of anti-Semitism, especially point
number 2, which includes the stereotypical accusation of Jews as a power-hungry
collective seeking to manipulate and control national and global centres of
power (e.g. control over banks, governments, media and so forth). The issue is
that instead of dispelling the stereotypical figure of the Jew/Jews as a
collective, the IHRA example perpetuates these stereotypes. Consider also point
number 7 in the IHRA working definition, which defines anti-Semitism as ‘Denying the Jewish
people their right to self-determination’. The issue here is that since this
example defines Jews as a collective, a people, we may get the impression that
Jews are after all a homogeneous group, thus playing exactly into the hands of
the anti-Semitic discourse. The Jewish people’s right to self-determination, As
Toni Greenstein put it talking
to Asa Winstanley, is an “anti-Semitic formulation” since it “assumes that Jews are a
people apart.”

Second,
focusing on anti-Semitism and adopting the IHRA definition plays into the hands
of racist-nationalist politics in the UK and Europe, which offer a distorted
Judeo-Christian worldview vis-à-vis the Muslim/Arab world. We cannot ignore the
contemporary European context – namely the ongoing economic crisis, anti-establishment
sentiments and the rise of populist-nationalism – in which a pro-Zionist logic
and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict are used to legitimate a
xenophobic rhetoric against Muslims and immigrants. It is not surprising,
therefore, that some of the most extreme nationalist and racist voices in
European politics today are ardent supporters of Zionism and Netanyahu’s
policies, thus, as Slavoj Žižek argued, creating an
alliance between pro-Zionism and anti-Semitism (consider, for instance, Marine Le Pen and the rebranded Front National, the Austrian Freedom Party, or Geert
Wilders and the Dutch PVV).

Finally,
defining anti-Semitism as ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to
self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel
is a racist endeavor’ can easily be used to silence criticism of Israel, much
of which is posited by Jews themselves, individually or collectively. Jews, in
Israel or abroad, who do not identify as Zionists and/or wish to change
Israel’s regime such that it becomes a more open and inclusive country would be
rendered anti-Semites and potentially charged with a criminal offence. The ultimate
absurdity of the IHRA definition is that ultra-Orthodox Jews in Golders Green
or Mea She’arim in Jerusalem, who consider Zionism a sin, amongst other things,
might be defined as anti-Semitic. Furthermore, with the IHRA conflation of
anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, academic scholarship and political activism
which criticize Israel’s discriminatory laws and institutions – such as the Law of Return, the JNF and its control
over the land – and which have been
developing alternative models of governance, often based on a federative/confederative
logic,
would also be considered anti-Semitic and criminal.  As Tony Greenstein et al. put it: ‘The IHRA
definition smuggles in anti-Zionism, in the guise of antisemitism, as a means
of protecting the Israeli state and thus western foreign policy.’

Drawing
on the IHRA definition without the problematic examples, the new code of
conduct adopted by the Labour party is a step in the right direction. But are
we not better off discarding the IHRA definition altogether, and fighting
anti-Semitism by rejecting the racist discursive coordinates rather than
adopting them?!     

[1] On the legal distinction between the definition and the
examples and for an overall legal analysis of the IHRA document see Hugh Tomlinson’s report