On the eve of Friday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is time for media organizations around the world to adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) Working Definition of Antisemitism.
HonestReporting has previously campaigned on this and organized a petition with almost 13,000 signatures. But unfortunately, mainstream media reacted with a deafening silence and little to no progress has been made.
By contrast, since 2019 alone, 27 countries have either endorsed or recognized the definition, with countless other political entities and organizations adopting it. According to the organization Combat Antisemitism, a total of 1,116 global entities have adopted or endorsed it.
Just this week, the University of Melbourne became the first Australian university to adopt the definition. In the United Kingdom, as of November 2021, 95 universities had adopted it, according to the Office for Students (OfS).
In the United States, at least 30 universities and colleges had adopted the definition as of May 2021, according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Many more have followed suit since that last count. The Nevada Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s eight universities, voted to adopt it last month, becoming the first state higher education department to take such a proactive measure.
Even the Global Imams Council adopted it in October 2020.
The question remains, therefore, why haven’t media organizations adopted the IHRA definition?
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
According to a December 2021 paper by Prof. Dina Porat, Dr. Giovanni Quer, and Adv. Talia Naamat, three potential arguments could explain why some organizations have been so hesitant.
The first is that the definition itself is seen as too vague and imprecise. This assertion was made in a paper by Peter Ulrich in 2019, commissioned by the German Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation and the NGO Medico International.
According to Ulrich, the “immense vagueness” of the working definition construes antisemitism mainly as a “sensory experience,” while it disregards other essential manifestations.
Porat, Quer, and Naamat refuted this by arguing: “The IHRA definition of antisemitism attempts to identify the core elements of diverse manifestations of Jew-hatred via one acceptable, general definition. The object at the center of this process is a form of hatred, phobia, and hostility that throughout the centuries has tormented the Jewish people in various ways and has resulted in diverse types of seclusion, discrimination, and persecution.”
The second argument is regarding the content itself. Critics have claimed that the IHRA definition of antisemitism omits “certain forms of anti-Jewish hate.”
In response, the authors said that “the study of antisemitism addresses what antisemitism is, how it expresses itself, its perniciousness, and the stage upon which it unfolds. The IHRA definition certainly covers the first two aspects, providing a general definition of what antisemitism is, and a number of examples of how it expresses itself.”
The final reason — and perhaps the most controversial — is that adopting the definition could potentially obstruct legitimate criticism of Israel.
The IHRA definition includes multiple examples of what is not legitimate criticism of Israel:
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
- Applying double standards to Israel by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Rebecca Ruth Gould, a UK scholar of Islamic Studies, argues that “the IHRA definition is a policy recommendation by a cluster of interest groups that have been tacitly granted that status of a quasi-law” and has consequently become “a tool for censoring speech.”
HonestReporting has refuted such claims in the past: one can criticize the policies of Israel’s government without crossing the line into antisemitism, and the IHRA acknowledges that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
Media organizations set the agenda for public debate by deciding what to cover and how to report it. Journalists would make more educated judgments about covering hate crimes if they were guided by the IHRA definition.
Coverage of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, for example, might be more nuanced. Editors would be able to properly assess op-eds and letters if there was a consistent standard, and moderators would be able to make internet comments more civilized.
With incidents of antisemitism at record highs, which the Anti-Defamation League recently reported in its annual audit of antisemitic events in 2021, the time is now for media organizations to adopt the definition.
Attempts have been made by an international task force to have social media giants adopt the definition. Twitter has been the subject of criticism due to the amount of antisemitism that is spread on the platform.
Just this week, white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was reinstated to the platform, and immediately proceeded to tweet about the “Zionist Occupied Government” and praised Hitler.
Many organizations, including HonestReporting, expressed outrage at the decision and called on Twitter to immediately suspend him.
When there are no consequences to antisemitism, it perpetuates. @TwitterSafety what are you doing to keep my community safe from this hatred? https://t.co/EINFgL14mc pic.twitter.com/9x1C8goBSr
— Jacki Alexander (@JackiAlexander_) January 24, 2023
Within hours, Twitter suspended him again.
According to Prof. Porat, Facebook is also among the social media networks that have been approached.
“Indeed, there are hardly any media or social networks on the list — once Facebook was approached — and after a long negotiation, did not adopt the definition,” she told HonestReporting on Thursday.
With social media increasingly the source through which people get news, it is critical that social media companies adopt the IHRA working definition.
When they do, mainstream media outlets will likely follow in their footsteps.
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.
Photo: Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images
