Embraced by over a thousand global organizations, governments, and institutions, including the US State Department, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism has become the gold standard for identifying contemporary Jew-hatred. However, as the Biden Administration released its long-awaited National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism last week, fringe anti-Israel activists have once again placed the IHRA definition at the center of a fabricated controversy.
Cue Vox, a politically progressive publication with over four million followers on social media, which can always be counted on to promote radical viewpoints that further fan the flames of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people.
In a May 25 analysis of President Biden’s novel antisemitism strategy, foreign policy writer Jonathan Guyer raised the bizarre question, “If a group protests Israeli policies in front of a synagogue, is that considered antisemitic?” IHRA, the senior Vox reporter inexplicably argued in his piece, does not have any “clear answers” to this dilemma.
Let’s make one thing clear: One can criticize the policies of Israel’s government without crossing the line into antisemitism; the IHRA document itself explicitly acknowledges that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” Yet, as HonestReporting pointed out in a viral Twitter post, harassing innocent Jews who have no say in Israeli politics is antisemitic by any reasonable standard.
📝 UPDATE: We've filed a formal complaint with @voxdotcom.
💭 WHY? Vox is providing cover for antisemitic acts.
In short, you wouldn't protest the actions of the Saudi government at a mosque, that would be Islamophobic. The same goes for Israel and synagogues. https://t.co/TAz4bIWP8p
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 29, 2023
One wonders whether Guyer would similarly argue that there is no problem with protesting Saudi policies at US mosques, or demonstrating against Beijing’s human rights record at American Chinese restaurants.
Crucially, even the contentious Nexus Document and Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, both of which have been broadly denounced by mainstream Jewish groups for giving a free pass to certain forms of anti-Jewish bigotry, clearly say that holding Jews “collectively” responsible for the real or perceived actions of the State of Israel is undoubtedly antisemitic.
As Heiko Maas, who served as Germany’s foreign minister until December 2021, stated following antisemitic protests at a Jewish house of worship in the country: “All of us are called on to make it very clear that we do not accept if Jews in Germany are made responsible for the events in the Middle East — neither in the streets nor on social media.”
In response to our initial May 28 tweet, many social media users piled on in agreement. “Hey [Vox], your writers may struggle with this so allow me to clear it up: harassing an American synagogue under the guise of criticizing Israel is in fact antisemitism,” wrote Forward columnist Alex Zeldin, explaining: “If you have a problem with the Israeli government you take it up at your nearest Israeli consulate.”
“Holding your neighbors responsible for the actions of a foreign government is bigoted (and un-American),” added Matthew Gertz of the progressive Media Matters for America watchdog group. “Applied to synagogues and the Israeli government such protests are antisemitic, particularly given the dark history of dual loyalty smears of Jewish people.”
I’d also like to point out that this isn’t a hypothetical. US synagogues have been menaced, vandalized, and protested by those who claim they are just protesting Israel. Here’s one particularly egregious example that has been happening weekly for 20 YEARS: https://t.co/hDwtQoO2Pg https://t.co/sOZXT9SufJ
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) May 30, 2023
Unfortunately, this is not Vox’s first attempt to belittle anti-Jewish racism. Two years ago, amid a spike in antisemitism across America, the news site ludicrously claimed that we “don’t know” what caused the surge in violent incidents — just two months after having published a shockingly one-sided piece, titled “The incomplete education of American Jews,” which attacked Jewish schools’ curriculum on the Middle East conflict.
Foreign affairs editor Jonathan Guyer specifically has whitewashed Palestinian terrorism on multiple occasions, even going as far as describing the murderous Lions’ Den terrorist organization as a “resistance group” some six months ago.
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In an official complaint submitted to Vox Editor-in-Chief Swati Sharm, HonestReporting requested that the offensive paragraph in Guyer’s May 25 article be amended or deleted. As of the publication of this story, our email has gone without a response.
Therefore, HonestReporting calls on its followers to reach out to Vox by email or Twitter to — firmly but politely — make clear that harassing Jewish worshippers over Israel is, in fact, considered antisemitic.
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