{"id":82539,"date":"2020-12-12T17:05:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T15:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=82539"},"modified":"2020-12-06T15:38:56","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T13:38:56","slug":"12-05-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=82539","title":{"rendered":"The Declining Credibility of Palestinian Objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Declining Credibility of Palestinian Objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ben Cohen \/ JNS.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A BDS protest in front of Carnegie Hall. Photo: Liberate Art.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A group of Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, 122 in all, endorsed a statement last week published<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0newspaper that attacked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance\u2019s definition of antisemitism. These intellectuals were concerned because the definition continues to be adopted by hundreds of governments, local authorities, and civic associations in the United States and across the world as an effective instrument for countering the hatred of Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

As is often the case with statements such as these, what\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0said was as telling to the critical reader as what did make the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that these Arab intellectuals endorse antisemitism. They declare early on that \u201cno expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world.\u201d They recognize, too, that antisemitism \u201cmanifests itself in sweeping generalizations and stereotypes about Jews, regarding power and money in particular, along with conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet despite featuring the names of some of the Arab world\u2019s most respected academics, writers, and filmmakers (arch-foes of Israel all), the statement on the IHRA definition at no point acknowledges that antisemitism as a social and religious phenomenon is deeply embedded within the Arab civilizations that these intellectuals represent. Instead, antisemitism is depicted as someone else\u2019s problem, primarily Europe\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is hard to take seriously the expressed commitment to fighting antisemitism in this statement in the face of such blatant airbrushing of Middle Eastern history. For millennia, Jews occupied a precarious place in Arab and Islamic societies, occasionally experiencing more benign rulers, but frequently serving as the targets of official discrimination and popular violence. That history, importantly, includes the Holocaust, as witnessed through the destruction of Jewish communities in German-occupied North Africa; the anti-Jewish riots in Baghdad, Cairo, and other cities; and the broader ideological affinities between the Nazis and Arab nationalists, many of whom would come to power and expel their Jewish populations in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and other countries in the coming decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

None of this is apparently relevant to these intellectuals, who see their role as nourishing the national mythologies of the Arab world \u2014 specifically, that antisemitism is not an Arab problem and, relatedly, that the problem of antisemitism has been imposed upon the Arabs as a result of European and American backing for Zionism, and the consequent \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d of the Palestinians during Israel\u2019s War of Independence in 1948.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is this last claim that gets to the heart of the objection these intellectuals have towards the IHRA definition. Recognizing that antisemitism is a dynamic phenomenon, the definition includes as examples both classic tropes about Jews and more modern ones that revolve around Israel and Zionism. Asserting that Jews as a nation have no right to self-determination and depicting the State of Israel as a racist original sin against the Palestinians are, under the terms of the definition, indubitably antisemitic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, this grouping of intellectuals is infuriated that the very positions they promote \u2014 that Israel is a racist undertaking, that Jews are an invented nation, that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians are a reincarnation of the Nazi persecution of the Jews \u2014 are defined as antisemitic, and therefore as morally and politically tainted, by a growing segment of international opinion. But instead of honestly reviewing these positions in the light of historical changes \u2014 something that intellectuals are supposed to do \u2014 they have simply doubled down on the discredited anti-Zionist campaign that was waged by Arab regimes and the Arab League before Israel even came into existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Centrally, they want to establish as an uncontested fact \u2014 in exactly the way that the Holocaust or the Cambodian genocide or the Transatlantic slave trade are uncontested facts \u2014 the Palestinian claim that Israel\u2019s creation was a\u00a0nakba\u00a0<\/em>(\u201ccatastrophe\u201d). \u201cAs it currently exists, (my emphasis) the state of Israel is based on uprooting the vast majority of the natives \u2014 what Palestinians and Arabs refer to as the\u00a0nakba<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 and on subjugating those natives who still live on the territory of historical Palestine as either second-class citizens or people under occupation, denying them their right to self-determination,\u201d the statement reads.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those states and bodies that have endorsed the IHRA definition understand this argument very differently. They do not see it as an objective statement of fact, but as a highly politicized account of the origins, nature, and policies of the Jewish state. They do not accept as uncontested the claim that Israel, in the process of establishing its independence, deliberately expelled 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, or that Israel is solely responsible for the perpetuation of the refugee question almost 80 years on. Indeed, partly because of the IHRA definition\u2019s spread, a growing number of opinion-shapers are beginning to understand that the anti-Zionist explanation for the plight of the Palestinians is itself built upon an antisemitic caricature of the Zionist undertaking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coincidentally, a dramatic sense of how this process is unfolding was on\u00a0display<\/a>\u00a0at the United Nations \u2014 the citadel of global anti-Zionism \u2014 in the same week that the IHRA statement was published. The General Assembly passed five routine anti-Israel resolutions that essentially renewed the operations of the Division for Palestinian Rights \u2014 a dedicated department of UN employees who service the various anti-Israel committees, conferences, and propaganda campaigns that operate under the General Assembly\u2019s aegis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up until very recently, such resolutions would pass by a predictably large majority, as the governments of democracies and autocracies alike colluded in perpetuating a massive anti-Zionist propaganda apparatus that has existed within the United Nations for more than 40 years. But in the last decade, the number of member states abstaining on or opposing these very same resolutions has increased dramatically. In 2011, a total of 114 states voted in favor of the resolutions. In 2020, that number sank to 82, with 78 UN member states openly opposing, abstaining on, or not reporting for the vote on the resolutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the strategic significance of the Palestinian issue has receded over the last few years, the use of the\u00a0nakba<\/em>\u00a0as a narrative to undermine both the Jewish claim to national self-determination and the fight against antisemitism in its anti-Zionist guise is becoming less and less effective. In time, perhaps, some Arab intellectuals will realize that this development was, above all, a stroke of good fortune for the Palestinians, helping to liberate them from their damaging shibboleths toward a life of peace and looking forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben Cohen<\/strong> is a New York City-based journalist and author who writes a weekly column on Jewish and international affairs for\u00a0<\/em>JNS.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Declining Credibility of Palestinian Objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Ben Cohen \/ JNS.org A BDS protest in front of Carnegie Hall. Photo: Liberate Art. A group of Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, 122 in all, endorsed a statement last week published\u00a0by\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0newspaper that attacked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance\u2019s definition of antisemitism. These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82548,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82539\/revisions\/82548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}