For the record: My analysis of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
I actually don’t object to most of it
I had not previously actually looked at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.[1] Someone posted a link and so now I have it.
This is the definition I have accused of conflating Israeli policy for hatred of Jews, a conflation which may or may not have been formalized when I wrote my dissertation and a conflation which I nonetheless warned against in my discussion of what I then thought to be an inadequately explained neoconservative support for Israel.[2]
It is also the definition which has been used to censor dissenting voices who object to Israeli policy and the U.S. embrace of that policy.
I actually have no objection to most of the IHRA definition. But there are three bullet points which I will highlight as problematic:
First, when the definition counts “[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as anti-Semitism,[3] it neglects that all people have a right to self-determination. That goes for Ukrainians, it goes for native Hawaiians, it goes for American Indians, it goes for Tibetans, and it goes for Palestinians.
It is inevitable that competing claims will arise as in at least some of those examples. But to deny someone else’s right to self-determination to assert a right attributed to Jews is to deny that someone else the very rights that Zionists allow themselves. This is straightforward bigotry.
And it is clear that Israel has, from before its founding, been a settler-colonial project[4] which has scattered five million Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East.[5] Zionists who assert a right of self-determination for Jews do so explicitly by denying that right to Palestinians in mass numbers.
Second, when the definition counts “[a]pplying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as anti-Semitism,[6] it glosses over that ethnic cleansing and genocide are crimes regardless of who commits them, whether “democratic” or not. When Bezalel Smotrich “vowed that ‘Gaza will be entirely destroyed’ as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will ‘leave in great numbers to third countries,’”[7] he merely stated the quiet part out loud. This has been the project from the beginning.
Third, when the definition counts “[d]rawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as anti-Semitism,[8] and with the founding of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust, we can only ask what we are to think when the victims of one holocaust go on to commit one themselves.
Those are three bullet points out of—I count—eleven, a bit more than a quarter of the definition. But the last bullet point is perhaps most curious of all: It counts “[h]olding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” as anti-Semitism.[9] Certainly I agree this is anti-Semitic; I have known a few Jews who stridently object to Israel’s actions and it would be nonsensical to hold them responsible for those actions. But if Israel’s actions toward Palestinians are to be held as beyond reproach, as the Israeli government so stridently insists, what is there to hold Jews collectively responsible for? It sounds like a tell.
[1] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, “Working definition of antisemitism,” n.d., https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
[2] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
[3] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, “Working definition of antisemitism,” n.d., https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
[4] Karen Attiah, “The colonial history of Israel-Palestine: Bringing the receipts,” Washington Post, November 3, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/03/colonial-history-britain-israel/
[5] United Nations, “About the Nakba,” n.d., https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/
[6] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, “Working definition of antisemitism,” n.d., https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
[7] Jason Burke and Julian Borger, “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says, Guardian, May 6, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/06/hamas-israel-hunger-war-in-gaza
[8] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, “Working definition of antisemitism,” n.d., https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
[9] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, “Working definition of antisemitism,” n.d., https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism