The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Is Not Only Worthless But Dangerous

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act with broad bipartisan support (320 to 91), which supporters of the bill celebrated by saying it would help fight antisemitism on campus. The bill directs the Department of Education to use the definition adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016 when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. In this post, I want to explain why this definition is not only analytically worthless, but even harmful.

First, here the IHRA definition of antisemitism in question, which can be found on the organization’s website along with some commentary and a few examples to illustrate it:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The problem with that definition, to put it succinctly, is that it’s so vague as to be completely useless.

It will be useful to give an example to illustrate. Suppose that I have the perception that Jews as a group are really good for the world, so I encourage people to give money to Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization, because I want Jews to flourish at universities.

Well, strictly speaking, this satisfies the IHRA definition. After all, it’s a “certain perception of Jews”, and its rhetorical manifestation is “directed toward a Jewish community institution”. It’s true that it's not expressed as “hatred toward Jews”, but the definition only says that antisemitism may be so expressed, hence that doesn’t disqualify that example under the definition.

Obviously, I understand that it's not the kind of things that the IHRA definition intends to single out as antisemitism, but the fact that strictly speaking it applies to that example even though it's obviously not a case of antisemitism illustrates the point that it's way too vague to be analytically useful. It’s not easy to define antisemitism and no definition is ever going to be perfect, but the IHRA definition is not just imperfect, it’s actually very bad.

In fact, not only is it too vague to be analytically useful, but this vagueness actually makes it dangerous when it’s used to determine what kind of speech should be allowed at universities, because it allows to describe as antisemitic views that, whether you agree with them or not, people should be able to state without being accused of antisemitism, thereby stifling debate.

The commentary on the definition and the examples provided by the IHRA to illustrate it really drive that point home. In particular, the gloss on the definition says that “manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”, though it clarifies that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.

This may seem innocuous with the clarification, but it’s not. Indeed, it’s also extremely vague, and this could be construed to apply to criticisms of Israel that, again whatever you think of their merits, are clearly not antisemitic.

To see why, let’s have a look at one of the examples of antisemitism that the IHRA gives, which is clearly related to this point:

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.

Now, I agree that it would be antisemitic to say that Jews, and only Jews, don’t have a right to self-determination, whatever “self-determination” means exactly. However, virtually no one defends that view, so that’s irrelevant in practice.

But what if someone believes that no group, neither the Jews nor anyone else, has a right to self-determination? If by a “right to self-determination” one means the right to have their own state, I happen to agree with that view, because accepting that such a right exists and that it must be enforced would destabilize the entire international system.

According to such a view, whether a particular group should have a state depends on the details of the case, and in particular whether it will result in more bad than good due to the effect that allowing that group to have a state would have on other people, so there is no automatic right.

Now, some people think that 1) the Jews were only able to establish a Jewish state in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs who lived there, and that 2) realistically it will not be possible for Palestinians to have equal rights on any part of historic Palestine as long as Israel is defined as a Jewish state.¹ So they call for, not the expulsion of Jews from the territory of historic Palestine, but the creation of a binational state in which both Jews and Palestinians would have equal rights.

That’s just a version of the case for the one-state solution and, while I personally disagree with it for various reasons I’m not going to get into here, that view is obviously not antisemitic.² You may think that it’s unrealistic or that if that plan could somehow be implemented it would result in harm to Jews, including possibly physical harm or even death, but as long as it’s sincerely held and the person disagrees with you on those points it’s not antisemitic by any reasonable definition.

But it’s predictable that, if universities use the IHRA definition, such a view will incorrectly be labeled as antisemitic. It’s obvious that, rather than risk losing federal funding, universities will err on the side of caution and punish views that it ought to be possible to defend in a university.

And that is why that definition is not only analytically worthless, but actually harmful, because it will obviously be used to discredit perfectly legitimate positions and exclude them from the debate on the ground that they are antisemitic, even though they’re not.

Of course, the truth is that for many people, this is not a bug but a feature: it's precisely because the IHRA definition can be used to stack the deck against certain positions in the debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the view that the best way to solve it is with a one-state solution, that pro-Israel groups have been trying, with quite a lot of success, to convince various governments and organizations to accept it as their working definition of antisemitism.

In fact, what makes this debate even more surreal is that even the guy who came up with the IHRA definition just came out against the bill that Congress just passed, arguing that the definition shouldn’t be used to regulate speech and that it was being weaponized, which it obviously is.

This bill may not actually make any difference to what universities are already doing, because Trump had already directed the Office of Civil Rights to use the IHRA definition through an executive order in 2019 (though it’s not obvious because it may still result in more stringent enforcement), but it will make a difference in the future because once this bill is signed into law it will be politically impossible to repeal it.

If you ask me, what is happening right now is that we’re in the middle of a moral panic about antisemitism on campuses and pro-Israel activists have cynically taken advantage of that to successfully enshrine a significant restriction on speech in universities, but even if you disagree with me on that point everyone should agree that it’s a terrible bill.

1. For the record, I agree with 1 and, in part for that reason (though not only for that reason), I think that it would have been better if Zionism had not existed, but I disagree with 2.

2. Briefly, while I think that the creation of Israel was unjust (for reasons I alluded to in the previous footnote), now that it exists and that several generations of Jews have put down their roots over there and created a vibrant nation I think it would be neither realistic nor, though in my view that is more debatable, fair to demand they give it up in favor of a binational state.