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gowans.blog/2024/05/02/the-politics-of-defining-antisemitism/

May 2, 2024

By Stephen Gowans

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require the Education Department to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal antidiscrimination laws.

The IHRA defines the following as an example of “antisemitism in public life”: “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.”

In connection with this, it should be noted that, “the Jewish people” do not have a right to self-determination senior to, or negating, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination on the historic territory of the Palestinians.

Israel, exercising de facto control over the traditional territory of the Palestinians from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, by the force of arms largely supplied by the United States and Germany, is an apartheid, racist, state, which enforces Jewish supremacy over the native Palestinian population. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, and other human rights organization have characterized Israel as an apartheid state. (…)