The Left has sought to redefine concepts from “human rights” to “infrastructure.”
Now, some liberals are trying to redefine antisemitism. It’s a disgrace. To do so, these liberals have been promoting a misguided definition called “The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.”
While the definition correctly identifies classic antisemitism — for example, blaming the Jews for controlling the media — it dismisses the manner by which anti-Zionism is antisemitism. For example, the declaration states, “Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, anti-Semitic.”
Wrong.
The boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement is antisemitic as it seeks to target the Jewish state psychologically and economically and seek its collapse by virtue of economic pain. The movement also includes a double standard by holding Israel but not actual human rights-violating countries, such as Iran, China, Russia, or North Korea, accountable. Nor does the movement target exports from Gaza, which is openly controlled by a terrorist group that revels in blowing up children.
The Jerusalem declaration also claims that “it is not anti-Semitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants ‘between the river and the sea,’ whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.”
This reference to “between the river and the sea” is a commonly understood rallying cry for Israel’s destruction. It refers, after all, to the seizure of all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Israel.
While the declaration’s support for the “Palestinian demand for justice and political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law” is not antisemitic, it omits that the Palestinians live under the Palestinian Authority, an authority that oppresses its own people and rewards terrorism.
At the end of the day, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, adopted by dozens of countries, including the United States, is the most accurate. It correctly defines how demonizing Israel is antisemitic. But it also reads that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
The first step in combating, let alone solving, a problem is correctly defining that problem. The Jerusalem declaration minimizes the demonization of Israel and anti-Zionism. In pushing its narrative, liberals aid and abet antisemitism.
Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.
