Columbia University adopts controversial IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
The embattled US university says it has formally adopted the definition of anti-Semitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which classifies criticism of the state of Israel as anti-Semitic.
The move comes as Columbia carries out negotiations with the Trump administration to restore $400m in federal funds.
The IHRA, on its website, says manifestations of anti-Semitism “include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. Examples of this, according to the IHRA, include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” or “applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”.
Experts and human rights groups say the IHRA definition is problematic because it conflates legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
In April 2023, more than 100 civil society organisations wrote to the UN urging it not to adopt the IHRA definition.
The group, which included Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israeli groups such as B’Tselem and Gisha, said the definition could be used to label as anti-Semitic “documentation showing that Israel’s founding involved dispossessing many Palestinians; or arguments, also made by some Members of the Israeli Knesset, to transform Israel from a Jewish state into a multiethnic state that equally belongs to all of its citizens – that is, a state based on civic identity, rather than ethnic identity”.
The group also noted that the example on “applying double standards” opens the door to labelling as anti-Semitic anyone who focuses on Israeli abuses, as long as worse abuses are deemed to be occurring elsewhere.
Even the author of the IHRA definition, Kenneth Stern, has expressed concern over right-wing Jewish groups “weaponising” it to silence critics of Israel.
And on the other hand weakening the actual definition of anti-semitism.
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