Published: 31 July 2025
Last updated: 31 July 2025
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism has become a major focus of the criticism being directed at Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s plan to combat anti-Jewish racism. Yet the definition clearly states that criticism of Israel is not automatically antisemitic.
“Criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic,” the definition says. It depends on the context surrounding the criticism.
The definition was adopted by the IHRA at a meeting in Romania in 2016. Forty-six nations have endorsed it, including most of Europe, the US, and Australia in a bi-partisan decision in 2021.
The chief critique – which has existed since the definition was conceived, but has attracted sustained attention since the Segal announcement – is that it “conflates” criticism of Israel with antisemitism, therefore inhibiting people from making legitimate criticism of Israel and its state organs.
This is despite the definition stating that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. Furthermore, Spain and Ireland, for example, have endorsed the definition – yet the presidents of both have accused Israel of genocide.
"The claim that it suppresses criticism of Israel is completely false. What that claim does is let antisemites off the hook."
Dani Dayan, IHRA Chair
Comments2
R Jackson5 August at 12:46 am
You have built your “Zionism is antisemitism” conclusion on a chain of premises the IHRA definition does not hold.
1. “Anti‑Zionism is antisemitism.”
The IHRA definition does not make this blanket claim. It says that in some contexts, like denying Jews the right to self‑determination or demonising Israel’s existence, anti‑Zionism can be antisemitic. That is different to saying all anti‑Zionism is antisemitism.
2. “Zionism represents all Jews.”
Neither the IHRA definition nor most Zionist organisations claim this. Zionism is the movement for Jewish self‑determination. Jews hold a range of political and religious views. Pretending otherwise erases the diversity you claim to defend.
3. “Therefore all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions.”
This is exactly what the IHRA definition warns against. One example of antisemitism it gives is holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions.
Your “gotcha” falls apart because the definition directly rejects the conclusion you claim it leads to.
In your loud anti‑Zionism you manage to defend, or at least excuse, ethnoreligious nationalism that has colonised and erased minority cultures across the entire Middle East and North Africa. Yet Jewish self‑determination is the only one you treat as illegitimate.
Wesley Parish31 July at 07:51 am
Here’s my view on the IHRA ‘working definition of antisemitism’:
The Zionist Self-contradiction
One of the joys of (sometimes) being on Twitter is seeing how some people acquire a taste for their toes. And their heels, in fact, the whole bleeding leg all the way up to the hips — because that is how far they put their feet in their mouths. Putting one foot in one’s mouth is an adorable sign of absentmindedness; putting both feet in up to the hip is just being greedy.
Now there are several definitions of antisemitism out on the net, and many Zionist organizations have wholeheartedly adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Many Zionist organizations also push the narrative that opposing the Zionist project is antisemitic. Which leaves us up the proverbial … without the proverbial …
The basic equation being pushed is as follows “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”.
Zionism is defined as the set of policies and procedures to establish and run a “Jewish” state. Anti-Zionism is defined as a rejection of those policies, particularly those concerning the Palestinians. Antisemitism is defined as the hatred and fear of Jews for just being Jewish. Jewishness is defined in several ways, the religious way being thus: you are Jewish if your mother was Jewish, or if you were born into a Jewish family. The state of Israel extends that to grandparents who were Jewish.
In mathematics there is a simple operation used to solve equations or disprove their validity. It’s finding the common factors and factoring them out. Let us try that with this “equation”, factoring out the “anti”:
“Zionism is the Jewish people”.
Quite apart from the question of how policies are people, this — even broken down into something slightly saner and more palatable such as “Zionism represents all Jews” — has a severe problem. It’s related to that Latin legal dictum, cui bono? Who benefits? And its corollary, who is accountable, part of the necessary safeguards of a democracy. If Zionism represents all Jews, whether they like it or not, how does that not make all Jews, whether they like it or not, accountable for Israel’s crimes?
And this is where the IHRA working definition of antisemitism plays an interesting part:
“Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”
This is part and parcel of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. And as we have seen, the equation of “anti-Zionism is antisemitism” when factored down into “Zionism is the Jewish people; represents the entire Jewish people”, makes the Jewish people into collaborators in Israel’s ethnic cleansing, thus making them collectively responsible for that hideous communal violence. And the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, makes that an example of antisemitism.
Thus starting with “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism”, we end up with “Zionism is antisemitism”.
Slice and dice as you will, I still am driven to the conclusion that Zionists are more in need of a psychiatrist than a state.