Strike Two for the Barking Dame

In its landmark, epoch-defining, monumentally stupid report on antisemitism in the Labour Party, the EHRC determined that to cast doubt on the veracity of or motives behind an antisemitism allegation is itself unlawful anti-Jewish harassment. The Barking Dame (TBD) was among those demanding the EHRC's findings be 'accept[ed] in totality'. So eyebrows were raised when…

‘I Will Only Retreat One Inch!’

A few days before her removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar cosigned a resolution “[r]ecognizing Israel as America’s legitimate and democratic ally” and referring to “the United States’ legitimate and trusted partner and ally, the Jewish and democratic State of Israel”. To be sure, Omar pledged the same day that her “critique of… Israel’s…

Dispatch from a Love-Fest

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Britain this week to request increased military assistance, including fighter jets. Readers who turned to the BBC for analysis were treated to the following insights. – Western foreign policy is driven by 'compassion': President Zelensky is acutely aware of the need to keep his Western backers engaged in this war lest 'compassion fatigue'…

Talking Labour

I spoke with Mouin Rabbani of Jadaliyya about the new 'new antisemitism': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-so8QLGWrDU

Talking IHRA

I spoke with Jadaliyya's Mouin Rabbani about why the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism is dumb but dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGjeRG09sSw Correction: I incorrectly stated that European Commissioner Katharina von Schnurbein praised the use of the IHRA definition to cancel student events in Britain in early 2017. What she praised, rather, was the British Government's use of…

In Defence of Francesca Albanese

In July 2014, Israel embarked on a brutal military assault against the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including 550 children. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross observed, 'I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before'. As this devastation unfolded, Francesca Albanese - then a specialist on Palestinian…

Why the UN Should Reject the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism

A campaign is brewing to have the United Nations adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. Over at Jacobin, I set out why the UN should reject this propagandistic, partisan instrument: Scholars have set out forensically and exhaustively the arguments that show the IHRA definition is fundamentally flawed. But one need not be…

An IHRA Conundrum

Jerusalem's Deputy Mayor Aryeh King has announced a program 'to "help" non-Jews emigrate from Israel'. King explained: Essentially the idea comes from the Law of Return. The Law of Return is a racist law, it doesn't allow everyone to immigrate to Israel. So we said, anyone to whom the Law of Return doesn't apply and is…

IHRA Definition, Before and After

Israel lobby groups, before the propagandistic, pro-Israel IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism is adopted: “We never had the assumption that people would be put in prison for quote-unquote violating IHRA. You can’t violate IHRA. It’s not a law. It’s not codified. When I see that language, it’s just absurd. People who use it that way…

International Law

For although I do not mean to assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages to shorten the road to any great conclusion — their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings like unto those in which drunken men, under the pressure of a…