- by FK
- The Guardian
- Issue #2202
Photo: rawpixel (CCO)
Commissioner Virginia Bell, who is running the antisemitism Royal Commission, has acknowledged that parts of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism were “contentious.”
She’s not wrong, although that didn’t stop her from World-famous human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson KC has said that “the looseness of the definition is liable to chill legitimate criticisms of the state of Israel and coverage of human rights abuses against Palestinians.” He calls the definition “not fit for purpose.”
Jeffrey Loewenstein, former member of the Victorian Bar and a one-time Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission and member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, has written in Deepcut that the definition is “so wide that it is possible to drive a truck through it.”
He’s not wrong. The definition includes “rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism … directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property.”
Jillian Segal, appointed as Australia’s antisemitism envoy, has no background in the study of antisemitism. What she does have is a firm opinion that criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism.
Segal is a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), a member of pro-Israel lobby groups, and a one-time chairwoman of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Loewenstein says that Segal has embarked on making the IHRA definition adopted Australia-wide. She has recommended that the IHRA definition be adopted by “all levels of government, public institutions and regulatory bodies.” What Segal is after is making it unacceptable for Australians to have a negative view of Israel.
According to Loewenstein, some 200 world-wide renowned scholars on the Holocaust and antisemitism have trenchantly criticised the IHRA definition. They’ve put forward their own definition, the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism (JDA).
The JDA definition is very simply:
“Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).”
Segal has persuaded the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) to adopt the IHRA definition. Already nurses and other health workers are reporting that they’re scared of speaking out for Palestine and coming to the attention of those pro-Israel that make it their business to threaten the livelihood of anyone who speaks up against the ongoing genocide.
The Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Australia’s largest trade union, has said it is concerned that the IHRA definition may conflate legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism more broadly.
