[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the Middle East Centre for the final of our seventh of our series for the Michaelmas term, 2024. We meet on usually on a Thursday instead of our traditional Friday. Small, but I think both to accommodate our speakers and our audience.
It was important that we have a Thursday seminar this year and today, and the topic is one that I don't think we can really afford to avoid any longer. The challenge is thank you to our speakers. We're inviting them to come to Oxford for tonight's seminar was to try and square two positions that are very strongly held in Oxford, in Britain, in the Western world at large. And one is that there is.
A new and intensified wave of antisemitism that has scarred the life of Israelis as Jews and Zionists and supporters of Zionism, not just in Oxford or in London, but across Britain and Europe and the United States. And that the events since the end of October and the war in Gaza has served to take a latent anti-Semitism and activate it into something distinctly more powerful than what we have seen before.
And that this is affected. Life in Oxford and in our academic community, I think would be wrong to deny. It may not be a virulent form of anti-Semitism. I hear far more often reports of shunning of a sensitive, isolated or not daring to speak on minds openly or freely for fear that one might then be subject to hostility of the nation.
So that is one argument that's out there, and the other is the argument that says that the way in which anti-Semitism is defined today is being weaponised to silence criticism of Israel, regardless of how grievous its actions, and to try and silence support for Palestine, for Palestine and Palestinians. And so there is a sense of mistrust about the way in which anti-Semitism is being levelled against foreign policy movements,
as though this is a form of censorship. And I submit to you that these two propositions are not mutually exclusive. That both things can actually be going on at the same time, that there can be a new sense of hostility that makes it uncomfortable to be Israeli or Jewish, or openly supportive of Israel.
But at the same time that the way in which people in public life are using anti-Semitism as a way of silencing criticism or putting on hold support for Palestinian claims can also be going on at the same time. And that is what lies behind the title of tonight's rather provocative title for tonight's seminar on defining anti-Semitism.
What do you support for? It is a very pointed exercise, and it comes in the context of an effort by many supporters of Israel to make it a standard acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism, though even its framers have expressed their reservations about its applicability for academic circles in particular. And I'm not going to say more on that, because it really is encroaching on the trade of our speakers.
But there has been a very strong pushback by many who see in the eye for a definition I don't. A real attempt to silence criticism of Israel. And I think that that was one of the motivating factors behind an initiative. To try and define anti-Semitism in a way that scholars felt more comfortable with.
And that it truly identifies the problem without necessarily making the linkage between the problem that Israel that's sort of disconnected there in a way that we felt that maybe Ireland had failed to do. But I won't say more about that, because, again, I will be encroaching on the domain of our speakers.
But I think it's important to have a sense of what lies behind the agenda in this Middle East centre, because in a sense, this is more of a European or a British issue than a middle eastern one, strictly speaking. But it has been provoked by events in the region in ways that we can't deny and that have affected the life of all of us who work on this region and our place in this university. It has truly become the elephant in the room, and we felt that we needed to address it.
And to that we turned to those who we thought we could trust most to give us the insightful and balanced assessment that this very sensitive subject deserves. And those two scholars are Brian Cook, an honorary fellow of social policy at Carnegie Hall and emeritus of the Faculty of Philosophy here at the University of Oxford. He has written and lectured extensively on racism, anti-Semitism, Judaism, and Islamophobia.
His books include Being Jewish and Doing Justice Affects the Jewish Race, and Words of Fire. He selected essays of. He's one of the authors of the Jews Jerusalem Declaration on anti-Semitism, which was published in 2021. And we are very welcome. We are very pleased to be welcoming Chidinma from Tel Aviv University, where he is Professor of Law, and from the Vandalia Institute in Jerusalem. His fields include sociology of law and religion.
He has completed a study on the history of the relationship between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Germany. Currently, he's working on the goal of political imaginaries of the future, including political messianism. The backsliding democracies. His book The Moderate or Die won the American Sociological Association Best Book of the year award. And he was involved in the formulation of the Jerusalem Declaration on anti-Semitism.
So tonight I'll invite both our speakers. To see what they have to say on the subject. I will not be keeping time and I won't be cutting them short. I'll start the questioning, but I will hand over to you very quickly to your audience, because I know this is a subject from each of you who want to engage us. So may I please welcome to the podium. Please give him your. Okay. Uh, well, thank you, Eugene, for that introduction.
And it's a pleasure to be here in the US and to have this opportunity to make an argument that I haven't actually made before. So I'm trying it out. Um, it's an item on the slide was very nice, everybody, but I hope that doesn't include, um, all the people in this room. In a way, I haven't got much to ask what you've just said. Eugene, I completely agree with your summary that it is possible for both those things to be true at the same time.
Um, for that to be a rise in anti-Semitism and a problem in that connection, and for anti-Semitism to be instrumentalized for political purposes. And I think both those things are happening at the same time. Um, but I'm not going to interrupt myself any further. I'm going to go straight into this presentation, which I am going to read out, because I wanted the argument to and want to cover the argument in the 20 or 25 minutes that I've got.
And, um. Uh, and I want it to be as coherence as possible. So here goes. Defining antisemitism. What is the point? A friend of mine, a Southern Orthodox rabbi, called him Rabbi Mendel, who was going from time to time for a chat, usually about anti-Semitism. One evening the phone rang at 1030. Who could be calling so late? It was Rabbi Mendel. He had just come from a meeting and he was hiding the problem of Islamophobia, he said emphatically.
It's much worse than anti-Semitism. But if you say that, he added in his thick Yiddish accent, which I could use, you'll be crucified. Now I open with this anecdote not merely as an illustration of classic rabbinical, which of which we put in more these days, but because it helps get us in our in perspective. It's not that Islamophobia is more of a problem, but it is a problem, a problem along with anti-Semitism in the debate about the conflict in Israel and Palestine.
Racism against Arabs is a problem too. And as long as we remember this, it's fine to focus on anti-Semitism as we are doing this evening. But we needed someone to connect the dots with other kinds of racism. If we don't situate the concept of the 1970s in its conceptual neighbourhood, we don't fully get it. Now there is a time to develop a sword. This evening, though I shall mention it again briefly near the end as a feature of the JTA The Jerusalem Declaration on anti-Semitism.
In contrast to the HRA designation, the Nira. The second point about perspective is this. As I understand it, the focus this evening is on the debates about palestine-israel, not the politics. Everyone in this room I am sure has a view on the one. I'm no exception, but I'll try to put my political views to one side. I won't succeed. Not entirely, but I'll try these. And 100 mark. We won't cover the ground.
The subject is two of us. The title of the senator asks, what is the point of defining anti-Semitism? And for our purposes tonight, as I understand it, we're looking primarily at protests against Israel and Zionism on campus. And the point of defining anti-Semitism exists to help draw the line between legitimate political speech, which should be protected, and anti-Semitic speech which should not be tolerated. It's important to be specific about this. Because.
Definitions of horses for courses. A good definition of anti-Semitism might suit one purpose, not another. To give just one illustration for the purposes of developing equality law. What counts is discrimination against Jews, with or without a racialized discourse. When drafting a hate speech code, it is roughly the other way around. Period. It's one thing to define anti-Semitism with reference to our own day and age. Another when doing historical research into Jewish life in medieval Europe.
And so, naturally, the definitions for these various purposes will overlap, for they meet in the same world and converge on the same concept anti-Semitism. But there is no overarching absolute one size fits all definition of anti-Semitism hovering in the background any more than there was a Holy Grail in King Arthur's day. Which brings us to the definition of antisemitism, produced in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
People aren't familiar with this body. It's an intergovernmental body. It has, I think, 35 members. It was created in what was it, 2000 and, um, something or other? Um, founded in 1998 to address challenges related to the Holocaust and to the genocide of the Roma. Those two things were put together. So their definition.
By the way, we're on the note, by the way, was quote, created primarily so that European data collectors could know what to include and exclude when collecting data on anti-Semitic incidents. These are the words of the man who wrote it, who was the lead author. He goes on to say in the same Guardian article from which I'm quoting, it was never intended to be a campus hate speech quote. But that's exactly the interest that has been taken in this text by universities that have adopted it.
The definition describes itself as non legally binding. That's in the text of the definition. But as Rebecca Rousseau has observed, it's acquired the status of a quasar, a law of phrase. The archery definition has had enormous traction across much of the planet. It's been adopted by 45 countries, including the UK and by many, perhaps the majority of universities in this country, including this one.
For years, all kinds of bodies have signed up to it from the Church of Scotland to the Premier League, though I've not heard of it being invoked by Vietnam. It might happen, but there is a school of controversy surrounding it, so I think there is good reason to be dissatisfied with it. I don't believe it helps us draw that line that I was talking about as a separate suggestion of political speech from the speech that is anti Smith.
It. But I'm not sure. You know, most of the controversy over this document is based on a false premise that is shared by both sides. That's why I say that I didn't to engage everyone, because I going to say that the misreading of this document is more or less across the board. Advocates and opponents of the definition of light tend to read something is a text that isn't there, and then all of you furious about it comes to this.
The only thing that the two sides agree about is what it is they don't agree about. And both sides are wrong about this. It's a curious state of affairs, worthy of a swift in satire. And there are lessons to be learned which bear on the role of definitions and on the dereliction of duty on the part of universities, including this one. The bulk of my flow will consist in making this up us. I'm not here to promote the GTA over the itinerary definition though.
Try as hard as I may. It won't be possible to avoid showing that the GTA is a superior to us. That is to say, it helps us draw that line, whereas the destination doesn't and can't. As we begin with, let's consider the definitions in general how and to what extent the definition can be useful for making thoughtful and intelligent judgements. First, what is the definition? The definitions of all of us are clarified as a concept is one word means and does so succinctly.
I know emeritus when I feel like I'm back in the old the good old days when I was like. That's my definition of the definition. Some concepts are so simple that a dictionary entry is the last word. So take for example, the definition of a square in the shorter OED. I closed the plane single with full rights angles and for equal straight line through editing. But I don't think it was like justice or friendship, happiness and so on. Words for concepts that are complex, layered and contested.
It's not so easy. If it were that I would be out of business, for there would be no such subjects as philosophy. But what is philosophy? So Socrates and his companions. It's an ongoing search for definitions of words like the ones I just mentioned. Keywords for humanity, for politics and ethics. Words whose meanings overflow their banks. You could define philosophy as inquiry into the meaning of words and overflow them up.
anti-Semitism was not a term in Socrates's day, but it is now as as racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny and so on. These are all complex concepts, too complex to be caught once in a finite set of words, a definition. Which doesn't mean the old definition of anti-Semitism can't be better than another. But it does mean, paradoxically, as this, no definition can be definitive.
Don't be fooled by the world's definition. In short, we shouldn't ask too much of the HRA definition of antisemitism. But more should we settle for too little? We certainly should not settle for a definition that muddy the waters and moreover, lends itself to promoting a particular political agenda rather than rising above the fray.
If we had not thought, if we had not thought that the Irish definition is guilty on both counts, we, the 7 or 8 members of the drafting group who wrote the JDA, will not have received this. We wrote it for three reasons. To clarify what the only children in sex novels. This the concept of anti-Semitism above partisan politics regarding the Middle East. So it's better to recognise it and therefore that's it.
And to quote from the preamble to the JDA. To protect the space for an open debate about the next question of the future of Israel Palestine. The JDA was published in March 2021, nearly five years after the Irish already issued their definition. If I have any regrets concerning it, it's that we didn't write it sooner. In a way, the horses are ready to for the stable by the time we. Uh, produce some documents and put it into the world.
Now. The controversy over the itinerary destination centres on the set of 11 examples. I hope people in the room know what I'm referring to. Vaguely. You must have heard about this, even if you haven't had the opportunity to look at the text. These examples come after two sentences that constitute the core definition.
Now I say cool because according to Mark one Simon, who chaired the committee that produced the definition, the sentiment of examples are integral to the definition, which moreover is how they usually translate. Now I'll get to the examples in a moment. But first, a brief look at the core definition. Is it helpful? Well, that's the question. Let us take each of these two sentences in turn one. anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.
David Seldon, director of the Public Institute for the study of anti-Semitism, has aptly called this sentence bewilderingly imprecise. Furthermore, it's unwise to define racism of any variety by the most extreme forms it takes and hatred, which is what this sentence highlights, is an extreme form. Moreover, while hatred of Jews might be common on the right, especially the far right, it's not the same on the left.
On the left, an anti-Semitic discourse is typically the product of convergence between classic left wing scenes, such as anti capitalism and certain anti-Semitic tropes that are deeply embedded in European culture, such as the rich Jew, the Rothschilds. Missing all of this, the first sentence of the original record definition is not only inadequate but misleading. Here's the second sentence. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism.
I was directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and all their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. Jewish or non-Jewish. Well, that narrows it down. It's true. Someone's home is as Jewish. Might turn out not to be. And someone who isn't Jewish might be targeted because, say, some of the best friends Jewish. In the thousand and ten UK Equality Act. This is called. Discrimination by deception and discrimination by association respectively.
By the same token, it's true that you don't have to be Muslim to be a victim of Islamophobia. It's even conceivable for misogyny to be manifested against men. But we would not more define Islamophobia as directed towards Muslim or non-Muslim individuals. Or misogyny as directed towards female or male individuals. And we would define it as something that can be sent home or not. So it's true that it can be either lost and found, but this doesn't define it.
A valuable point about the extension of the concept that antisemitism is buried in this sentence. But as it stands, the sentence is to adopt David Sullivan's phrase bewilderingly broad. To summarise, the cool definition is more like an enum definition, or would be if analyst. That was the answer to the question is it helpful? I think it answers itself. We come now to the horns of the controversy. The rest of the document, which includes the set of examples.
As I said earlier, I'll stand and be treated both by the general public and by the item itself as integral to the definition of this kind of ways. The document that I'm referring to, this is the sorry definition as taken from the website. It now has a different appearance from when I took it a few years ago. There's the core definition that I just quoted in bold in a box, and then you get this series of examples, 11 examples.
And I was not saying what the examples of deliberately because I want to discuss the status of these examples, because that's where I think there has been a misreading and a misunderstanding on both sides of the controversy. The status of these examples. The controversy revolves around the parks, including seven of the 11 examples that pertain to Israel's origins. There's a striking fact about the controversy. To put it crudely, too crudely.
But the showing us shines the light. Advocates of the definition tend to be pro-Israel. Critics tend to be pro-Palestinian. Now, this is a freak coincidence. Something is rotten in the state of the definition. And in the debate about it, the definition of anti-Semitism ought to stand apart from the political battle between supporters of one side of the conflict or the other, and instead, the isolated as an issue is itself a site where the political battle is fought.
As such, I cannot possibly help draw the line. We seek to draw the line between the gist of a political speech which should be protected, and anti-Semitic speech which should not be tolerated. The line this definition draws is in practice political, not conceptual. I say in practice, because on paper the actual definition does not do what those signs in the control policy thinks it does. Examples are introduced with a caveat that says, and I quote they.
The examples could take into account the overall context. Be examples of anti-Semitism. Cool concepts. But that could, in the context, get lost in the commotion, in the noise of the political battle. That is waste of the examples. Opponents and supporters of the definition alike treat the examples as absolute. Although the text says that they are conditional. A caveat that I just wrote out.
On the other hand, the first four examples of the 11, the ones that don't pertain to Israel or Zionism include the blood libel, Holocaust denial, the myths about the world, Jewish conspiracy, and so on. Now, barring exceptional circumstances, these samples do not depend on overall context. They are classic anti-Semitic tropes. There are nonetheless vivid and clear cut expressions of anti-Semitism that you could find.
The unusually definition is thus open to the charge themselves to treat these cases as unambiguously anti-Semitic. This is reminiscent of the charges brought against the president's supporters in Michigan and coal, and the congressional hearings on campus anti-Semitism last year, which led or contributed to their demise as president. Other supporters of the high definition have not noticed this when they endorse. And I have yet to hear a single critic point this out.
So bearing this in mind and taking into account also the following condition of the cooler destination you want or decide to. How carefully have people on both sides of the fence in this who prophecy? What do they imagine they are just sending an attacking? The question put by the title of the seminar again, is this defining antisemitism? What is the point? Well, what is the point?
It's a definition. Doesn't distinguish between cases that are clearly, categorically anti-Semitic and cases that many could be anti-Semitic if they're all thrown together in one big bunk. I say all in the definition. The definition runs these two kinds of cases together. It's worse than not helpful. It's a mess. The fact that it's a mess is pretty obvious. Carefully, this should attempt the obvious.
But it appears to me that neither the advocates of the definition nor its opponents have read the text carefully. I wonder how many have read it at all. Now carelessness is next to tendentious. Because the way to the definition falls on Israel and Zionism. Seven of the 11 examples and also other paragraphs in the text. And given this, and given that the first four of the 11 examples are clear cut cases of anti-Semitism. The text lends itself to being weaponized, to use a word that I never use.
To what extent this is actually happened. I'm not able to say that's a factual question. And as long as the most of the facts are not my forte, all I shall do is quote one critic of the channel, Rea, who speaks with some authority for innumerable others. The only destination of this critique says my quoting has been primarily used and, I argue, grossly abused to suppress and chill pro-Palestinian speech.
That's a quote. He takes aim not only of the groups that have used the definition, but also the institutions that adopt it. About whom? He says Acidly. The definition has, quote, become the symbol of are we protecting Jews or are we not protecting you? He adds, we have lost the critical ability to say what utility it has. Now this could be B2B solutions. It's kind of stunned. The man who wrote the ordinary definition, or at least was its lead author, whom I also quoted earlier.
And again, the principal author is now one of its principal critics. Now, of course, that doesn't automatically make his criticisms valid, but it should give us pause. I suggested at the outset that the point of defining anti-Semitism in the context of campus protests against Israel, Zionism. Is this piece so helpful that I understand that this is a physical speech which should be protected, and anti-Semitic speech should not be tolerated.
Now, there is more to drawing this line than identifying anti-Semitic tropes, language and images from the anti-Semitic playbook, which is 120 on so far. There's another consideration the degree or intensity of speech aimed against Israel. On this question. The answer is yes. It should contains a cohesive notion that anti-Semitism could be manifested in the targeting of Israel.
The text continues, and I'm quoting now, however, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic. Now, at first sight, this sentence seems to provide you protected, but only if you saw the video, because it clearly implies that excessive criticism that is greater than that levelled against any other country is in and of itself anti-Semitic.
But it isn't any more than excessive criticism of the PLO is necessarily racist against our own kind of simians. Excessive criticism is just a fact of political debate, especially when feelings run as high as they do in the context of Palestine and Israel. There is no requirement in human rights ethics. All the laws of American attention.
Speech has to be measured or reasonable. This point is fundamental to the principle of freedom of expression, which of course is affirms not only by reminding of the universal migration of human rights, but also article ten of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Article 14 expressly forbids discrimination on the grounds of political opinion, and neither article ten no. 14 stipulates that an opinion has to be reasonable, or the criticism of a country may not be excessive, or that it must be, quote, similar to that levelled against any other country. Now, I wasn't just the Oxford Union debate last week, and whether or not Israel is an apartheid state and Mr. Genocide, I think the motion was something like that and got passed by.
I think it was asked. But it does sound as if the seas of rhetoric were running high in the speeches of games. Some of the speeches against Israel. But what's this? Will they, will these pictures music? It's a different question. I'm not making that question whether they want or they want. I'm not here to judge. I don't know, I haven't read them through thoroughly.
I'm only making the point that just because the Caesar rhetoric, as I just put it, were running high, it doesn't follow that they were anti-Semitic. Even if the speeches were completely unreasonable and not sufficiently based on that doesn't mean that they are anti-Semitic. The same goes the other way round. To protect free speech, it is crucial not to fold the second question into the first.
The line between reasonable and unreasonable speech is different from the line between antisemitic and non antisemitic speech. But the injury definition blurs, and it's not hard to see this just a little bit on reflection. On the steps. No, I know I'm 51 in diameter. The I'm sorry definition of true love, but that's not actually the point of the points am. In terms of the overall arguments. The point is this.
But it's not hard to see the flaws and shortcomings in the actual text that they're largely passed over in science in the controversy. A careful reading. It doesn't have to be extremely careful when expose. Now, even as the Premier League didn't get the definition of carefully before adopting it. Surely universities including this one should have. Clearly that is not a text that confuses the issues and a debate that is confused about red lines.
There does no one anything. It doesn't help combat anti-Semitism. No, this is just a political speech. Universities ought to be the bodies that call this out, calling for critical analysis of the text. On the whole, they have in this case, this is what I meant at the outset by dereliction of duty. I'm approaching the final portion of you. Take your time. Well, in that case. Out the article that I wrote for the definition.
We wrote the JDA to try to stop the rot caused by tennis, and you cannot read it more precisely. Before the new year, there was only one game in town. We set out to provide an alternative use using alternative and improvements. Will you be the judge? The text is available online. This is the Jerusalem Declaration on anti-Semitism. And I'm not going to go through it now, because then I really would be using up far too much time. There are just a few remarks that I want to make. First.
The JDA is, as the title says, a declaration, not a definition. More even a so-called working definition, which is what the itinerary definition says. Well, working is the Word of God dictionary definition uses to describe itself. But what does this mean to anyone who tries to tinker with the text?
We've seen that when the Labour Party set up a subcommittee and came up with a modified version of the high definition proposal that I thought was a very good version and actually an improvement on the original when they got lambasted for having done so. You have to treat this text almost as sacred. The difference between the declaration and the definition matters. We didn't set out to pin down the word anti-Semitism, though the text does include a short definition.
Here is anti-Semitism, discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence against Jews as Jews or Jewish institutions as Jewish. Full stop. This is our attempt at a succinct definition of the word, but it's meant to be no more than a rule of thumb, a single post pointing in the direction of the concept.
A definition of a complex concept like antisemitism, love, justice or friendship or happiness, or any of the other topics that I mentioned at the beginning in Plato's Socratic dialogues, and as I do, more points of direction. The rest of the text of the JDA is as a renounced honest Indian rabbi by the name of Hillel famously said in a different context. Commentary. I would go with the okay to go to inquiry's complex layers uncontested.
Commentary is of the essence. The definition is just a starting point. It shouldn't be treated as the end and then set up as a kind of moral layer. Uh um. Comparing, um, reference points. It's a starting point. I can't distil how a commentary in the GTA into a few short sentences, but I would like to point out two ways in which we tried to rectify flaws in the sorry definition. First as the business of connecting the dots.
As I said in the beginning to quote from our preamble, we hope that while anti-Semitism has certain distinctive features, the fight against it is inseparable from the overall fight against all forms of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and gender discrimination. Second. Bearing in mind the confusion of the status and contents of the initial examples. Our guidelines are divided into three sets a general be Israel and Palestine. Examples in all the cases are antisemitic. C.
Israel and Palestine. Examples. On the face of it that are not anti-Semitic. We don't present the guidelines or the examples they contain as integral parts of the definition. That is precisely what we call guidelines. Taken as a whole. The declaration is intended to do no more nor less than give guidance, whether to a person or a group or institution, with a view to enhancing the capacity to make sound judgements. JJ no doubt has lots of holes and trolls, but here's an invitation.
In the words of Isaiah 118. Come now, and let us reason together. That's all here with us because our text isn't written and stuff. Well, fishing. You are really striking at some of the most vociferous people on either side of the controversy around the generation of kids around the age old definition of Jewish. For the games. But it's not surprising when you think about the definition of Jew, someone who disagrees with others. Which prompts enclosing an anecdote. Rabbi.
It's helping them. We're both tumblers at home. Distinguished scholars and respected leaders. And of music. But they took opposite sides on every issue. One day now Stony humble make a change from a huge honking, said Robin. With respect, our community is small, but our sewer troubles are great. We need our wise elders to give us guidance. So give me the code. You are run by your hood, just occasionally not disagreeing with each other. I myself was offended. Of course you asked me this question.
You said angrily. Ask your hood. He's the one who always disagreeing. So good evening everyone. It's good to see, um, familiar faces and many new faces. And thank you, Eugene, for inviting us. Thank you, Jenny and Brian. It is a hard act to follow. I'll be the one always disagreeing with you guys. Uh, if I had time, maybe, uh, in the discussion, we can have some, uh, disagreements. Um, but at the point, um, or the question I'm asking is the similar question, uh, what's the point?
So I should say that I come to this question this evening not as an expert in the field, although I have studied for many years the questions of, uh, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the relationship, especially in the German context.
I will be personally sharing with you this evening my, uh, experience and my thoughts as a scholar who was involved in the formulation of the JTA, I'd like to explore with you some insights that, uh, have come to my mind over some of the more recent here, um, uh, this precise historical juncture. But I want to begin with the question that maybe some of you are asking themselves that maybe those who are asking this question didn't show up this evening.
Why, uh, discuss anti-Semitism now, are there bigger problems in the world at the moment than anti-Semitism? Put more bluntly, if you'd like. Why even now, when the Jewish state is performing war crimes, crimes against humanity will be hard on Israelis. For IDF chief of staff has named recently ethnic cleansing. Others have used more severe terms. Why are we still focusing on Jewish victimhood?
To discuss anti-Semitism in Germany is seen as an attempt to draw attention away from the real victims. Palestinians in Gaza and the real perpetrators, um, Israel as a Jewish state. I raise this question not in order to affirm the brother. Really? To try to answer it. I believe that we should be discussing anti-Semitism now and without being apologetic about it. I'd like to suggest that the question of anti-Semitism goes to the heart of some of our current predicaments.
This is true even if one is not concerned with the problems of Jewish communities, but primarily with what is going on in Gaza and in Israel and Palestine writ large as we speak. So, uh, three years ago, uh, when a bunch of us were sitting there asking ourselves, um. How to um, define and redefine, criticise existing definitions and offer some insight on this question.
I think many of us, uh, speak to myself, uh, I'll speak for myself, but, uh, um, we have the answers to tough questions that we knew how to do it, that we knew how to draw the line. And I think that was the most important aspect of the the juice of the coercion of Semitism to draw the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And so that was, um, that was, I think, a major purpose of this. And, and we thought we had we had to, uh, figured out, um, and, um.
That on the conceptual level. It wasn't that difficult to make it. And I think fine was, uh, hinting at, uh, careful reading. It's just putting your minds to it would give better answers. There would be some hard cases that we would need to discuss. So is this a denial of the right of Israel as a Jewish state to exist, and some cases about which reasonable people may disagree. But a silver mine and careful formulations could resolve most of these problems. Or so we thought. Um. So.
And it's not just us who thought it. Uh, we were able. And I think this is part of the surprise. The pleasant surprise about the Jews. Um, the person that, um. 200. 300. We had many people endorsing, uh, scholars in the relevant fields endorsing the declaration. Uh, and especially rewarding, I think, for us, with the fact that it was a broad span. And Brian was also addressing this so that there was people coming from sort of the very far left. Um, people who are non Zionist, maybe anti-Zionist.
Um, and from the very far centre. Uh. Uh, so people who were liberal, uh, Zionists like Michael Walzer and others who were very committed to Zionism. And it's, it's rare to find these groups of sort of, uh, people, scholars signing together and working together. Uh. Um, I don't think. Uh, as I said, the GTA had three main motivations. Uh, some of the people endorsing, uh, the G8, which was the vision, had their eye on some subset of these three, but I find most compelling.
First, to protect freedom of expression with the use of the IRA definition not curtailed. Second, and I'll say to Brian, it's not the wording so much as the way that it was interpreted and, uh, and applied. But there are also problems, I think, with the wording in, and we can discuss that later. Second, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause for liberation.
Some of us cared about that and thought it was important to, uh, allow for that kind of speech to take to take place beyond freedom of speech. And third, and for many of us, it was equally important to build bridges across political divides, to fight anti-Semitism. And specifically to create a space or a definition of antisemitism, a declaration on presentism that progressives could support and wouldn't feel like it's being instrumentalized against, um, Palestinians or against us.
Um, so during the past year or so, and this is, uh, by way of confession, I've had new thoughts about the Jerusalem Declaration. Not new answers, but new questions. Um, to be sure, my answer, the question that we all started with what is anti-Semitism and what isn't anti-Semitism? Remain more or less the same. I haven't come up with a better idea than the ones you started in the Jerusalem iteration, and I still find it analytically compelling.
I still believe that our, uh. Um, is easily manipulable. But now I have a new question. Why isn't the JDA all that helpful as we hoped it would be? Why do so many of my Jewish liberal, progressive friends, including some of those who originally signed the Jerusalem uh declaration, see, uh, anti-Semitism, where the Jews suggest it does not exist. Uh, post October. So. Uh. It was too easy to dismiss their position as overly emotional or overly rational as too sensitive.
Um. You could say to them, can't you see it's all in your head? There's not real antisemitism out there that seems unfair. Or the thing that is overly rational, you know, instrumentalized the manipulative. Stop using anti-Semitism to block valid criticism of Israel. See, there was a lot of both emotions and repression going on, but it seemed to me that there was more and I was trying to understand sort of why the controversy continued while we figured it out. Um. Um.
And what? Why? Uh, the past year has sort of brought a lot of this to the to the surface, and. So the one insight that I have, and I'm opening it for the band in conversation is that the, the problem is with with the very idea that the definitions can solve the problem, that the definition could somehow allow us to set apart what is an additional prism from what isn't anti-Semitism.
And part of the reason why that is, in many ways an impossible task is because I'd like to suggest there's an ambiguity in the phenomenon itself. It's not that, um. We can figure it out, huh? If we put our minds to it, it's that it can be figured out because there's something there. Or at least I'd like to suggest that doesn't allow for clear this clear distinction. anti-Semitism here, anti-Semitism here, and other distinction in this story and in the word Gaza. And when they call it a war.
Uh, the protest against Israel on the streets and encompasses the spontaneous and unsuspecting, is rooting for the massacre performed by Hamas. The genuine rise in incidents of anti-Semitism that Eugene was talking about, of the kind that no one denied, didn't simply create a new sensitivity that I think brought to the surface an ambiguity that was there before cover 17, um, duty that perhaps no definition could undo. So in the brief time I have. And I'll try to be short.
Uh, I'd like to present three ambiguities of this kind and then sort of try and draw maybe some, uh, conclusions from this. So I'd like to begin with the conceptual distinction between fragility and powerlessness, fragility and powerlessness. We often think of the two as interrelated in a different reality, and powerlessness are very common among marginalised groups. But the two need not always go together. A group may be powerful and still fragile.
I'd like to suggest that use as many communities outside of Israel a powerful and yet fragile. But suggesting that Jews are powerful, powerful minority and mean that many Jews as individuals, but more importantly Jews as a community, hold.
Position of economic, social and political power in the U.S. and the UK and other European countries outside of Europe that have established themselves in these communities for several generations, at least since that of World War Two, and are clearly more powerful compared to some of the marginalised groups in society, especially people of colour, um, and vibrant communities. They also suffer less than average from hate crime than some minorities.
And Brian already indicated, uh, there's more Islamophobia in general, and there is a decent base in the Jewish community. Um, are fragile. I do not mean simply that you feel vulnerable. But it's in their minds and consequently their facilities, their subjective experience rather than this existence is grounded in a social reality. Vulnerability is the combined outcome of an undeniable, traumatic experience of powerlessness and abuse in the past.
And a projected anxiety onto the future based on the social reality. Uh, that powerful as they may be or may have become. Um, they are not secure. And zero incidents of anti-Semitism puts October 7th in a clear sense of the loss of control of the social narrative, uh, around Israel, around, uh, uh uh, and sort of the exacerbated in the sense of anxiety.
So the duality of fragility and thankfulness may begin to explain some of them, the beauty that haunts dissenters and debate, as well as the epistemic gulf, the epistemic gulf between the experience of many Jewish communities and that of the progressive left, including some of the progressive Jewish left. The former is speaking from a factually grounded experience of fragility. The latter are more likely to take as a point of departure structural power relations.
Uh, and and that's where you can see that the rise of this goes. But this time, it also says that fragility has exacerbated, has been exacerbated by this gulf. It's one thing to suffer from anti-Semitism. But when the just the name and trivial case where would be Goldberg says that there can be no reason directed against Jews because Jews are white. Um, then, um, it's not just right.
It's somehow undermining the the very possibility of, uh, being that kind of, uh, victim and strengthens the sense of opportunity. Um. I want to take the risk and say that the Jews may not be the only group. So just to sort of help us imagine is not the only group that has this combination of being fragile and powerful.
Um, maybe one of them think also of gay white men as another example of that, and that sort where we can imagine, uh, um, being more powerful of these than they used to be, and also but still being vulnerable. I rely on myself, uh, to use this example, as I belong to both Jewish and the gay community.
But, um, but I think it's really interesting to think about how this dynamic works, how, uh, the fact that, uh, you know, uh, a group becomes powerful doesn't necessarily mean that it stops being, uh, fragile. And so so this is one of interesting, uh, another concern of this time that we had and that we saw so clearly that you can distinguish between being Jewish and being Zionist. Of course you can. Not all the time is.
We also know that not all Zionists or Jews. So what they try to do is the same as between, uh, Jews and Zionists and I believe, holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel's conduct in treating Jews simply because they are Jewish as agents of Israel would be considered prima facie,
uh, anti-Semitic. The aim of this guideline is to address, for example, a case in which a Jewish student be excluded from, for example, a sexual harassment support group on campus if he or she does not know Zionism or the current violence occurring in Gaza, that that would somehow be a condition to be part of the progressive. The TV also recognises that there might be a conflation between the two, between Jewish hatred and Israel bashing that would be considered anti-Semitic.
Although we were trying to distinguish between we, we recognise the important ways that the two could also be related rather than as applied. The symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical anti-Semitism to the State of Israel would be considered. All things being equal. And so, and this is a time to distinguish between being Jewish and being Zionist, may, in the face of reality, many among the Jewish community are highly committed to Zionism.
It's, you know, this it's a it's a pervasive phenomenon. 62% responded to the Jewish Life Institute survey in the US, said that, uh, they um, shared, uh, 62% said that they cared, uh, about, uh, Israel, uh, whereas 38 said they did not. More important in the statistics is the fact that for many Jews, caring about Israel is not just another thing they believe in, but it's core to their Jewish identity.
And when the state of Israel, when Zionism is being heavily criticised, um, then there's a sense that something very deep in their identity has been under undermining. I think the problem are not only, uh, in what you think and believe, but also, on the other hand, in pro-Palestinian political action campaigns and the restrictions that Jews find hard to sort of part of their Jewish and Israeli identities, whereas the Palestinians and their supporters make the distinction.
But when it's so pervasive that Jewish communities organised Jewish community support Israel, what can you expect? Um, well, what the JDA was intended to achieve. So the question is whether the G8, uh, was intending to do too much more than it possibly could have been done, as in Jewish is analytically simple, but the social reality turns inherently ambiguous and in many cases on the fringes. This is true. Uh, any given day. But probably more true in the past, uh, you know. Okay.
Last, uh, example. Um. I think an inherent ambiguity characterised not only Jewish identity but also Palestinian protest in a different way. Um, and it's a different kind of have been used. But let's say, for example, the known slogan from the River to the sea, Palestine will be free is a slogan. People have asked prima facie, um, anti-Semitic. Some have argued that the slogan is as a symbolic calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, and as the cleansing murder of all Jews living in.
If this were the case, the call would certainly be anti-Semitic. Uh, according to the JTA. Uh, in the UK, the Labour Party suspended Gandhi, uh for using the phrase a demonstration football association benefits and using it in their personal Facebook accounts in Germany. The situation is more drastic. In Berlin, for example, the use of the slogan demonstrations is prohibited and demonstrators, uh, who shouted are arrested.
Is the most global. You know, our friends who were also involved in sort of defining and, uh, formulating the Jerusalem Declaration Road in 2024, just this year and, um, in a very definitive way, that this is not generally the case, that the phrase, uh expresses the genocidal and anti-Semitic intention instead of historical use and articulates political strategies for Palestinian liberation. So that, um. It simply opens possibilities.
They don't see what exactly will happen with the Jews, but, um. I'm happy to be with my colleagues, um, with others and, uh, along, um. But I think it's important to ask about the sources of this controversy. What raises this, um, debate? How is it that people feel so strongly in opposition? It's not just politics. There's something, I think, internally ambivalent about this. You can imagine. I can imagine. You can imagine that if somebody was worried about it, they would frame it differently.
They could say from the river to the sea. Palestinians need to be free or everyone needs to be free or something else. Obviously, no one asked me how to, uh, formulating slogans and, uh, demonstrations, but I think, uh, I think we would want to wonder on what are the conditions that maintain this. Um, why is it important, uh, to maintain this ambiguity? And I'm not saying it's important because it's anti Semitic.
It's important because I think that the Palestinian, the pro-Palestinian, um, campaign includes different groups, uh, and looking for a unifying, uh, slogan that would bring everybody, uh, together. You can see how this varies, uh, with uh, with the merge and be, uh, and be compelling. And that ambivalence is actually something that you can work with in politics.
Uh, okay. So these are three very different examples of the, of the ambiguity and in ways that I think we would have liked the JDA simply to, uh, magically resolve, uh, and I think it can do that in a simple, straightforward way and then analytic way, because the problems lie deeper. And in that sense, you can see what I'm saying here is also being somewhat critical of the efforts that we put into writing, uh, an alternative to a definition, uh, in order to finish it on its own.
But on second thought and sort of retrospect, not very finished, that sort of thing with these ideas. I think that the in some ways, the JDA saw some of this ambiguity and really didn't try to do more than it, than it could it. Uh, first of all, it recognised the Jewish fragility, um, and said. You know, we need to work on anti-Semitism. It's not something we can simply brush aside. It's not relevant because there are other sort of bigger problems to worry about.
Address the problem of Jewish, uh, fragility. Straight on. And said, let's try and combat it to them because it's a real problem. It also. Although a lot of his service was the same as we do Nazism ism and, uh, anti-Semitism. It also saw in different moments the connection between the two. So the Jerusalem Declaration, I don't have the formulation, but I think I remember because we work on this really hard.
There's, there's we didn't want to say. The denial of the existence of the State of Israel would per se be anti-Semitic. And we didn't want to say this for many, many reasons. But the most obvious one is that the State of Israel is only one political configuration for solving, you know, uh, for finding a homeland for Jews. And in a way that would be equitable also for, uh, Palestinians if there was a Palestinian state. But we wouldn't want to commit ourselves to 1 to 1 solution.
And so we thought we should we should open it up. And we had a different, different, uh, guideline saying something like, um, Penn, what is anti-Semitism denying the right of Jews in the state of Israel? To exist and flourish collectively and individually as Jews. In accordance with the principle of equality. Would be anti-Semitic. So we use the language of denying the right to exist.
But we're not talking about the right to exist of a specific political formation, with the right of Jews as individuals, as collective. So we weren't connecting, or we were linking together the, uh, a certain kind of anti Zionism, a certain kind of anti-Zionism which go all the way, uh, sort of of, uh, sort of, uh, denying the right of Jews as an activity to exist in Israel. Um. Whether because I know this or not is an open question that has to do with how the front line this is.
But we were we were making this just. And finally, on the same note, um, certain interpretations of, uh, of the Palestinian cause, uh, including uh, ones denying, uh, the right of Jews as a collectivity to, to exist in Israel would be, uh, defined as I presented to them. So I think we tried to somehow square that circle and that and that and that way. And, um. Thank you. Shy. Brian, thank you both for shedding really valuable light on what can often be quite a dark discourse.
And I think it's through clarity of thinking that will give it clarity of discussion, because sides have hardened and it makes it difficult for people then to have a reasonable conversation on something that is so sensitive. And I just I feel that you have both shown in your presentations a willingness to see many different sides of the problem and how it touches people's lives. And for that, I think you really did justice to what we hoped you would address.
Now, for those who will see the Jerusalem Declaration as in some way hostile to Zionism or the supporters of Israel, they might all point to one thing in particular, which is the way in which you rule out BDS as anti Semitic. I think that's one area where the two definitions would probably come into conflict.
So I'd like to know what discussions you had about how you squared BDS with be on this side of the line of crossing into space right now on the question of, of, um, BDS, as I recall, we did discuss this at some length, and we felt that there were two things to be said about this. First of all. Rather along the lines as I was arguing in my thought.
A distinction needs to be made between whether or not a particular policy is acceptable, is good, is reasonable, is fair, etc., and whether or not it's anti-Semitic. And we took the view that boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are all political, non-violent, political, uh, means that are used in other contexts to promote a political end. And therefore there was no reason in principle to exclude Israel from from that general, um, uh, state of affairs.
Um. I understand that BDS is seen as anti-Semitic is felt as antipathy in a way. I want to connect this to your the point you raised. Shai. I have to say, I welcome every one of the points you raised, because I think the problem that ties in this question of antisemitism is precisely what's called for, as opposed to what I think a number of us felt was an attempt to oversimplify it in a very confused way when the HRA document is confused and incoherent.
But it was nonetheless an attempt, I think, to simplify something which is much more complex, much more volatile, and involves more than just thinking about the question of whether something is anti-Semitic or not. You also have to think about the question of how a certain policy or idea registers with people.
And that's what I saw. What you were raising, at least with the first of the three, uh, ambiguities that you mentioned, BDS is something that is bound to register as anti-Semitic with many of us, including those of us who don't think that it is because of the resonances of the word boycott and because of the historical, um, role that boycott played in the lead up to the Nazi genocide was so significant. And we there is a collective memory about this.
And there was an association with the word boycott, let's say, with divestment and sanctions. I don't think in the arguments of a BDS, it's RDS, it's B that is the primary focus, affective focus, actually, you might say affective focus for for many Jews. And I understand that. But I think that there are two kinds of education that are needed in this connection. One is people who don't understand it. And there may be.
It may be perfectly understandable that they don't understand it. Um, people who come to these issues from a sort of general political concern about the way in which Israel is behaving and treating Palestinians and so on, and see this purely as a question of whether or not boycott is an appropriate or an effective tactic to adopt. Such people perhaps need to be educated about what boycott means for so many Jews, not all. Many Jews, by the same token.
Maybe many of us who were Jews need to be educated out of the visceral reaction, out of the kneejerk reflex to be able to stand above. For a moment, our subjective experience as Jews of something like boycott and see the question in a larger political context. I think that the ambiguity that you're bringing out here is, to some extent, I don't think this exhaustive, but to some extent the difference between the subjective, as it were, and the objective here.
But I only want to say that the problem lies on both sides. There is a problem I can put if I can put it in different language. There's a problem of imagination, of lack of imagination, and what neither sort of party to a dispute over boycott. Hurt is able to imagine what it's like to be the other party. Then you end up with a kind of, um, uh, headlong headbutting that, I'm afraid you get so much with arguments over Palestine and Israel. Thank you. So, uh, there's so much. But I'll be brief.
So, um, one thing you know, I also want to connected, uh, to Brian's talk. So I think that there are on specific issues. BDS would be one of the right, if Israel to exist would be another the double standard, uh, which, uh, Brian raised would be a third where there's actually real differences. And they can and they can be justified. So, uh, the BDS is about occupation, uh, and, uh, first and foremost. And, and then ways of sort of escaping the BDS according to the rules of the, of the BDS.
Not everyone in Israel is, as, uh, an Israeli institution is, um, is automatically under the, uh, the BDS. So, uh, as a business, I think it's relatively we had strong arguments. I think more tricky was the, uh, denying the right of Israel to exist, which we didn't include. Um, uh, and I think, again, the double standard is easier. So this is one thing. The other is Brian's right. And it's very. I found your, uh, your talk illuminating.
And we also thought of it when we drafted the JDA, because when we drafted it, we said the JDA could be seen in two ways with the IRA. One, it could be seen as an alternative to IRA. Uh, um, sort of denying our own, uh, going for the JDC. But another, which we included there from the beginning, was this idea is simply an interpretation of. So there's no inherent on the big question. There's no inherent conflict there.
And if you've already adopted IRA or went along with the British government, uh, with, uh huh, uh, don't worry, because here's your solution. Take the JDA and use it to interpret the IRA. So when concrete cases come up, this could be used as sort of, uh, a codification. And we didn't want it to be used as a legal tool. That's also the document we said it's listening, that this is an educational tool.
Now, in a world in which IRA is used to discipline, uh, including legal and semi legal, uh, this is, that emerges, then of course, they can step in and sort of be a counter to that. But anything that was definitely not our intention to to offer sort of yet further sort of limitations on how people wanted to think about what we that we bring to a close. This term's programs. It's been a diverse program with some remarkable speakers.
We've usually had quite a full house, and I don't know whether it's Thursday nights or whether indeed your title might have put people off, but they should have been here tonight, because I feel like we finally had a frank and open discussion about the elephant in the room, and in a way which I think will allow us to take our discussions forward in a more constructive spirit.
Having had this clear light shone on this subject of obscurity, and to take it out of an area in which it's too sensitive to talk about, but to allow us all, if we can approach it with the due respect the subject deserves, and in the context within which it is seen that we might be able to at least. Deal with some of the issues that have made life in academic circles so tense since the seventh. I can't thank you enough for coming all the way from Israel to be with us.
Thanks for finally coming to grace our homes, and for the two of you to share your experience of giving this question. So please join me in accepting.