To share the actual definition of antisemitism

[LemonyTicket]

The boards have been full for a week with cries of woe that you can't criticise Israel without being accused of antisemitism. So to make life easy, below is a summary of what defines antisemitism as agreed by more or less the leading experts in the world. If you'd like to discuss Israel without being antisemitic, you can follow these guidelines to say what you would like to say without causing pain to Jewish people:

POINT 1
What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil. This stands at the core of many anti-Jewish fantasies, such as the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in which “the Jews” possess hidden power that they use to promote their own collective agenda at the expense of other people. This linkage between Jews and evil continues in the present: in the fantasy that “the Jews” control governments with a “hidden hand,” that they own the banks, control the media, act as “a state within a state.

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

So when you're criticising Israel, please do so without implying Jews, Israel or anything relating to Jews is part of a plot to control things or act in evil ways generally or that Jews or any Jewish organisation have control over institutions. This isn't how other countries are spoken about and it's particularly antisemitic in line with Nazi propaganda.

POINT 2
Antisemitism can be manifested in words, visual images, and deeds. Examples of antisemitic words include utterances that all Jews are wealthy, inherently stingy, or unpatriotic. In antisemitic caricatures, Jews are often depicted as grotesque, with big noses and associated with wealth

This is one most people instinctively know is racist - to apply certain characteristics to Jews - like having lots of money or big noses etc.

POINT 3
Antisemitism can be direct or indirect, explicit or coded. For example, “The Rothschilds control the world” is a coded statement about the alleged power of “the Jews” over banks and international finance. Similarly, portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence can be a coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews. In many cases, identifying coded speech is a matter of context and judgement, taking account of these guidelines

This means, don't be antisemitic when using any words which clearly refer to Jews in particular. "Jews own the banks" is antisemitic. It remains antisemitic when you substitute words, like "The Israel lobby owns the banks" or "Zionists own the banks" or "George Soros owns the banks". Substituting code words is not a free pass for being antisemitic.

POINT 4
Denying or minimizing the Holocaust

A pretty obvious one which needs no explanation.

POINT 5
Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism to the State of Israel

So this means taking classic antisemitic tropes or canards, such as "The Jews are puppet masters" and applying the same language to the only Jewish state. We see right through this, please don't do it!

POINT 6
Requiring people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism (for example, at a political meeting)

This means making a Jewish person, anywhere, anytime feel obligated, pressured or required in any way to condemn Israel or Zionism. It means you don't "put them on the spot" in public by singling them out as a Jew to ask their opinions on Israel's atrocities. Their views of these things will be coloured by a completely different perspective to yours, and likely more personal knowledge, their family history and so on - so please be respectful of their right to determine their Jewish identity and opinions without your critique.

POINT 7
Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion

Another one which should be obvious, but clearly "gas the Jews" is unacceptable.

POINT 8
Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews

Again, fairly obvious.

POINT 9
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations

This is a common form of prejudice in Britain where Jews are frequently accused of being in on some plot with Israel, or part of a group of Jews acting against their own country for the benefit of Israel. It's madness, and please don't do it.

POINT 10
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor

Jews, like everyone else, have a right to self-determination. If you don't make other countries feel ashamed of existing or if you don't make other groups feel ashamed of their national identity; then Jews should be entitled to the same. You are free to have your own opinion on if Israel should be a country or not, and how it should be. You are not free to deny Jews the right to decide that for themselves though.

POINT 11
Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation

Another very common one, where Israel is often held to a very different standard to other countries. An allowance can be made for the fact surrounding countries generally aren't democracies and as such are generally held to a different standard, but you should aim to treat Israel in the same, balanced way that you would treat any other country.

POINT 12
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

This is another very common one. Do not compare things which are incomparable just for the sake of hyperbole. It's very offensive. Almost every Jew in existence lost family in the Shoah. Please don't use it to attack.

Those are the things you can't do. What you can do is criticise Israel robustly, like you would any other country

Yes, as I have already said when we started, my list is an amalgamation of both. The IHRA adds in some additional things, but many of them are the same on both. The Jerusalem declaration has some very helpful context.

I do wonder if there is an element of Israel being seen as “one of us” though. Your examples are all of objectively terrible regimes who don’t care about the human rights of their own populations let alone of other countries.

I view Israel as an extension of the west, so to me the citizens have the same values as Australians, Canadians etc - I would feel just as safe walking around Tel Aviv as I would Vancouver (minus the threat of rockets obviously).

There may be some truth in that. Israel was essentially created by the British Empire and a lot of the people who went there were originally European. Perhaps that is why people are more inclined to take note of what they do than a regime that has been just been one human right violation after another since the year dot.

This is quite sad and embarrassing isn't it? You are trying to twist a Jewish person, sharing information about what antisemitism is to people who asked for that information into yet another sneaky plot. How sad that the only time in your life you have taken the time to actually bother investigating what antisemitism is, rather than engaging in it, is to try and "gotcha" a Jew.

But let's do this anyway for the audience!

• I stated very clearly that I had put together an amalgamation of both lists, and referred to both throughout several times.

• They are very close to the same, I have omitted nothing, added nothing and have only left out things where they are duplicates

• You are wrong, the Jerusalem Declaration isn't an "update" - it is the other way around - it is the more extensive IHRA definition that is internationally enshrined, and that is accepted by most countries and governments (including this one) as the most up to date definition.

• My post literally says at the bottom of it, underlined, that you can criticise Israel as much as you like within those guidelines. I underlined it. So no idea why you are implying I said otherwise.

This thread is intended to explain antisemitic behaviors for those who are enquiring.

It therefore, obviously, includes the current government approved version from the IHRA. This is the one in use in the UK and most of the world. The suggestion me including it's additions is somehow wrong is pathetic.

However, the Jerusalem Declarions - whilst sharing most of the same points, uses much more descriptive and wordy language which was very useful to use - hence I did.

I genuinely feel quite sick realising there are people like you and other users in the UK. It makes me scared for my children that they might encounter this sort of crap out in the world.

Shame on you.

Interesting, even if a BBC article and they barely recognised their own antisemitism (I am still annoyed about the whole slur thing. Can't even be bothered about their behaviour these days. Waste of energy to even ponder it)

UK permits antisemitism, says counter-extremism adviser

I remember an incident where a cartoonist (I think) was criticised because his cartoon was said to be anti-Semitic because there was something in the image that had an association with Jewish stereotypes and the person the cartoon depicted was Jewish.

He argued that he had no idea the person was Jewish and his imagery was relevant to the news story involving the person. I had no idea the person was Jewish - and I could see how the imagery was relevant to the story.

If you don't know someone is Jewish and you associate something with them that is seen as a Jewish stereotype, is that anti-Semitic?

The cartoon was extremely antisemitic.

It featured a Jewish man, with a hooked nose
It featured him carrying Rishi Sunak as a puppet (antisemitic canard)
It featured the name of a Jewish Bank with a literal octopus wrapped around it (which is one of the most antisemitic canards in existence)

The artist himself issued a fantastic statement as he was able to understand how, despite not being intention, he had drawn a severely antisemitic cartoon.

He acknowledged what few have the courage to do - that he has antisemitic stereotypes and prejudices unconsciously that spilled out of him without thinking.

I was actually so touched by his apology that I emailed him to thank him for doing what so very few people bother to do....thinking!

Here are some excerpts from the apology he wrote:

"At the end of April, I drew a cartoon, part of which included a depiction of the former BBC chairman Richard Sharp as a typical employee after being sacked, carrying out their possessions in a cardboard box. After the cartoon was published on the Guardian’s website, another wholly plausible description was posted on Twitter by Dr David Rich of the Community Security Trust, describing it as brimming with vicious antisemitic tropes.

You can read my account of what I thought I’d drawn on my website, written within hours of Rich’s initial tweet. In the same piece I apologised unconditionally and took full responsibility for the enormous hurt and upset I had unintentionally caused. But how could both things be true? I had drawn an antisemitic cartoon, yet I had not been aware I was doing so.

I could now only see what Rich and thousands of others saw, and saw it for what it was. I was now consumed with deep, devouring shame. That coming Friday, I was due to draw a cartoon covering the coronation, but by this stage I had long since lost all sense of moral authority or even agency to draw anything or judge anyone, and two days after the Sharp cartoon was published I asked for time off.
All of this matters so much because this mistake – though “car crash” comes closest in my mind to describe the jagged intermeshing of accident, chaos, loss of control, damage and huge hurt to blameless bystanders – happened within a context I’m very conscious of.

I’d like to think that I’m not even remotely antisemitic, but what do I know? As a visual artist operating in a genre dependent on exaggeration and mockery, I also swim in a swamp being constantly fed with poisonous slurry from two millennia of European Christian art portraying Jews as ugly, avaricious monsters.

Worse, 50 years ago, with the Holocaust rawly fresh in everyone’s minds, at my Anglican school the chaplain dismissed the suffering of the Jews as punishment for Christ’s crucifixion. And 25 years ago, a senior figure at a major UK charity, thinking I was Jewish because he’d mistakenly assumed “Rowson” is an anglicisation of “Rosen”, instantly told me an antisemitic joke on discovering I wasn’t. Far, far worse manifestations of antisemitism continue unabated. This is the air we breathe; the miasma many of us choke on.

Take Sharp, a friend of Boris Johnson, whom I believed I had drawn in a particular, fairly unkind way, reflecting what he does and thinks. But at the very instant that depiction was seen – as it was, whatever my intention, by many deeply shocked and frightened people – as a cruel depiction of what he is, a Jewish man in his 60s, caricatured grotesquely (though in hideously familiar ways), the power dynamic completely collapsed.

The public, satirisable appearance of Sharp dissolved to reveal the real, breathing, victimised human being beneath. Worst of all, victimised and bullied by me, in ways wholly anathema to me both personally and professionally. Carelessly and terrifyingly easily, I had utterly and comprehensively failed. It was and is inexcusable on every level.

What I do in my work is a twisted and dreadful magic, and it needs to be practised with extreme care. Over the past few weeks, clambering through the wreckage resulting from my last cartoon, I have been talking to lots of people, prominent and otherwise, from across the Jewish community both to atone and to help me understand how I could have done this terrible thing.

I thank all of them enormously for their generosity, their time and, let’s be frank, their forgiveness. And they’ve helped me learn, bit by bit and ahead of my return to these pages in September, to remember what I already knew. The business of satire has never been to give indiscriminate offence, and nor is it my job. Its price therefore must always be eternal vigilance"

What a brilliant attitude he took!

People can make mistakes, but the point is, if they listen and have empathy then they are doing well. It's the ones who shout back in denial who cause the most harm

Hi @LemonyTicket i posted very early on, probably because I’m really naive to the antisemitic tropes and canards you’ve just cited. I genuinely had no idea puppets or octopi /uses were considered so. Although the hooked nose type image I would recognise as highly prejudiced.

any advice on how someone like me could recognise and challenge what seems so obvious to you? FWIW, I’m from a Romany background so i recognise the imagery which goes unnoticed and frequently enters common usage due to innocent ignorance.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jews-Dont-Count-Times-Book/dp/0008399476

Quite a good little read about antisemitism that is less obvious to most people

I have a close Romany friend and I know you guys experience absolute twattery in this country, so first of all, sorry for that.

To answer the question: I wouldn't expect anyone to know that. I would expect a professional political cartoonist to know it though, but not the everyday person on the street.

It's built into the subconscious because people would have been exposed to antisemitic imagery their entire lives. So many people would not know they are doing it.

The trick is, I suppose, when someone tells you - just take it on board without getting angry.

The Octopus is a classic symbol from anti-Jewish images and cartoons, representing the antisemitic canard of Jewish control with it's tentacles wrapped around things.

Similarly the puppet master uses its power to control the world, whether it be the economy, the media or politics. to quote

"When a reader sees this, they are able to blame their societal position on the Jews; they couldn’t succeed in one way or another because everything is being controlled. As the antisemitic German historian Heinrich von Treitschke put it, “the Jews are our misfortune”.

I have included below a list of the most obvious canards, and if you read it you would probably observe over time how many people incorporate these things into imagery, language and the ideas they have.

Some of this stems from very old ideas - like the concept of devil worship, which was from the early days of Christianity where most people openly believed Jews were linked withe the devil, but also a lot of it comes from Nazi and Russian anti semitic propaganda.

The idea always being the same: to portray Jews as evil, sneaky, dishonest, and responsible for whatever bad things are happening in the world at any give time. You'll find once you see it, it's impossible to unsee it!

xx

https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Antisemitic-imagery-May-2020.pdf

It is if you double down on it once you're made aware - a certain Guardian cartoonist in the news recently has done this on one occasion too many now for it to be anything other than intentional.

On the other hand, another Graun cartoonist did this and showed genuine contrition, which I actually found quite moving. Forget his name now, but it was also quite recent.

And even if you don't know someone is Jewish, there's no need to use these odious stereotypes anyway, unless you're a shit cartoonist that's devoid of ideas and originality.

@LemonyTicket I never saw your post before I posted, but it was Martin Rowson I was thinking of!

Yep, I was also moved @etmoietmoietmoi so much so that I emailed him.

It was really touching that he acknowledged it so well and understood

The 40% (now 49%!) may just think that there was no reason for the post and/or definitions and therefore think OP was being unreasonable.

If that is their opinion, because they already knew the definitions etc., then that is exactly just their opinion. Thus, by virtue of the fact it is an opinion, it's neither right or wrong, so they don't need to take a long hard look at themselves. What would be the reason? Because they personally don't feel the need for a post defining a particular word or phrase? I've seen a lot of assumptions on MN in the past couple of weeks. Not only about the Israel/Palestine topic but on myriads of threads. I've seen posters egg each other on, or pile on other posters. Again, on a variety of threads. A mindset seems to be emerging and that mindset seems to be that Y thing is good and Z thing is bad. Well, human nature, regardless of religious belief, isn't black and white. There's no Y is good and Z is bad. I despair of humanity right now, when we have to post definitions like this because people can't just be respectful 😔

Religion and land have been conjoined in human consciousness since the beginning of time. Whether it's paganism, Islam, Buddhism, etc., etc., all countries have had some sort of religious belief, or not, that the majority abide by. I wouldn't say that you're antisemitic for your opinion, as it's just that, your opinion but I do believe that if religious beliefs weren't so "out there" in the public consciousness then we would all get along much better! This is probably why there's that old saying about religion and politics - nothing divides people so well!

I'm not sure that you can compare the formation of Pakistan/East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) with the formation of Israel. The biggest difference is that the Jewish people who had been displaced/incarcerated during WWII wanted a Jewish state. The religious differences between the people of India, exacerbated by Colonialism meant that the country had to be divided into separate states. It should also be noted that those nations don't celebrate their independence on the actual day - that day is a day of mourning. There are some excellent books available to read with first person accounts, and I can link them if you would like?

I see. That explains why the OP’s explanation of point 10 didn’t ring true. If the paraphrased explanation was of a different, narrower definition then it wouldn’t. Thanks

anti-zionism, ie opposing the establishment of the specifically jewish state of Israel that expelled many of the original inhabitants of the area and denies their right of return, is NOT antisemitic. Obviously denying the current jewish inhabitants of Israel their right to live in peace and equality under ^some political structure or other" would be, but that political structure does not have to be Israel. (This seems perfectly reasonable to me)

So is this allowed or not? Can someone clarify?

No “other group” is allowed to be this proscriptive. Show me the definition on Google of anti blackness or Islamaphobia which is anything like this.

@Ramalangadingdong
Is that a joke? Nobody is even allowed to mention Rochdale or the everyday terrorism Europeans now live with or thoughts on the burqa without being called islamophobic

@AFieldGuideToTrees thanks so much.
I did not accuse anyone of Jew bashing or taking a pop at Jews. I did feel that there were anti-Semitic comments and apologist behaviour.
Funnily enough I was not referencing your posts but I find it interesting that for some reason that really hit home with you.
Once again, do not put words in my mouth to suit your narrative, and here’s an idea: how about engaging with conflicting views rather than trying to get them shut down?

@WhatWouldJeevesDo

I see. That explains why the OP’s explanation of point 10 didn’t ring true. If the paraphrased explanation was of a different, narrower definition then it wouldn’t. Thanks

The definition I gave is the one from the IHRA, that is accepted by most governments, the UN, the European Council.

The poster you're replying to isn't Jewish, has read the definitions for the first time yesterday and misunderstood which one was current.

The one I shared is "true"

@Tandora

The Jerusalem Declaration considers it not, but says this is antisemitic:

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

Therefore by THIS DEFINITION you can advocate for there to be no Israel, or for Jews to not be allowed right of return to Israel, provided what you do advocate for is Jews to live in Israel under the principle of equality.

Considering that has never happened at any time in the future or present anywhere in the region, it means you can advocate for it but I guess it's a bit of a waste of time if it's not an option the other side want.

The other side would need to want a multicultural society shared with Jews. You can't just say Jews should move to Europe or similar, or advocate for Jews to live under an oppressive regime like Hamas.

Also though, the Jerusalem also says this is antisemitic:

Antisemitism can be direct or indirect, explicit or coded. For example, “The Rothschilds control the world” is a coded statement about the alleged power of “the Jews” over banks and international fi- nance. Similarly, portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence can be a coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews

So if you veer away from taking "anti zionism" beyond an evidence based argument for other practical arrangements in geography and start talking about ",zionists" in antisemitic ways, implying conspiracies or stigmatising them as uniquely evil - you ate crossing into antisemitism for other reasons.

That said, the IHRA definition is the definition that is accepted almost globally, under British law and by the UN. It says:

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor

So that's the version that applies in the UK and that means, yes, it's antisemitic to argue Israel should not exist at all but anyone who objects to that should not the definition of Islamophobia includes this:

Denying Muslim populations the right to self-determination e.g., by claiming that the
existence of an independent Palestine or Kashmir is a terrorist endeavour

So while people can debate (and some do), I would assume if they apply their principles without prejudice or bias that they would either deny the rights for both people or neither.

I hope this helps

The definition of Islamophobia is almost word for word exactly the same :)

I get where you are coming from, but where is the list that explains what Islamaphobia is and tells you that if you do any of those things you are an Islamaphobe and will be banished from the Labour Party etc?

This.