Masha Gessen writes:

In recent years, the United States has had an alarming number of antisemitic episodes, from swastika graffiti to marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us” to attacks at synagogues. But in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, it has become increasingly difficult to separate instances of antisemitism from times when people and institutions are accused of antisemitism with little or no basis.

In short order, Representative Elise Stefanik and several of her Republican colleagues used antisemitism as a pretext to humiliate the presidents of elite universities. Later, the Trump administration took up the mantle, using the charge of antisemitism as a cudgel against higher education.

The Israeli government has leveled accusations of antisemitism at several European leaders, whole countries, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations and, it sometimes seems, the entire world — whoever criticizes Israel.

In this country and elsewhere — most notably in Germany — a vast network of anti-antisemitism activists, many of them self-appointed and many of them not Jewish, have leveled this accusation against hundreds of thinkers, writers and artists who have criticized Israeli policies. Many — probably most — of the accused are Jewish. I am one of them.

A sequence of logical sleights of hand is required to falsely accuse someone of antisemitism. First, any criticism of Israeli policies or any acknowledgment of Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza or illegal occupation of Palestinian lands is cast as an attack on Israel’s right to exist — as though the state couldn’t survive without starving the people of Gaza. Second, the State of Israel has to be conflated with all Jews.

Israeli politicians, as well as many American ones, and mainstream American Jewish organizations have long promoted this conflation of Jews with Israel and criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Functionally, the definition of antisemitism drafted about a decade ago by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental body, does, too. That definition has been adopted by the U.S. federal government, many cities and towns, and a growing number of universities.

Recently more than 900 academics signed on to an open letter from the newly formed Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network, calling on universities to drop this definition. In 2020, a group of such scholars drafted an alternative definition of antisemitism, known as the Jerusalem Declaration. It explicitly states that holding all Jews accountable for the actions of the State of Israel is antisemitic. I would add a logical corollary: Defining any criticism of Israel as a threat to all Jews is just as wrong. [Continue reading…]