NN: Sign and Signified
A poster is not a hostage; Tom's examples are not examples; the IHRA working definition does not work or define
This is a final straggler from the sprawling No Nichols complex of posts analyzing the rhetoric and reasoning behind certain sorts of support for Israel.
Sections 2 and 3 tackle the terrible IHRA definition of antisemitism. Section 1 handles hostage posters and protest slogans. Only sections 1 and 4 talk Tom.
1
In The Juvenile Viciousness of Campus Anti-Semitism Tom Nichols came out swinging about the vile antisemitism in college protests about Israeli actions in Gaza. After a substantial build-up about evil, hatred, rot, poison, stains, viciousness, and growing menace, he comes to his first example of the horrible antisemitism afoot at these protests. It is—teeth gritted, breath held, bracing for rotten poisonous evil—a student in Maryland wrote in chalk on a sidewalk “Holocaust 2.0.”
Tom is certain the message was not the purported comparison of brutality in Gaza1 to brutality in the Holocaust but rather a call for a second Holocaust against Jews. If Tom is right then obviously the sentiment is appalling. I’m not sure he’s right though. And after paragraphs of intense anticipation and insinuation one message from one student on one sidewalk in chalk is a little anticlimactic. But presumably much worse lies ahead.
Tom’s next example is a statement released by Students for Justice in Palestine that excitedly affirmed the October 7th attack as “armed confrontation with the oppressors.” This represents revolutionary politics that are bound to shock many, maybe including Tom. And maybe that revolutionary posture is ultimately misguided or dangerous or evil. But antisemitism is a separate question.
There could of course be all sorts of antisemitism out of view beneath or behind the statement, as there could be anywhere and everywhere. But the statement itself says nothing at all about Jews. Nor do I see any antisemitic tropes or conspiracy theories or dog whistles. So my best guess is that Tom is attributing antisemitism to the part of the statement that speaks of “total return and liberation to Palestine.” If so, that brings us to the Jordan River. And then from the river to the Mediterranean Sea.
Is it bad to say or chant or project onto a building that from the river to the sea Palestine will be free? There’s no violence or vengeance visible right on the surface, unlike with slogans like the obviously irredeemable “death to America.”
But according to Tom any peaceful surface appearance could not be further from the truth. It is in fact a “pro-Hamas slogan” with an indelible “genocidal meaning,” and to chant the slogan is “to support a terrorist organization.” Here I consider the slogan and a few other things.
It is a slogan about enormously important things. It relates to the present and recent dispossession and death and suffering of millions of Palestinians. And maybe it threatens millions of Israelis with future dispossession and death and suffering. These things have the most massive and profound moral and political importance. And this slogan points toward them. But it itself is not those things. It is a slogan.2
The same goes for those hostage posters. I appreciate that if judged purely by vibes it’s bad to tear those posters down. Because Israelis were taken hostage. And these posters represent them, and thereby have sympathy vibes, vulnerable vibes, rescue vibes. So pre-reflectively the vibes of tearing the posters down are bad vibes of hurting or hating vulnerable hostages, and maybe Israelis generally or Jews generally, and disliking or disrespecting ideas of sympathy and rescue and reunion. Those are pretty bad vibes!
But what if we analyze a little? What if we ask a couple questions? I think things pretty quickly look pretty different.
But whether or not you are moved or persuaded by your reflections or mine, remember that these posters are posters. However good or bad the vibes or the propaganda effects or the moral stains involved we are talking about posters. Symbols on paper being put up or taken down oceans away from the fighting and dying and hostages. The posters relate to the very heaviest matters of life and death and war and suffering and separation. They relate to big weighty things. But they themselves are not those things. They are posters.
2
According to the fine folks at Merriam-Webster antisemitism is hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. That’s pretty standard. Another formulation is discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence against Jews as Jews.
Now to three examinations of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, two spoken and one written. This recording turns to that IHRA definition at 4:10 after broader points on definitions in general:
Here’s a short sweet parsing of the IHRA definition followed by a longer look in writing:
This definition of antisemitism seems similar or even equivalent to the prior ones at a glance:
It says hatred toward Jews. It says Jewish individuals, Jewish community institutions, religious facilities. So just another longer way to say the same thing, with maybe minor tweaks. And it’s only a “non-legally binding working definition” so no need to nitpick, right?
Actually whoa wait this provisional powerless non-threatening non-binding still-working definition has actually been adopted formally by tons of institutions with very real power—corporations, universities, NGOs, cities, counties, states, provinces, entire fucking countries.3 In the US it’s been adopted by the Department of Education, the Department of State, 33 whole states (plus cities and counties and companies and universities within the others) and a 2019 executive order attached it to federal civil rights law.4 So this is getting big, and moving fast, and might be worth reading slowly.
Lots of people who actually read it rather than just skimming or sniffing end up worried. The definition is championed by an organization called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Since still supposedly just a “non-legally binding working definition” it is most commonly called the “IHRA working definition.” Lots of folks worried about this IHRA working definition focus their worries on the 11 illustrative examples that follow the definition itself, seven of them involve criticizing the state of Israel.5
Complicating matters is the thick fog that hangs over these examples. Right before their presentation in 11 bullet points is the framing that “Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to.” Which seems to mean in part that each of these examples may or may not actually be an example.
Maybe more confusing though is the framing before that framing: “To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations.” This seems to mean that the 11 examples, which may or may not be examples, are furthermore only being offered by the IHRA to the IHRA for its own guidance; and even in that narrow capacity they may or may not actually serve as illustrations.
So to guide the IHRA in its work, the IHRA offers to the IHRA, through the 11 controversial bullet points, examples that may or may not be examples, and which even when they are examples still may or may not successfully serve as illustrations. So like what the fuck is that actually supposed to mean?
But whatever the problems in the illustrative maybe-kinda-examples-for-ourselves after the definition please don’t sleep on how utterly awful the definition itself is.
3 — THE I.H.R.A. NON-WORKING NON-DEFINITION
Read the IHRA definition. Really truly carefully read it. Read it as an actual honest to God definition. Imagine knowing nothing about antisemitism and learning what defines it from this definition alone. What would you learn?
You would not learn that antisemitism is hatred toward Jews. That phrase is involved, but only as a small part of the definitional machinery. That hatred is in the picture but is not at all its center. What is the center? What is antisemitism?
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews
That perception is what antisemitism actually is. It may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Or, by extension, it may not. When it is expressed as hatred still the hatred is not the antisemitism itself but rather is its expression. Only the underlying perception is the antisemitism. That is absolutely clear in this definition. It’s nowhere near clear out in the world, to be sure, but in the definition it is, without question. The perception is the antisemitism. Hatred toward Jews is a way the antisemitism may, or may not, get expressed.
So if this IHRA working definition is some serious real righteous definition that all these cities and states and countries are adopting then we’d better listen and learn. Antisemitism is this certain perception of Jews. That’s what is behind the hatred of Jews that so many of us have mistakenly thought was itself antisemitism. That hatred is bad, sure, but it is not actually antisemitism but only an expression of underlying antisemitism which is this certain perception of Jews.
Which means that this perception is really fucking serious. All the anger and horror and disgust I’ve ever felt at hatred toward Jews is substantially misplaced or misdirected. The hatred deserves some of those feelings, but it is not itself antisemitism but only an optional expression of antisemitism, which is actually an underlying perception. That perception must surely deserve its own focused anger and horror and disgust. And it’s own militant and vigilant and dogged opposition, in all of its forms and in all of us, right? Being anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-bigot, pro-pluralism, pro-human, pro-solidarity—means not just hating the hatred of Jews, like so many of us have for so long, but also and maybe moreso hating the perception of Jews of which that hatred is an expression.
Which means it’s time for transformation, time for serious struggle, for those of us who’ve been so deeply mistaken about antisemitism. It’s time to repent, rethink, reorient. So please good and wise IHRA show us what this perception of Jews is, so we can rightly recognize it and resist it! What is this perception that is antisemitism itself, that is the source of so much hatred, so much past and present evil and suffering and death? What is this certain perception?
A truly shocking answer comes from the IHRA. They tell us that this certain perception is... a certain perception. That’s all we are told. Nothing more is said about the perception itself. And next to nothing is actually said about what comes from the perception. Look closely:
The closer you look the less you see. The more carefully we listen the less it tells us. The first sentence says antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may—or may not—be expressed as the hatred toward Jews that’s typically taken as central. The second sentence speaks of rhetorical and physical manifestations of this perception. These manifestations “are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property.” Meaning what? Jewish or non-Jewish individuals means... all individuals. So we are told that manifestations of this perception—if and when they manifest at all—are directed toward any people and/or their property. Which would include the then-named “Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
So the definition as a whole very strangely says the following when we really listen:
That’s all. In the end the definition says almost nothing. So it’s hard to see what it could offer to any efforts to protect Jewish people or to oppose hate and bigotry. What it does offer though is immense reach and flexibility to anyone enforcing it at the schools and employers and governments adopting it. A definition that says almost nothing can cover almost anything.
4
I understand antisemitism as hostility or hatred toward Jews, usually centered on ethnic identity, cultural identity, religious identity, conspiracy theories, or some mixture of these. I consider any hatred of any Jewish person because they are Jewish to be antisemitism.
Tom seems to have something else in mind in The Juvenile Viciousness of Campus Anti-Semitism but it’s not clear what. He stresses the evil character and consequences of antisemitism, and mentions its antiquity, but that’s as far as he goes toward describing or defining it. And he gives only these examples:
Someone wrote in chalk “Holocaust 2.0”
People tear down hostage posters
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
Students for Justice in Palestine praised the 10/7 attack
Each could be done with hatred for Jews. And each could be done without it. […] Could Tom be somehow sliding […] So avoiding antisemitism at present means supporting Israel’s far-right Likud government, and supporting everything Benjamin Netanyahu does, and affirming every bomb dropped and every civilian killed in months of hell on earth in Gaza? Being an antisemite means being hateful or bigoted toward Jewish people or, alternately, opposing the killing of thousands of children in Gaza? This doesn’t seem right.
It’s true that plenty of past and present opposition to the state of Israel is antisemitic. Presumably people who hate Jews will for that reason hate the state of Israel that’s made up of Jews. I guess you could say that antisemitism is anti-Zionism. Not in the sense of an identity between the two terms, but in a unidirectional and non-absolute sense that most antisemitism supports some sort of anti-Zionism. If you have strong negative feelings toward most or all Jews then that’s likely to apply to the Jewish people of the state saying it’s Jewish.
It doesn’t work the other way though. Opposing or criticizing the state of Israel doesn’t make a person antisemitic. Avoiding antisemitism doesn’t demand adoring Bibi or his rightwing government, or never scrutinizing the state of Israel. Israel is in some senses Jewish, but in all senses a state. And states are dangerous and powerful and fallible and well worth criticizing and opposing. Jewish people should never be treated like they aren’t people, and the Jewish state should never be treated like it’s not a state.
5
I give an overview of antisemitism in #6 here. I look at some of the Holocaust horrors that are part of the long awful history of antisemitism here and here and here. For anyone wanting more conceptual clarification about what antisemitism is and/or how Jewish identity plays out across ethnic, cultural, and religious categories I’ve laid that out here. To test whether you might benefit from that clarification, how easily can you imagine a Jewish atheist who grew up Christian?
6
I agree with Tom completely that antisemitism is evil. And nothing in this post is meant to suggest that antisemitism is not present on campus and at protests, because it absolutely is. Here’s one jarring example cited in a source that Tom cites. Absolutely fuck absolutely all actual antisemitism.
At the same time, fuck all cynical invocations of antisemitism to serve other goals. That will always work to erode clarity about and opposition to actual antisemitism, meaning hate or hostility toward Jewish people because they’re Jewish, which helps antisemites and hurts Jews. When in that way or others cynical ascriptions of antisemitism serve brutality or oppression this means serving some of the very evils animating antisemitism. It feeds antisemitism in the name of fighting antisemitism, and serves evil in the name of resisting evil. Fuck that.
Hate all hate, defend all targets, fuck all fascists, solidarity forever. That’s my take.
Thank you for your interest friends and enemies and internet strangers.
I say brutality in Gaza because these were protests against brutality in Gaza. But in Tom’s telling they are “protests against Israel,” “protests in the aftermath of the Hamas attack,” “a rally organized by the pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine.” I suppose never naming the brutality in Gaza is helpful for dismissing the prospect that this student was referring to the brutality in Gaza. But personally I find it plausible that the student was in fact focused on what the protests were in fact focused on.
For more on this see Think About the Thing Not the Term.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-728773
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_definition_of_antisemitism#Adoption
https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/the-problem-with-defining-antisemitism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_definition_of_antisemitism#United_States_2
Questionable examples include “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,” and “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” here unpacked a smidge: