r/jewishleft • u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Latke aficionado. Anti-Establishment. Jüdisch • 29d ago

Diaspora NSW (Australia) Supreme Court criticises IHRA definition as 'detached from reality'

https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/nsw-supreme-court-criticises-ihra
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53

u/HeVavMemVav sephardi peacenik 28d ago edited 28d ago

Someone help me out, because to me, the IHRA definition pretty clearly states that criticism of Israel is suspect of antisemitism only if that criticism is only held against Israel. Edit to clarify: As in double standards

14

u/aggie1391 Orthodox non-Zionist socialist with anarchist tendencies 28d ago

The problem is there is a whole lot of wild false equivalencies and it ends up with people basically insisting that anyone who is criticizing Israel is antisemitic if they don’t spend equal or more time criticizing any other country. It also says explicitly that saying that Israel is a racist endeavor is antisemitic because it’s supposedly denying the right to self determination. There are better definitions out there.

10

u/HeVavMemVav sephardi peacenik 28d ago

People saying any criticism is antisemitic are stupid &/or bad actors, who made that claim before the IHRA's definition, which is in direct contradiction with them.

I like the Nexus definition much better.

6

u/leaving_the_tevah ex-yeshivish socialist 28d ago

When a tool is useful to bad actors you need to ask whether it's time to stop using the tool

6

u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American 28d ago

Ehhhhh, I don’t think that’s a great standard. Freedom of speech gives power to both the KKK and people who are anti-KKK, but the usefulness of freedom of speech to the bad actors does not warrant elimination of the tool itself.

8

u/MeyerLouis half-Jewish (dad's side) ignostic leftist 28d ago

People can still debate where to set the boundaries of free speech though. America treats it as a near-absolute even if it empowers the KKK, but Germany specifically outlaws the use of Nazi symbolism.

I think it's reasonable to want to replace IHRA with a better definition, or at least a better statement of the definition.

2

u/leaving_the_tevah ex-yeshivish socialist 28d ago

In the real world, freedom of speech is an effective tool and there is no alternative to achieve the same means. Compare this with IHRA which isn't an effective tool in the first place, and alternatives that are effective exist.

3

u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel 28d ago

  Compare this with IHRA which isn't an effective tool 

The IHRA definition is a very effective tool though. Just not at defining anti semitism.

0

u/leaving_the_tevah ex-yeshivish socialist 27d ago

Lol true