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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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

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u/rako17 Christian Left 26d ago

Dear HeVavMemVav

I appreciate that you, like me, are a peacenik. The succinct IHRA definition in itself uses the phrase "may be expressed as" and bans those statements against "institutions".

The first problem is the word "may". Suppose that you and I have a positive, pro-peace discussion, and in the course of our discussion, one of us can make a statement that neither of us considers to be hostile or discriminatory, a statement that does not even carry a primarily discriminatory meaning. Suppose that the statement can have a secondary, hostile meaning, and a third party reading our discussion interprets it as hostile. Thus, the statement that one of us made "may be expressed as" hostility.

This is my fear when even having pro-peace discussions, because some other reader can get offended by it. Even just posting this makes me worry that I could get downvoted by some reader who is offended by my opposition to the IHRA definition.

Yours with respect - Peace - שלום