Editor’s note: This piece was updated to correct a date related to an FBI policy, to clarify the FBI’s policy and to clarify individual statements and group classifications. We regret the error.
The rollout of the Biden administration’s “National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” is largely a positive development for the American Jewish community, which is experiencing record levels of reported hate and violence. In 2022, 3,697 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the U.S., a 36 percent increase from 2021, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Any sensible person can applaud President Biden for developing a comprehensive national strategy that devotes substantial attention to combatting the crisis of antisemitism that American Jews are facing.
Unfortunately, though, the administration’s 60-page plan obscures the answer to a basic question — what defines antisemitism — in an omission that underscores the complexities of fighting one of the world’s oldest forms of hatred, particularly when it emanates from the far left.
Antisemitism exists on both extreme ends of the political spectrum, though it manifests in different ways. On the far-right, antisemitism is grounded in an embrace of nationalist and neo-Nazi viewpoints, and thus is easily detectable. But antisemitism on the far-left is often couched in anti-Israel views, and in turn is difficult to define, as criticizing Israel’s government is protected speech, but not when such speech morphs into hatred of Jewish people.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism is near-universally accepted and applies to all prejudice, hatred and violence against Jews — regardless of which radical ideology it stems from. The IHRA carefully threads the needle between criticisms of the Jewish State and hatred or violence directed at Jewish people and appropriately states that criticizing Israel — something American Jews and Israelis themselves do frequently — is not inherently antisemitic.
Rather, per the IHRA, criticisms of Israel are antisemitic when driven by underlying anti-Jewish sentiments — namely, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavor, holding the Jewish State to a double standard applied to no other country or drawing comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
It is evident why the IHRA’s definition is used by more than half of U.S. states, federal agencies, 40 countries and over 1,000 international organizations: It is unbiased, apolitical and leaves little room to question when anti-Israel sentiment crosses over into antisemitism.
However, due to pressure the Biden administration faced from far-left members of the Democratic Party, the new U.S. national strategy to combat antisemitism does not wholly embrace the IHRA definition. Rather, it notes that there are “several definitions of antisemitism,” one of which is the IHRA’s, but that the U.S. “welcomes and appreciates” others that don’t address the role of anti-Israel sentiment.
This is a regrettable obfuscation that leaves government agencies — such as the Departments of Education and State — without a clear-cut explanation to work from. It’s much harder to fight hatred if we aren’t clear about who or what we’re fighting.
Unsurprisingly, the IHRA’s definition has been long-objected to by the far left, whose core positioning toward Israel is, based on these standards, antisemitic.
Three weeks ago, far-left Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced a bill that would require the U.S. to recognize the “Nakba” — Arabic for “catastrophe” — in reference to the failure of Arab armies to exterminate the nascent Jewish State in 1948. Additionally, Tlaib’s bill invoked the “Elie Weisel Genocide and Prevention Act” — named after a Holocaust survivor — to imply that Israel is committing similar genocide against Palestinians today, despite that the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and disputed West Bank has grown by roughly 400 percent since 1967, according to one analysis.
Further, Tlaib’s leftist allies in Congress frequently promote antisemitic tropes that are disguised as criticisms of Israel. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has gone on record equating the Israeli military with the Taliban, accusing Israel of hypnotizing the world and falsely claiming that Israel is engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
To be clear, President Biden himself is a longtime supporter of Israel who understands its significance to the preservation of the Jewish population, and he should be lauded for his constant efforts to find common ground in Washington with both the left and right. Further, the appointment of Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt last month to be the first-ever special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism (a Cabinet-level position) signals that the president is committed to providing the resources necessary to address this crisis facing American Jews.
That being said, by undermining the IHRA definition, Biden is, unfortunately, playing into the hands of politicians like Tlaib and Omar, who cloak their motives as a pursuit of “social justice” for Palestinians and vocally support anti-Israel organizations like the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose sole purpose is to marginalize the Jewish State.
Indeed, politicians and groups critical of Israel celebrated the removal of the IHRA definition, namely The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The FBI introduced a policy to “significantly restrict … non-investigative interactions with CAIR” in 2008 due to questions surrounding individuals within the group having relationships with Hamas, a terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip. One CAIR director has equated Holocaust denial to “supporting Zionism and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” and another referred to Jewish organizations as “enemies.”
To reiterate, antisemitism is prevalent on both the left and right, and neither political party has taken strong enough action to remove this rot festering in their own ranks. The frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, and his allies have lengthy track records of condoning antisemitism when it presents as nationalism.
However, antisemitism on the far left is uniquely dangerous because of how ingrained it has become in mainstream society under the guise of anti-Zionism. This is especially true of college campuses, where antisemitic incidents have tripled between 2014 and 2021, per the ADL.
To be clear, no national strategy could truly put an end to antisemitism, as these views will always exist on the margins of any society. That being said, President Biden has a duty to ensure that any form of racist hatred doesn’t have a place in mainstream American culture. While his National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism is an important and historic first step, there is still much work to be done.
Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” Saul Mangel is a senior strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research.