Felix Lechner writes ("Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight
Israel not the DC20 Team"):
> Hi Ian,
>
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 3:50 AM Ian Jackson
> <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > The BDS movement is not antisemitic.
>
> Please have a look at this report, especially the final page.
> http://bit.ly/TheNewAnti-SemitesReport
I started to look at this but it is seems to be based primarily on the
conflation of Israel with Jews. (See my discussion headed "double
standards" in my article below.)
Also it relies on the IHRA definition of anti-semitism which I reject.
I wrote a lengthy analysis of it in uk.legal.moderated when the UK
Labour party were being criticised for not adopting it.
But my main point is this: Ansgar asserted that it is uncontroversial
that the BDS movement is antisemitic. Obviously that was not true.
If it were true then the Montreal team's message would be a CoC
problem.
Ian.
Newsgroups: uk.legal.moderated
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References: <2h1jmdpd669ubv0er3akcks8k0inpj5...@4ax.com>
<pkc27d$47g$1...@dont-email.me> <fsthgtft62...@mid.individual.net>
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2018 13:27:56 +0000 (UTC)
From: ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (Ian Jackson)
Subject: Re: Labour - anti-semitism
Date: 13 Aug 2018 14:27:52 +0100 (BST)
In article <fsthgtft62...@mid.individual.net>,
The Todal <the_to...@icloud.com> wrote:
>This ought to be a good forum in which to debate the wording. It's what
>lawyers do, debate wordings.
>
>The original IHRA definition and examples:
>https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-antisemitism
>
>The Labour Party NEC antisemitism policy:
>https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/app/uploads/2018/07/ASdoc3.pdf
Thanks for this prompt. I haven't read the rest of the thread.
I'm starting by reading the Labour document.
I'm slightly concerned by the reference in para 7 to the ECHR freedom
of expression principles. There is much conduct that a political
party might want to prohibit in its members, which the mandatory and
universal force of the public law ought to tolerate.
Relatedly (perhaps, conversely) I'm concerned by its narrow focus on
tone. As a part of the Left, the Labour party should be alert to the
difficulties of policing the tone used by the oppressed. (IMO This
applies here both to the tone used by Israel's critics to criticise
Israel, and the tone used by Jews and their allies to criticise
antisemitism.)
However, perhaps that doesn't matter because in the examples in para
9, they do give many examples of antisemitism that relate to substance
rather than tone.
Paragraphs 10-15 are impressive.
Paragraph 16 rather fudges the question of comparing Isreal to the
Nazis. This is a very contentious issue. Having spoken to many of my
friends about this, the majority feeling seems to be that such
comparisons are inherently antisemitic and must be avoided.
I think this is going too far. Nazi comparisons are a staple way of
characterising things as evil, in our culture. (Hence Godwin's law,
now suspended by Godwin of course.) I think it's unfair and
unreasonable to insist that Israel should get an immunity from many of
the most effective shorthand criticisms of some of its actions.
Now I turn to the IHRA document. It's not clear to me what portion of
the IHRA web page you link to was agreed by the Plenary. The list of
examples is not in the quote box. The Labour document says of the
text on the IHRA web page:
| The publication of the IHRA definition was accompanied by a
| series of examples to guide IHRA in its intergovernmental work.
So is the web page even authoritative as a formally and firmly agreed
statement of the opinion of the IHRA ? I doubt it. That suggests to
me that it's being asked by critics of Labour to bear rather too much
weight.
But supposing it is authoritative, or at least relevantly interesting,
let us compare it to the Labour party document.
There is a lot in the Labour document that is not in the IHRA page.
In particular paragraph 10 of the Labour document makes a very
important point which captures a lot of -ist behaviour. Paragraph 15
identifies and prohibits the `zio-' prefix, and generally prohibits
using Zionist to mean Jew. Paragraph 14 deals with antisemitistic
requirements that Jews condemn Israel, more than anyone else should.
These are important additions which I expect anti-antisemitists will
applaud.
Paragraphs 7, 8, 11-13 and the rest of 14 and 15, provide a much
fuller discussion of the context, and will be much more helpful with
the difficulties that someone may face if they are trying to make a
judgement about someone's words or conduct.
The real dispute is surely about simply the lists of examples.
The IHRA definition doesn't number them but I will call them
(1)-(11). That allows me to conveniently also refer to the Labour
document's examples (a)-(g) and its paragraphs as 1-16.
(1)-(5) = (a)-(e).
(6) ("loyal") is the last paragraph of 14. I can see why the authors
of the Labour document chose to move it there. That makes the Labour
document better structured and more useable in its own terms, although
it does mean that at first glance it looks like (6) has been dropped.
(9) (symbols and images) is the first sentence of (f). (f) is bigger
and better than (9).
(11) (Jews "responsible") is (g).
(7), (8) and (10) are more difficult. I think it is probably these
that are the original bone of contention, before adoption of the whole
IHRA web page became a shibboleth.
(10) (Nazi comparisons) is dealt with differently by 16, which I have
already discussed.
(7) ("self-determination", "racist"): This issue is covered in the
Labour document by 12-14. 12-14 are significantly longer and are
different in effect. The main concrete prohibition in (7) is against
claiming that the "the existence of a State of Israel is a racist
endeavor".
When read closely the formulation in (7) "the existence of a State of
Israel" prohibits only claims that _any_ state of Israel _must be_ a
racist endeavour, which is not too objectionable.
But I bet this provision is often used against even claims that
specific acts or policies of the actual existing Israeli state are
racist. Certainly for many criticisms intended to be of the actual
Israeli state, it will be possible to argue that the criticism is more
general (because people criticising Israel do not normally explicitly
state which subset of the possible Israels they are attacking).
14 states, the State of Israel itself describes itself as Jewish.
Personally I find it difficult to see how, when a state describes
itself by the name of a race, it can then be so very wrong to describe
that state as racist.
And I think the main point of (7) is actually to prevent descriptions
of the actual Israeli state as racist. This kind of perhaps-strategic
vagueness is often a feature of political discourse but I can see why
the Labour party wouldn't want to adopt it. So I think the Labour
document is much to be preferred.
Overall I think would be difficult to argue in good faith that (7) is
better than 12-14.
(8) ("double standards"): "it" must refer to the state of Israel.
This is a very strange provision. Obviously we do not regard
unjustified criticism of anyone as desirable.
But why is this unjustified criticism of _Israel_ said to be
_antisemitic_, that is, racist against _Jews_ ?
Here we see a problem which is frequently exhibited by some
anti-antisemitists: critics of Israel are supposed to avoid conflating
Israel with Jews (because this is indeed antisemitism as recognised in
(g) for example). But Israel's apologists make the same conflation so
as to be able to label criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
I don't think Israel ought to get a special immunity from being held
to what might be regarded as double standards.
The background to this is that holding institutions or people one is
criticising to high standards is, of course, standard political
discourse.
And (8)'s use of the passive voice "not expected or demanded" allows
(8) to be interpreted in a way that censures the speaker who
criticises Israel, on the bases that _the world generally, ie other
people that then speaker_ do not criticise other states similarly.
I think 13-14 do a much better job in this area. I can see why
someone who supports Israel would prefer (8).
--
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
