Biden’s antisemitism plan is a missed opportunity

When the Biden administration launched a National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism on May 25, there was some hope that it would address the growing overlap between domestic U.S. antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy.

Here is a recent case: Last February, the Palestinian-American journalist and poet Mohammed El-Kurd was invited by Princeton University’s English Department to give an annual lecture. El-Kurd’s writings contain “vicious antisemitism” according to the Anti-Defamation League’s website. His 2021 book of poetry states that “they [Israelis] harvest organs of the martyred [Palestinians], feed their warriors our own.” In May 2021, he tweeted that Zionists have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood.”

How did Princeton’s Jews respond? Students sent a letter to the English department chair asking not that the invitation to El-Kurd be withdrawn, given their adherence to principles of freedom of expression, but rather that the English department instead take a position on El-Kurd’s antisemitic writings and work with Jewish partners to sponsor a second speaker on campus to help “heal the injury.” The department chair refused both requests. 

Adding insult to injury, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber highlighted this exchange as a “Case Study in Civil Discourse” in the alumni magazine. Even the Dean of the Faculty — she’s Jewish, Eisgruber added — supported the Department’s decision.  Most tellingly, Eisgruber characterized the concerns with El-Kurd’s writing, “which they” — that is, the Jews — “regard as antisemitic.” 

Is El-Kurd’s use of the medieval blood libel against modern-day Israelis a case of antisemitism? Eisgruber doesn’t even take a position.   

At the heart of the Princeton case lies the growth in antisemitism in the U.S. nationally. ADL reports a 36 percent increase in antisemitic violence and harassment of American Jews between 2021 and 2022. Antisemitism is also evolving in form, with its targets now sometimes called “Zionists,” substituting for the Semites of former times.  

The term “antisemitism” was originally coined in late 19th century western Europe to legitimize hatred of Jews by giving it a scientific aura linked to the racial theories of the time. Today, Jew-hatred often comes in the guise of anti-Israel speech and actions. This is not to say that all criticism of the policies of the state of Israel is motivated by antisemitism. But some of it clearly is, and one key to combatting and countering antisemitism today is to identify when hatred of Jews is indeed present in anti-Israel discourse.

Biden’s White House, in formulating its plan to combat antisemitism, wisely invited the mainstream American Jewish advocacy organizations (ADL, AJC) to participate, along with academics and religious leaders. For the Jewish organizations, it was a golden opportunity to advance their priority of having the U.S. Government address those cases in which antisemitism takes the form of anti-Zionism.    

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), whose 31 member states include the U.S. and most Europeans, has promulgated a definition of antisemitism which does this. It cites among illustrative examples of antisemitic behavior the following:

• “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.”
• “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
• “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Prior U.S. administrations adopted the IHRA definition for some of their agencies’ work (as have the majority of U.S. states). Under former President Barack Obama, the State Department adopted it in dealing with foreign countries’ antisemitic practices. Under former President Donald Trump, an executive order allowed Jews (and Muslims and Sikhs) to benefit from the anti-discrimination protections of Article VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even though it doesn’t apply to religions, because these religious groups share ethnic and national origins. This 2019 executive order also adopted the IHRA definition for the Department of Education’s use in monitoring federal grants to universities under Article VI. 

Unfortunately, the Biden plan punts on this key issue of the definition. The 60-page strategy document devotes one short paragraph where it says “there are several definitions of antisemitism.” It cites the IHRA as the most prominent one, which the U.S. “has embraced,” but also “welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document” and notes other definitions. 

The Nexus Document was drafted by American academics to counter what they considered the IHRA’s overbroad inclusion of anti-Israel behavior.

The Biden plan includes many good action steps to be taken by the U.S. Government, especially in the area of education, and pledges from private sector actors. It leaves open the core question of when anti-Israel speech and action crosses the line into antisemitism — a compromise, according to participants with whom I spoke, owing to push-back from left-wing groups who oppose any cross referencing of antisemitism with anti-Israel work.  

Thus, the Biden plan has become a lost opportunity for all Americans concerned with the current rise of antisemitism.

Left open are the questions of whether the State Department and the Department of Education will continue to use the IHRA definition. Also left open is whether the forthcoming UN plan on antisemitism will reference the IHRA definition. I suspect U.S. and UN bureaucrats have received sufficient signals of caution from the Biden plan about including anti-Israel behavior.

The Biden plan rightly notes that “there is no higher profile platform than the White House for pushing back against and re-stigmatizing antisemitism.” Let us hope that the president finds the moral courage — which the President of Princeton apparently lacks — to use his platform to point out when antisemitism goes hand in hand with anti-Israel advocacy, as it does in the case of Mohammed El-Kurd.

Robert Silverman, a former U.S. diplomat, is a lecturer at Shalem College, editor of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune and founder of the Inter Jewish Muslim Alliance.