Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
PB April-May 2025
April-May 2025 19
Well-meant but
ill-conceived
Ireland adopts
Global Guidelines
for Countering
Antisemitism and
IHRA’s working
definition of
antisemitism
By Suzie Mélange
I
n December 2024, Israel announced
the closure of its embassy in Dublin,
citing Ireland’s recognition of a
Palestinian state and its support for
legal actions against Israel in
international forums.
Subsequently Ireland announced that it
plans to enact the Overseas Territories law
banning trade in goods, though not
services, with the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories.
In January 2024, in a provisional decision
on a case initiated by South Africa against
Israel, the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) found “at least some of the acts and
omissions alleged by South Africa to have
been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to
be capable of falling within the provisions
of the [Genocide] Convention”. The case is
that Israel’s operations in Gaza are
“intended to bring about the destruction of
a substantial part of the Palestinian
national, racial and ethnical group”.
Nevertheless Ireland, which later joined
the proceedings, is an outlier when it comes
to EU states’ views of the Middle East, with
Fine Gael leader Harris described by the
Politico website as “one of Israel’s fiercest
critics in Europe”, which is perhaps — at a
governmental level at least — not saying
much. The likes of Daniel Mulhall, Ireland’s
former ambassador to the US, have argued
that the ban on trade risks incurring Trump’s
wrath and could have implications for
Ireland economically.
NEWS
20 April-May 2025
April-May 2025 21
The IHRA’s working definition describes
antisemitism as “a certain perception of
Jews, which may be expressed as hatred
toward Jews”.
This is not objectionable but its
methodology is to give examples of
antisemitism and there are problems with
some of the examples it gives of
antisemitism. In February 2022, Roderic
O’Gorman claimed that Ireland had
supported the definition since its
promulgation in 2011, but did not consider
the illustrative examples to be an integral
part of it.
Here are some of the controversial IHRA
examples:
IHRA Example:
“Denying the Jewish people their right to
self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the
existence of a State of Israel is a racist
endeavour”.
Critics argue this could stifle discussion
about Zionism and Israel’s policies to
Palestinians which many see as a form of
apartheid (a claim made by Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International).
IHRA Example:
“Drawing comparisons of contemporary
Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.
Once the understandable historical taboo
against holding Israel to account is
overcome, it is clear that war crimes and
genocide were so central to the Nazi project
that legitimate criticism of Israel’s conduct
in its war of Gaza for also perpetrating war
crimes and genocide may plausibly be
considered to be drawing comparisons of
contemporary Israeli policy to that of the
Nazis.
That does not seem reckless or
intrinsically disordered or unfair.
That Israel might engage in genocide was
not so predictable when the guidelines were
drawn up.
IHRA Example:
“Applying double standards by requiring
of Israel a behaviour not expected or
demanded of any other democratic nation”.
Some believe Israel should be subject to
heightened scrutiny because of its unique
geopolitical situation and role in unlawful
military occupation of Palestinian
territories.
IHRA Example:
“Accusing Jewish citizens of being more
loyal to Israel, or to alleged priorities of Jews
worldwide, than to the interests of their own
nations”.
Some believe stringent political analysis
of Jewish groups with systemic pro-Israeli
policies like the Zionist Federation of Great
Britain and Ireland, the American Israel
Public Aairs Committee, and the French
CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions
Juives de France should not be automatically
Reflecting all this, in January 2025, before
the FFG coalition left oce, Ireland ocially
endorsed two key frameworks to combat
antisemitism: the non-legally binding
Global Guidelines for Countering
Antisemitism. These were published in July
2024 during a gathering in Buenos Aires,
Argentina in an initiative, led by US Special
Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism,
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt. They specify
means for governments to counter
antisemitism without defining it.
At the same time Ireland endorsed the
International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance’s (IHRA) non-legally binding
working definition of antisemitism. This
move was announced by then-Tánaiste and
Minister for Foreign Aairs, Micheál Martin,
who attempted to hold an online cabinet
meeting to try to gain approval for the move,
but was blocked by Roderic O’Gorman, the
leader of the Green Party who considered
his party was being bounced into a
deleterious policy change.
Case Study in treatment
of antisemitism: former
British Labour Party leader,
Jeremy Corbyn
While there is no direct evidence that
Jeremy Corbyn is personally antisemitic,
certain associations and statements
were aggressively used against him
after the Party got into trouble when
former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone
claimed, in 2016, that “Hitler was
supporting Zionism before he went
mad”.
Margaret Hodge, a senior Labour MP,
was one of Corbyn’s strongest critics
and famously called him “a racist and
an antisemite” in 2018.
This seems unfair. Corbyn was rather
a sometimes over-zealous supporter of Palestinians who need international support.
For example, in 2009 Corbyn had referred to members of Hamas and Hezbollah
as “friends” during a parliamentary meeting. He later said he regretted using that
language.
In 2010 Corbyn attended an event where Holocaust deniers spoke. He later said
he did not endorse their views.
In 2014, Corbyn attended a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunisia, which critics
claimed honoured Palestinian terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. He
denied this, claiming it was for victims of a 1985 Israeli airstrike.
Mainstream UK media, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Times and The Jewish
Chronicle, a UK-based Jewish newspaper, often used the IHRA definition when
discussing whether Corbyn’s comments or Labour’s handling of complaints
constituted antisemitism.
Britain’s independent, statutory Equality and Human Rights Commission’s 2020
report on Labour antisemitism — which followed complaints from Jewish groups —
didn’t directly use the IHRA definition but heavily relied on it as a standard for
identifying antisemitic conduct.
The report found that Labour had unlawfully handled antisemitism complaints,
leading to Corbyn’s suspension when he stated that while he did not accept all of
its findings, he trusted its recommendations would be implemented swiftly. He also
expressed regret that it took longer than it should have to address the issue.
Corbyn added that the problem was “dramatically overstated for political reasons
by our opponents inside and outside the party”.
The Labour leadership under Starmer, from April 2020, used the IHRA definition
as a framework for assessing antisemitism cases, reinforcing Corbyn’s suspension.
He fully endorsed the IHRA definition and committed to tackling antisemitism in the
party.
The Guardian’s Owen Jones has said that anti-Semitism did exist on the fringe of
the left but the issue was also being used to smear Mr Corbyn. Both statements, he
insisted, could be true.
20 April-May 2025
April-May 2025 21
classified as antisemitism.
In Ireland, Paul Murphy TD has asked of
the antisemitism package; “Where did this
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is an
intergovernmental organisation with 35 Member Countries and
8 Observer Countries. Founded in 1998 by former Swedish
Prime Minister Göran Persson, we address issues related to the
Holocaust and genocide of the Roma.
On 26 May 2016, the IHRA Plenary in Bucharest decided to
adopt the following non-legally binding working definition of
antisemitism:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be
expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical
manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or
non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish
community institutions and religious facilities.”
To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve
as illustrations:
Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of
Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of
Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot
be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges
Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to
blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech,
writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister
stereotypes and negative character traits.
Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the
media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere
could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are
not limited to:
1.
Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of
Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view
of religion.
2.
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or
stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power
of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not
exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of
Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other
societal institutions.
3. Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or
imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person
or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
4. Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers)
or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the
hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and
accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
5.
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of
inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
6. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to
the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the
interests of their own nations.
7.
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.
8.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not
expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
9.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic
antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood
libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
10.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that
of the Nazis.
11.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the
state of Israel.
12. Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by
law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of
antisemitic materials in some countries).
13. Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks,
whether they are people or property – such as buildings,
schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected
because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked
to Jews.
14.
Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of
opportunities or services available to others and is illegal
in many countries.
THE IHRA DEFINITION AND ITS PROBLEM EXAMPLES
Ner Strsbourg, Frnce, December 2018
This is just another way
to try and silence the
Palestine solidarity
movement
come from? Who was pushing for it.” The
IRHA definition of anti-semitism is used to
wrongly label criticism of Israel as
“anti-semitic”. 7 of 11 examples are about
criticising Israel. This is just another way to
try and silence the Palestine solidarity
movement”. Barry Cannon from Academics
for Palestine voiced concerns that the
definition’s examples might conflate
criticism of Israel with antisemitism, leading
to a chilling eect on free speech.
