An Improved Model Definition of Antisemitism

1. The need for a clear definition of "antisemitism"
A few years back, I blogged about the savvy tactic of the Netanyahu government to accuse virtually all criticism of the Israel occupation policy as antisemitic. Since then, more complex disputes have evolved at higher levels, not least the debate and controversy around antisemitism within the Corbyn led Labour party in the UK. Also in my own country, the thorny issue of how to draw the line between legitimate (not meaning necessarily sound) criticism of decisions made by the government of Israel and judgements that deny jewish people equal rights or has taken public stage, connected to repeated reports of antisemitic harassment and hatespeech in the city of Malmö, and an harassment case regarding Jewish phycisians at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. All of these cases have actualised tricky issues on how to define the line between legitimate political criticism against acts of the Israeli government, and (ethno)racist harassment or hatespeech targetting jewish people.

The issue has become extra complicated with the rise of a new "nationalist" far-right conservative political (more easily, Fascist) movement  across Europe. Albeit targetting muslims and "migrants" has been a main theme in the political rhetorics in these circles, antisemitic themes and tropes are commonplace. This regards, of course, the now well-known cases of the Fidesz-ruled Hungary, and the PiS-ruled Poland (both countries with a long history of widespread antisemitism in the culture, no matter the regime). But also in Sweden, where antisemitic attitudes have a comparably weak hold, open hatred against Jews and open antisemitic attitudes have been a standing occurrence from the Sweden Democrats party, even its highest circles of leadership. Even political pundits linked to the more traditional conservative side of politics have been starting to flaunt obvious antisemitic tropes in their public statements. The perhaps most well-known and obvious case being the former op-ed editor, now mainly op-ed writer, of the Göteborgsposten daily, and ideaological consultant of the Moderaterna classic conservative party, Alice Teodorescu, who shortly before the Swedish general election of 2018 labelled holocaust survivors who went public with parallels between the current political development in Europe and Sweden and that in 1930's Germany as "agents of the political left", ironically proving said holocaust survivors right by using the classic trope of porttraying Jews as spokespersons and forerunners of a leftwing conspiracy.

In this landscape, it has become increasingly difficult to navigate, as the Israeli government marks any criticism as antisemitic, obvious antisemitic hatespeech, tropes and images within the Palestine movement and other critics of Israel are shrugged off as legitimate criticism of Israel, while many feel an increasing need to protest against the increasing antisemitism from the new fascism and politically conservative right. As the fight over the concept of antisemitism continues, Jews as well as all anti-racists are being caught in the middle.  At the heart of the problem is that there is no well-designed and generally approved definition of "antisemitism". In fact, I was stunned to find out, the only thing there is, is a "non legally binding working defintion" issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. As no alternative determination of the concept exists, this definition has been used (though not officially adopted or approved) by the European Commission and Parliament, and adopted by the federal US government.

However, the definition has also drawn criticism for confusing the line between legitimate political criticism of the Israeli government, and hatespeech, harassment etc. targetting jews. I agree with portions of this criticism and, in addition, as a philosopher, I find the definition poorly constructed from a technical point of view. In this post I will therefore use the IHRA working defintion as a stepping stone for presenting a more accurate and better constructed defintion. The result, I will call a "Model Definition of Antisemitism", thereby signalling that I believe this suggestions to move the work of defining "antisemitism" from the "working" stage to the stage of presenting an actual prototype for use in legislation and political and moral judgement.

2. Improving the IHRA Working Definition
The IHRA definition starts off with a generic characterization of "antisemitism", and this is the part that a philosopher would call an actual definition:

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.

Immediately following this rather vague statement (what counts as "hatred", and what "manifestations" are implied?) comes a generic clarification, which must be sen as part of the diefinition.

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.

Thus far, the definition looks pretty ok. However, one unclarity can be found in the first two sentences of the second quote. Together, these may be read to imply that the state of Israel is "a Jewish collectivity", not only that criticising the Israeli government's actions in terms of condemnation of "jews" is antisemitic. This muddle is unfortunate. Of course, jews may be citizens of any country, and the state or government of Israel cannot be assumed to represent jews everywhere, and citizens of Israel need not be jews (so the collectivity of Israel is thereby not "Jewish", albeit a lot of israelis are jewish and Jewish culture is central to israeli life).

Additionally, these descriptions fail to make a distinction that, if ignored, often causes confusion in debates on whether or not some phenomenon or person is antisemitic. This is the distinction between, on the one hand, a person harbouring antisemitic ideas, and, on the other, some manifestation communicating, expressing and/or spreading antisemitism. For instance, when I pointed out on Twitter how Alice Teodorescu's inciting attack on holocaust survivors fitted several counts of the IHRA definition of "antisemitism", I had a storm of responses from her supporters that it was preposterous to suggest that she is antisemitic. This is, of course, is completely irrelevant when assessing her statements – a person may express antisemitism without being antisemitic. At the same time, if the antisemitism of some manifestation is pointed out but the person behind them continue to use them, this will be empirical evidence supporting the idea that this person actually endorses antisemitism.

To improve the definition in this respect, I therefore suggest the following revision:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews, or rhetorical and physical manifestations directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. This perception may be held by a person, and communicated through different types of manifestations. While criticism of the government of Israel similar to that leveled against any other government cannot be regarded as antisemitic, manifestations that has such criticism take the form of targeting Jews or Jewish people rather than political decisions and holders of political offices is antisemitic. Antisemitic manifestations 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.

 Following this opening, generic characterization, the IHRA working definition then adds a list of examples of what may be included in contemporary antisemitic manifestations. In tghis quote, I have added numbers for more easy referral to items on the list, in the original the items are seprated by dots:

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.

It is important to note that this kind of list is, from a conceptual analytical standpoint, an entirely different animal than the proper definition given earlier. A list like this is more like an amendment, or implementation guide, and not really part of the definition itself. The list must therefore not serve to arbitrarily expand the concept, as it has already been characterised in the generic definition. Moreover, the list shoud ideally be brief, and items that could be subsumed as instances of other items should be taken off the list to avoid confusion. With these aspects in mind we may match the items on the list against the revised generic characterisation, and the other items of the list. I will start with the question if some items can be sorted under others.

Of the items, 1-4 seem perfectly legitimate. No. 5, however, while being an accurate example of typical antisemitic manifestations, it falls under the domains of items 2-4, as one of many specific examples. Likewise, item no. 6 falls under item 2 and 3. Furthermore, item no. 11 seems to be a particular instance of item 3, especially if item 3 is clarified to include states. Finally, item 10 would seem to sort under item 4. A first revision of the list in view of making it more coherent and brief, would therefore read: 

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 indivuals or a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by another Jewish person, group, institution or state, 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. 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.

6. Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. 

7. Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. 




We come now to the question if all the remaining items can be supported by the generic characterisation. Here, I find only one item problematic, namely no. 5. The problem with this item is that it is perfectly possible to hold the political philosophical view that no people of any kind have any right to self-determination without being antisemitic in the sense of the generic characterisation. This view is a general scepticism to the notion of the nation state as a moral (rather than practical) category. This view implies that also Jewish people lack such a right (thus falling under item no. 5), but without in any way treating Jewish people worse than any other people, or discriminate against jews. What would be antisemitic would be to afford a right of self-determination to other peoples, but not to the Jewish people. A case in point would, for example be, if the Palestinian people is afforded a right to self-determination while the Jewish people is denied such a right (conversely, affording the right to the Jewish people but not to the palestinian people would be "anti-palestinianism"). But if the item is rephrased to that effect, it will fall under item 6 (regarding double standards). Therefore, my suggestion is that also item 5 on the revised list is removed.

3. A Model Definition of "Antisemitism"
The outcome of this little exercise is, then, the following proposal for a model definition of the notion of "antisemitism". This definition provides a more coherent, brief and applicable guide for determining whether or not some phenomenon is antisemitic or not. For example, the Teodorescu statement about holocaust survivors who bear witness of the 1930's being "agents of the political left" clearly falls under item 2, and possibly also under item 4 (if historical facts regarding the Holocaust include its political precedence. many of the examples from islamist propaganda, as well as propaganda within the Labour party of the UK (such as classic antisemitic trope images that have been used for centuries for antisemitic purposes). But claims from any of these parties regarding the justification of, e.g., Israeli settler policy on occupied land, or the "shoot to kill" policy of IDF forces at the border between occupied territory and Israel proper would not be antisemitic at all. I believe this definition, unlike that of IHRA, to be fit for incorporation into actual legal statute, as well as policy declarations that guide the actions of international institutions, states, business as well as NGO's.


Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews, or rhetorical and physical manifestations directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. This perception may be held by a person, and communicated through different types of manifestations. While criticism of the government of Israel similar to that leveled against any other government cannot be regarded as antisemitic, manifestations that has such criticism take the form of targeting Jews or Jewish people rather than political decisions and holders of political offices is antisemitic. Antisemitic manifestations 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 indivuals or a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by another Jewish person, group, institution or state, 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. Applying double standards by requiring of the state of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. 

6. Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. 

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On Using Physiological or Biomedical Methods to Determine the Age of Unaccompanied Refugee Children

  In my country, there has for some time been a lot of political debate around how to handle the rising number of refugees from, primarily, Syria/Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa. This as the pressure on border EU member states, and the impossible situation of trying to hold back people on the run from intolerable circumstances that I blogged about not so far ago, has meant that much more people are now entering Sweden to seek asylum in a short time, as most other member states are unwilling to participate in a scheme of sharing the economic and logistical load it means to process these requests in a way required by human rights and international agreements, as well as legal security. For, while there is no such thing as a right to have asylum, to seek it is an absolute international legal right, and already this means that a receiving country has a lot of obligations. And one group of refugee people towards which such obligations are especially strict are unaccompanied children, and many of these who actually arrive to Sweden are mostly in their teens, usually lacking certifiable identity documentation.

Now, yesterday, the Swedish government, pressed by the logistic and organisational pressure, declared that the already announced difficulties had now become intolerable, and that a number of measures was to be put into place to complement the already a few weeks back instigated active border controls (which, until then, had been non-existent in accordance with the so-called Schengen accord on free internal EU mobility). The move is very controversial, and many doubt that the logistical and organisational reasons cited are the only ones behind it, if nothing else, worries about how political opinion will shift in the presence of my country's anti-immigration, semi-racist party, the Sweden Democrats (see here, here and here), are bound to have played a part, as these are presently laying mostly low to wait things out after some botched attempts to take the initiative, and being actively ignored by the other parties, as it has announced that its only idea is to close the borders entirely. One thing is entirely clear, though, the problem behind the decision is neither one of money, nor one of space, Sweden has plenty and plenty of both of those, and neith is it about "volumes", as the term goes, but mostly about flow; not how many people arrive, but how many arrive in a short time.

 One of the measures decreed by the Government concerns the unaccompanied refugee children, and it is to (re)start using certain physiological or biomedical methods to ascertain the age of these children. No one is debating the need for such ascertaining, but the debate is about this particular proposal, as many Swedish medical specialists (for two international sources, see here and here) also the medical research specialist organisation Swedish Society of Medicine, point out that the proposed methods are very uncertain and have wide margins of error, up to 4 years plus or minus. This means that the risk is imminent that a child of 14 is determined to be an adult, and that Sweden would thus knowingly risk to default on its particularly strong and demanding obligations towards children. The fact that there is also a risk that some 21-year olds come to enjoy these special protections and care is a non-issue in that light. However, the government seems insistent, so what should be done? General refusal of doctors and other medical staff to participate in what has been proved to be unprofessional practice? (as they would seem to be required to do by the Swedish health and Medical Services Act)? This is certainly a live option from a medical ethical standpoint as well, although it also means that most unaccompanied refugee children are left without proof of age.

However, there is another solution, which would satisfy both the government's decree, the worries from the point of view, the need for unaccompanied refugee children to have their age ascertained, and the overwhelming reason to have Swedish policy abide by its own legal standards. This solution is, moreover, applicable to any method for this purpose. It rests on the assumption that for Sweden to meet its own legal requirements is a primary consideration that trumps other reasons and interests in this area. This means that overestimating a refugee child's age and assess this person as adult is far worse than underestimating a refugee adult's age and assess this person as a child. Based on this premise, we may now argue that, therefore, using a method for age assessment in this area that is uncertain, we should use it in a way that makes us err in the right direction. That is, to the extent that we draw faulty conclusions, these should rather be the wrongful classification of adults as children than the wrongful classification of children as adults. this rules gives us access to a simple mathematical solution to the conundrum: we simply adjust the conclusions drawn with the help of the method in light of its uncertainties, so that we are certain to err in the right direction. Thus, for any method, M, for the assessment of the age of a person, P, with a margin of error +/- X years, M is taken to indicate adulthood if, and only if, its result is 18+X years or higher, and otherwise taken to indicate childhood. Regarding the methods cited earlier, this would mean that a person who is apparently an unaccompanied refugee child (who lacks reliable documents), is concluded to be a child, as long as these methods do not declare the age to be 22 years or higher.

As said, this solution makes it possible to abide by the governmental decision, while acting inside medical professional and ethical boundaries, and while both securing the need of refugee children to have their age determined to claim their rights, and the paramount need for the state of Sweden to honour its own legal and international obligations.

Due to debates related to this post in other fora, here's an addendum I made a few days later.

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Not In My Name!

This is inspired by my colleague in mathematics, over at the Chalmers Institute of Technology, Olle Häggström (forthcoming with this book about existential risks, soon to be out on Oxford University Press), who writeson his blog:

The flyer depicted below, containing slander against and blatant lies about the country of Sweden, is currently being distributed at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos and at many other places on the borders of the European Union. Representatives of the extreme and anti-immigrant right-wing Sweden Democrats party confirm that their party is behind the campaign.

Notice, among the signatories, "The People of Sweden". That is forgery. The people of Sweden includes myself. I have (along with the vast majority of my compatriots) not been consulted about the letter, neither in person, nor via legitimate proxy. I do not stand by its disgraceful content.

The Sweden Democrats party has its roots in Nazism and the white supremacy movement. Since 2010 it is represented in the Swedish Parliament (and is currently holding 49 of the 349 seats).

Adding for myself: a self-professed "nationalist" and essentielly populist party, currently representing slightly more than 12% of the voters, slanders its country and claims to represent the entire "people of Sweden". Together with the blatant lies, this says all about the arrogance, hypocracy and view of democracy to be expected of these people, should they ever gain actual political power. To this may be added, their recent slippery passive support of a wave of arsonist attacks against premises for asylum seekers, following fiery rhetoric about using "all means available" to fight the current wave of refugees arriving in Sweden and supporting the online posting of maps showing the locations of asylum seeker lodgings, albeit these have been classified by the national Migration Agency due to the wave of terrorist attacks. These people are clearly desperate and on the defensive, as it is the only one with no solutions whatsoever for handling the current political crisis in Europe regarding refugees (besides the totally unrealistic and economically catastrophic idea of shutting off the country from the surrounding world and weed out those residents who are not "Swedish" enough). This I could see for myself when its leader was pressed about the untrue statements (regarding "coming bans" on niquab etc.) on national TV yesterday, and behaved quite deranged; repeating as a robot that this is what his party wishes to see happen and therefore it will happen. Apparently he is unable to distinguish between his own political wishes and actual reality, which is another reminder about the nature of these kinds of political parties. I suppose that this is also what makes him think that he represents the Swedish people, albeit his 12% in the parliament has gained him no influence, since the other parties, of course, sees though the thin laquer of apparent democratic alegiance and spot the fascism and racism underneath. Again, this is a reminder what kind of leaders we would gain should these people ever gain any political influence: arrogant liers, unable to distinguish between reality and dream, with a political program that would sink the country into an economic slump and their only remedy to shrink and shut it off further.

 Not in my name!

PS. Should you so wish, I made my own analys of the new racist/nationalist ideology currently held out by several parties like this around Europe a few years back: here, here and here.