Anti-Semitism is racism, and anti-Zionism is anti-colonialism.
El Special Group Al Zeytun Magazine / CLACSO Palestine and Latin America adheres to the manifesto disagreeing with the growing predisposition of various governments and organizations to adopt the definition of anti-Semitism launched in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
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We, the undersigned, belonging to the academic, artistic, and journalistic fields of various Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, express in this document our disagreement with the growing predisposition of various governments and organizations to adopt the definition of anti-Semitism Launched in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), with the resulting legal consequences. We understand that this definition has a bias that seeks to criminalize solidarity with the Palestinian people—as the manifesto of Arab intellectuals published in December 2020 aptly explained—and also contributes to reinforcing the antisemitism it claims to combat, as well as other forms of racism and exclusion.
While the IHRA states that "criticism of Israel, similar to that directed against any other country, cannot be considered antisemitism," in practice it includes among what it considers "contemporary examples of antisemitism" some that clearly target positions critical of Zionism and the State of Israel. Thus, it considers it antisemitic "to deny Jews their right to self-determination, for example, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor," "to draw comparisons between current Israeli policy and that of the Nazis," or "to apply a double standard by demanding of Israel behavior not expected or required of any other democratic country."
To begin with, the IHRA's identification of Israel with all Jews must be questioned. First, because the majority of the world's Jews are not Israeli, but rather citizens of their respective countries. And second, because Zionism (the nationalist ideology that led to the creation of the State of Israel as an ethnic Jewish state) is merely one political option among others, and some of its most vocal critics have also identified as Jewish. Equating Israel with all Jews implies making the latter complicit in Israeli policies—that is, in its structural discrimination against Palestinians, its constant human rights violations, and its systematic disregard for international law. It seems, at the very least, a strange way to combat antisemitism.
The idea of the "right to self-determination of the Jewish people" is an ideological formulation of the Zionist movement, and therefore legitimately open to criticism like any other political option. This is especially true when its practical implication is nothing less than the "right" to colonize the territory of Palestine, depriving its native population, in turn, of the right to exist and have rights in their own land. The Zionist project, like all other colonial "rights," rests on a narrative that legitimizes the moral and civilizational superiority of the colonizers over the colonized. This can only be described as racist, if we understand racism as the naturalization of a relationship of oppression and inequality based on ethnic, national, religious, and/or cultural characteristics.
It is not unreasonable to draw analogies and comparisons between Nazism and other historical experiences of hierarchization, exclusion, and annihilation (symbolic and/or physical) of populations for racial reasons. On the contrary, treating antisemitism and its terrible consequences as a historical exception, detached from other racist logics, implies failing to learn from it and contributes to reproducing those logics. The validity of the comparisons can be a matter of discussion, but not of criminalization and censorship.
Finally, claiming that criticism of Israel is based on a “double standard” because this state is expected to behave in a way “not demanded of any other democratic country” is a common argument used to criminalize solidarity with Palestine, and especially, in recent years, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. At this point, the very notion of Israel as a “democratic state” becomes problematic when a large proportion of the people who are de facto under its jurisdiction have limited or no citizenship rights. Solidarity initiatives with Palestine respond to a specific situation of injustice in a particular place, but the principles of defending human rights that they uphold are valid everywhere in the world.
In light of the above, we urge institutions and civil society to take an unequivocal and decisive stance against antisemitism, given its structural proximity to other forms of racism and ethnocultural supremacism such as colonialism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. Accordingly, we call upon institutions and civil society to distance themselves from the political exploitation of antisemitism to serve Israel's interests and to actively work toward a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on compliance with international law, respect for human rights, the condemnation of racism, and equality for all current inhabitants of historic Palestine.
Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Uruguay, Colombia, Cuba
December 15th 2020
See here the complete list of signatories
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December 16, 2020
Special Group Al Zeytun Magazine / CLACSO
Palestine and Latin America
This statement expresses the position of the Special Group Al Zeytun Magazine / CLACSO Palestine and Latin America and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
