The type of unbalanced criticism Israel is experiencing today in its war against the genocidal Hamas movement in Gaza isn’t new. Long before Binyamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Betzalel Smotrich were anywhere near Israeli government, the world was fiercely critical of Israel. Rarely have Western pundits brooked understanding for IDF operations against Palestinian terrorists.

I was reminded of this last month when I discovered, while cleaning my office for Pesach, a collection of editorial cartoons published in Canadian newspapers in January 1988 at the beginning of the so-called “first intifada.” (At the time I worked for the Canada-Israel Committee in Toronto.)

The editorial cartoons of three-plus decades ago gave full vent to intimations that Israeli troops were barbaric, and that Israeli policy was Nazi-like or equivalent to South African apartheid. Again, these ugly assertions did not pop up just recently.

In the second week of January 1988, cartoonist Bob Krieger of The Vancouver Province drew a cartoon with Israeli-flagged IDF troops shooting at a Divine hand descending from the heavens with two numbered tablets of stone. The insinuation was that the Israel Defense Forces and the Jewish People were committing abominations against G-d’s most basic Ten Commandments.

Vance Rodewalt of The Calgary Herald sketched an ugly, fat, and smoking Israeli soldier with an enormous rifle lording over an innocent pro-Palestinian protestor whose hands were submissively in the air. The snarky Israeli tells the protestor that “World opinion being what it is, and me being the good guy I am, I’ve decided to give you a fair chance. When I give you the word…. Run for it!” The sweet protester’s placard lays on the ground emblazoned with the words: Down with Jewish oppressors. Long live Palestine.

The Windsor Star carried a cartoon by Edd Uluschak entitled “Modern David and Goliath” which had an outsized Israeli soldier with a smoking machine gun towering over a tiny dead figure with a slingshot.

Similarly, Malcolm Mayes of The Edmonton Journal drew a ghoulish Israeli soldier (with the face of the Grim Reaper) and a smirking Israeli politician (with the face of then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir) standing over a Gazan Palestinian who lies in a pool of blood. The Israeli says to the dead Palestinian: “You have the right to remain silent…”

Carrying further with this Palestinian-as-underdog theme and Israeli-as-butcher theme was Andy Donato of The Toronto Sun. He penciled a Palestinian midget figure throwing rocks and trying to climb up the barrel of an Israeli assault rifle. In another cartoon he had a Palestinian throwing a rock which bounced off the helmet of an Israeli soldier, who responded with deadly fire. The caption reads: “An eye for an eye, ears, nose and throat.”

Brian Gable of The Globe and Mail made it clear that Israel was to blame for the violence, not Palestinians. Repeatedly he depicted Israelis as aggressors and pyromaniacs, pouring or pumping gasoline on homes in the West Bank and Gaza.

Dale Cummings of The Winnipeg Free Press made the same allegation by imprisoning an Arab with a keffiyeh inside an oversized Star of David, with locks on his hands and manacles on his feet.

Dan Murphy of The Vancouver Province offered an “Israel Army Target Practice” session with ponytailed little Arab girls as clay pigeons tossed-up into the sky as somebody yells “PULL.”

To make it explicitly clear what Murphy thinks of Israel (it being an “apartheid” state), he drew a tea-party conversation between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and South Africa’s President P.W. Botha. Shamir says “Arabs, and only Arabs are to be blamed for this unrest!” Botha responds “Indeed! Now let me tell you about the Black interlopers in Africa…”

What is truly amazing is that these vile cartoons are from 1988 – when Shimon Peres (the “Prince of Peace”) was Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Yitzhak Rabin was Minister of Defense, and Yitzhak Navon was Minister of Education and Culture (all of the Labor Alignment), alongside Prime Minister Shamir and Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Minister David Levy of the Likud.

This was long before the rise and fall of the Oslo peace process, long before Binyamin Netanyahu became prime minister, long before Itamar Ben-Gvir graduated grade six, and long before baby Betzalel Smotrich could say the word “settlement.”

This was long before Israel dared to (was forced to) bomb terrorist bunkers or blow-up the homes of Palestinian terrorists. At the time, all IDF troops dared to do (under orders from Yitzhak Rabin) was club Palestinian attackers with wooden batons and fire plastic bullets at the limbs of Palestinian terrorists armed with Molotov cocktails. It was long before the much ballyhooed and mostly bogus “settler violence” narrative.

It was a time when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was openly and proudly terrorist and formally designated as such by all Western countries.

It was a time of great in-house Palestinian bloodletting, with as many Palestinians slaughtered by other Palestinians for being “collaborators” with Israel as there were Palestinians shot by Israel while putting down the intifada (– Palestinian terrorism which also killed and wounded thousands of Israelis).

Despite all the above, the cartoonists and editorialists of 1988 had zero sympathy for attacked Israelis and oodles of sympathy for the attacking Palestinians. Even back then – again long before the “obstructionist” Israeli right-wing under Netanyahu came to power – the world was more than ready to paint the IDF in the darkest hues and label Israel as criminal.

So much for blaming Israel’s hasbara (reputational) problems on the Israeli right wing. I’m just saying.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, May 3, 2024; and Israel Hayom, May 5, 2024. A selection of the editorial cartoons is online at https://davidmweinberg.com/2024/05/03/anti-zionism-isnt-new/

Key points:

• The IHRA definition, including its examples, is one of the most useful tools in combatting antisemitism and its wide adoption should be encouraged.
• Organizations should consider using legal means to ensure Jews do not face discrimination, while being sensitive to freedom of expression.
• Hateful rhetoric against Jews and Israel online is strongly correlated with real-world antisemitic incidents. Social media companies should be encouraged to train moderators to recognize antisemitism and to be transparent about how they implement policies against hate.
• A full-time, ambassador-level special envoy would help Israel be more effective in the global war on antisemitism.

Introduction:

Antisemitism has been on the rise in the West for the past decade, and the number of incidents as well as expressions of Jew-hatred on social media have exploded since October 7, 2023. There are several strategies that governments and organizations advocating for Israel can adopt, that are backed up by data or past successes. These include adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism, using legal avenues against institutions that discriminate against Jews and pushing social media outlets to effectively implement policies against hate. It would also be beneficial for Israel to have a full-time envoy dedicated to these efforts. Finally, the UK Jewish community’s battle against antisemitic Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can serve as a useful example for how a community can effectively combat antisemitism.

IHRA:

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism is one of the most useful tools in fighting antisemitism – something that the Foreign Ministry already recognizes. It is impossible to fight something that cannot be defined.

It is important to encourage institutions of all kinds, from governments to universities to NGOs and even to corporations, to adopt the definition and use its parameters in their efforts to combat antisemitic hate crimes and discrimination. It is worth noting that the idea is not necessarily for new laws against hate crimes, hate speech or discrimination to be passed, but for the authorities to actively refer to IHRA when determining whether those crimes are antisemitic or not.

Alternative definitions of antisemitism have been promoted to weaken the understanding of the ties between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It should be noted that the IHRA definition has been called the “gold standard,” adopted by 45 governments and over 1200 entities around the world. Georgia adopted the IHRA definition in January 2024, making it the 35th US state to do so.

The IHRA working definition is: “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.”

The examples that come with the definition are part and parcel of the definition, in that they demonstrate its real-life application, including the fact that anti-Israel actions and speech are usually thinly-veiled versions of antisemitism. Institutions adopting IHRA should be encouraged to consider the examples, as well, because without the examples, the definition is not particularly substantive or useful. Therefore, all entities need to understand that adopting the definition means adopting the examples.

Legal:

Most democratic countries have laws against antisemitism in various forms, even if they have robust protections for freedom of expression as the US does. While hate speech is protected by the US Constitution and some antisemitic speech may be protected in other democratic countries, if these incidents take place on a college campus or in the workplace, are pervasive or are part of a pattern of discrimination, or if an institution does not take reasonable measures to prevent or stop them, there could be a basis for legal action.

Two of the leading organizations on this front are the Louis D. Brandeis Center in the US, and UK Lawyers for Israel. The US Department of Education has opened numerous investigations into universities following complaints by the Brandeis Center of discrimination against and harassment of Jews in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Brandeis Center has also fought campus antisemitism in court. UK Lawyers for Israel has prompted investigations of university administrators and arrests of figures for illegal displays of support for terrorist groups.

Free speech and academic freedom are sensitive issues when it comes to combatting antisemitism. The Brandeis Center, which focuses primarily on campus antisemitism, has useful resources to help understand how to balance these values, including effective anti-discrimination policies and communications against antisemitism by administrators of prominent universities across North America.

Social media: 

Antisemitism has been a constant on social media from its inception, allowing those who espouse views that were widely rejected in the West, certainly in the US, to find and amplify one another. Boundless Israel, an organization that uses data to develop better approaches to fighting antisemitism, has done extensive research on social media, specifically. They found a correlation between the proliferation of terms like “apartheid” and “colonialism” about Israel on social media and a rise in real-world incidents of antisemitism.

One of Boundless’s most important findings has been that “pro-Israel messaging is stuck in an echo chamber.” In other words, when messages are posted on social media meant to counter antisemitism, they are not reaching the audience that needs to hear it. Even the best messages will not break through the walls of vitriol on X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc. against Jews and Israel. Positive messaging should continue, but its impact should not be overestimated.

The research points to a number of actions the Government of Israel can take. The first is to raise awareness of harm to minorities and other vulnerable groups in messages to educators, policymakers, law enforcement, and the business/tech community, and to emphasize that this includes Jews, who, contrary to what some in the West think, are not part of the white majority. Among the points to emphasize in these conversations is how online hate turns into crimes against marginalized communities. In addition, note that the targeting of these communities undermines AmericanWesternetc. values.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are often less aware of antisemitism coming from the Left. In communications between Israelis and their foreign counterparts in such agencies about antisemitism, it is important to note that it is often cloaked in language related to human rights, social justice, or other seemingly legitimate political discourse, and encourage training in this area.

Advocacy that is aimed at encouraging social media companies to combat Jew-hatred on their platforms has been helpful, and the government should continue in its efforts, much of which have been conducted by the Justice Ministry domestically, and can also take place via Israeli missions abroad. That being said, it must be understood that this strategy has its limits because social media companies’ engagement-based business models encourage posts that spark a heightened emotional response – including anger and fear. In addition, TikTok is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party which, despite its strict crackdown on communications, has allowed antisemitism to take root in China and to fester on the video-sharing platform.

The Interparliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism, which includes lawmakers from Israel, the US, Canada, the UK and more, has suggested the following proposals for social media giants’ policies, which Israeli representatives can suggest: Tech platforms should have a specific and consistent policy for removing antisemitic content and users, and they should be transparent about how they implement them, including downranking of posts; antisemitism should be a specific category in social media companies’ transparency reports, including reporting the volume of antisemitic content; the companies should facilitate training for platform moderators to identify antisemitism.

CyberWell, an NGO dedicating to fighting online antisemitism recommends legislation requiring platforms to disclose antisemitic content to regulators and make it available to researchers and NGOs, to disclose the rate of engagement with reported hateful content that is not removed, to allow external audits to ensure that the social media sites do not gain ad revenue from hateful content, and to address antisemitism in non-English languages, with an emphasis on Arabic.

Boundless recommends that businesses be discouraged from advertising on platforms that do not take action to remove hate, to incentivize the companies to enforce their own policies on antisemitic and other hateful content. This has had some success in the past.

DEI:

The proliferation of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion departments and the popularity of the ideology behind it on college campuses, in corporations, and beyond have been behind many of the recent manifestations of antisemitism that view Jews as an oppressor class and Israel as a colonial entity. Legacy Jewish organizations have tried to work with DEI over the years with little success. In recent years, and especially since October 7, there is increased awareness of the antisemitism embedded in DEI. While it is too early to say what has been effective in combatting DEI, legal action against discriminatory policies by campuses or actions – say, by US college professors who bully Israelis in their classes – could be possible. In addition, donors have begun pulling funds from universities that have not fought antisemitism on their campuses. That could backfire if the contributions are replaced by anti-Israel funders like Qatar, but exposing foreign actors pouring funds into American and other Western campuses with ulterior motives could serve as an important counterbalance.

Countering DEI has also become a major conservative cause in the US, specifically, as well as in other Western countries, though to a lesser extent. It is important to take care to keep antisemitism nonpartisan, in the sense that there are antisemites on the Right and on the Left, with different messages gaining prominence at different times and sometimes working in tandem. The message should be that decent people of all political stripes should join together to fight antisemitism, and not that antisemitism is part of, for example, the Republican fight against “wokeness.”

Special envoy:

Israel’s approach to antisemitism is somewhat muddled by the fact that there are units in multiple government ministries meant to address the problem. Ideally, the Foreign Ministry could work together with the Diaspora Affairs Ministry to coordinate messaging and pool resources to face this global challenge.

The appropriate conduit through which the Foreign Ministry should implement the government policy recommendations is the special envoy for combating antisemitism, though the Foreign Minister himself could and should put his weight behind the envoy’s efforts.

The position of special envoy should be upgraded, allowing the Foreign Ministry to have someone focused on combatting antisemitism full time, as well as staff to support her. Israel should not lag behind other countries in the seriousness with which it takes this position. The position should hold the rank and status of an ambassador, and be given to someone with a relevant background, such as experience in international law or academia, or to a diplomat who rose through the ranks of the Foreign Ministry and worked on related issues.

This is not a position for a celebrity envoy, as it is not so much about media appearances as it is about making the case for adopting policies against antisemitism to government entities, corporations, and other bodies.

The Corbyn case:

Perhaps one of the greatest successes of a Diaspora community in fighting a clear and present antisemitic danger was the British Jewish community vs. former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn, who came from the party’s far-left flank, rode a change in the party’s by-laws to its leadership, campaigning as a populist and socialist leader. But he also was someone who laid a wreath on the graves of the terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes in Munich and made antisemitic comments while making sure to say “Zionists” or “Israel” instead of Jews, and publicly supported antisemites.

The UK Jewish community was united to an extent rarely seen in its opposition to Corbyn. From Jewish lawmakers in the Labour Party to community organizations to prominent media figures, diverse actors came together on a mission to expose and highlight Corbyn’s antisemitism. The politicians resigned, people wrote in the newspapers and spoke on TV programs, and official complaints were filed within the party and submitted to government human rights watchdogs. Some of the aforementioned strategies were used, including legal means, and efforts to push for the inclusion of the IHRA definition’s examples in Labour’s guidelines on antisemitism. The community seemed to throw everything it had at Corbyn, trying all avenues.

The message became clear to the non-Jewish majority in the UK, with celebrities campaigning against Corbyn. Though antisemitism is not the only reason, Labour had a poor showing in the 2019 election and Corbyn did not become prime minister.

Two key lessons can be drawn from the Labour antisemitism scandal and the campaign against Corbyn. The first is that Diaspora Jewish communities are more effective at fighting antisemitism when they unite their top organizations, famous figures and others behind one cause. The second is that there may not be one specific strategy to fight antisemitic phenomena or figures. Rather, the approach of trying every angle and chipping away at the antisemitic challenge or threat may ultimately be most effective.

Key Messages:

• DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) departments are the executive arm of an increasingly dominant ideology in American educational institutions and the business world, which reduces people to identity groups based on innate characteristics and ranks them by oppressor or oppressed status. 

• Jews do not fit into the lines drawn by this ideology and are inevitably and erroneously categorized as “white.” This means that successes by individual Jews are inevitably viewed as a conspiracy to oppress the downtrodden, much like classic antisemitic tropes. 

• The rise of antisemitism on college campuses and within major corporations, and the inability or unwillingness of administrations to respond effectively to such incidents, underlines the necessity of Jews disengaging from the DEI rubric.
• Jewish organizations, individuals and supporters of the Jewish people should refuse to engage with DEI, whether in word or deed, and withdraw funding or other forms of cooperation with institutions that mandate DEI practices or promote the ideology that undergirds it.

After the October 7 massacre, anti-Israel demonstrations proliferated in universities and cities across the West, complete with celebrations of the attack as “decolonialization” and chants of genocidal slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “by any means necessary.” When the presidents of three of the highest-regarded universities in the world could not bring themselves to say that calling for the genocide of the Jewish people violates their campuses’ codes of conduct, there was widespread shock in Israel, in American Jewish communities and beyond.

This shock was a result of two factors. Firstly, due to the expectation that any moral person should be able to clearly and unequivocally oppose calls for genocide. Secondly, the unwillingness of these university presidents in particular to identify calls for genocide of Jews as unacceptable harassment was especially hypocritical and disturbing, given that North American college campuses have become places where hyper-sensitivity, what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls “safetyism,” rules the day. Students on such campuses have protested undercooked rice as disrespectful to Japanese students and canceled yoga classes because of “cultural appropriation.” When “microaggressions” are quickly addressed, why is this blatant macroaggression against Jews on campus viewed as a “context-dependent decision”?

The ideology that DEI puts into action

The answer has many names – “wokeness” and “critical race theory” are popular with its critics, while its adherents tend to prefer “social justice” or even just “progressivism.” Whole books have been written about this ideology, which can be hard to define in part because its adherents conveniently refuse to accept any definitions. Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams explains that “wokeness” involves:

“the constellation of social-justice concerns and discursive lenses that have powerfully influenced institutional decision making…to sort individuals into abstract identity groups arranged on spectrums of privilege and marginalization…The idea that patriarchy, white supremacy, transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, and other ills inexorably saturate our lived realities and that the highest good is to uncover and oppose them is, I think, a central component of ‘wokeness’ as both its proponents and critics understand it.”

After this sorting takes place, Natan Sharansky wrote in a recent essay, this ideology:

“assesses the moral value of an action not on its own terms but based on the identity of the agent, asking not ‘Is this right?’ but ‘Does it help the victimized class?’ What is worse, if an action is thought to aid the downtrodden, it becomes acceptable to violate the most basic rights of those deemed to be their oppressors, including the rights of free speech and physical security.”

Put simply, instead of individual merit and color-blind opportunities, which were central to American liberalism, this ideology of the Left is a form of identity politics that categorizes people by race, makes far-reaching assumptions about them on that basis, and ranks them by level of oppression. The ideas about race and power are based on the American understanding of those terms even when exported to other countries whose reality is very different than that in the US. The more oppressed someone is by this ideology’s metrics, the more morally superior they are and therefore deserving of “allyship.”

Being an ally does not mean ensuring that the playing field is as level as possible for everyone to have a fair start; according to this ideology, different outcomes are indicators of racism. Put into action, the idea is to intentionally discriminate against some and favor others because of their innate characteristics.

This ideology is taught in varying ways in educational institutions from preschool through university. Its executive arm, that is, the way the ideology is translated into action in school administrations and the corporate world, is called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or DEI. As major business consulting firm McKinsey and Company says on its website, DEI “is used to describe three values that many organizations today strive to embody to meet the needs of all walks of life…Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases.”

That sounds harmless enough, but in reality, DEI professionals view populations through a collective lens based on immutable characteristics on a scale of oppressed to oppressor. The term “equity” does not mean equal opportunities.

DEI, as it is usually practiced, views oppressed classes as deserving greater benefits, such as lowering the standards of math classes that must be racist if fewer Black students succeed, or policing aforementioned “microaggressions.” In DEI exercises and sessions, which are sometimes mandatory, employees, students, and even parents of students are required or encouraged to organize themselves by race into “affinity groups.” Proponents say this creates a safe space to discuss issues related to identity, while opponents say this is a new form of racial segregation, in which white students are shamed and Black students are told they are victims.

Jews don’t match DEI ideology’s rubrics 

Where do Jews fit into these ideas? Not very well. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll from December 2023 found that two-thirds of those surveyed aged 18-24 believe that Jews, in general, are oppressors, though 73% of respondents of all ages said this is false.

Jews do not match DEI’s facile categories – Israeli Jews even less so than their American counterparts – yet they are inevitably and mistakenly viewed as white, powerful, and wealthy. That power and wealth is seen as the result, in the best case, of benefitting from systemic racism, and in the worst case, of an outright conspiracy of white, powerful people against less fortunate groups. A conspiracy to empower and enrich Jews by oppressing the downtrodden? Sounds familiar.

This ideology is what brought us to the point where American college professors celebrated the October 7 massacre by saying that the murder, rape, assault and abduction of thousands of Israelis was an “exhilarating…[and] energizing” act of “liberation and…living with dignity.”

Despite the glaring problems this ideology long posed for Jews, some organizations embraced it over the years. The Anti-Defamation League published a document in early 2023 saying that “addressing Jewish concerns as a part of DEI is essential.” DEI strategies should include the needs of Jewish employees “regardless of their perceived status in a society or organization,” the ADL writes, even though “perceived status in a society or organization” is, in fact, what DEI is all about. The ADL also emphasized the truth, that “Jews are a diverse and multiracial community,” but instead of that being a jumping-off point to explain why the boxes into which DEI seeks to put people do not make sense, they followed it up with the ideology’s jargon about “intersectionality.”

Senior Vice President of the ADL, Adam Neufeld told Jewish Insider in December 2023– after the response on campus to the October 7 massacre and the university presidents’ testimony to Congress – that DEI is part of the solution to antisemitism on campus. It only needs to be fixed to include antisemitism. American Jewish Committee Director of Academic Affairs, Sara Codin said in the same article: “We tend not to take an overly divisive approach when it comes to DEI…We hope we can create initiatives that actually work within DEI structures.” While ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt noted that, “The failure of many of these DEI offices to effectively respond to the crisis right now is quite an indictment,” it appears that the organization remains committed to working within DEI frameworks.

This approach taken by major Jewish organizations like the ADL and AJC for years has clearly failed. Their former CEOs called for an end to DEI, recognizing that it is structurally and irreparably antisemitic. Influential Jewish-American journalist Bari Weiss has launched a campaign against DEI, saying that abandoning the ideology will go a long way in reducing antisemitism and addressing many other ills on university campuses.

Jewish institutions must reject DEI

Jewish organizations and institutions, Israeli government bodies and civil society groups, and all opponents of antisemitism must reject DEI. There are a number of concrete steps that can be taken towards dismantling DEI.

• You can’t beat DEI with DEI: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” This quote from black, lesbian, and feminist writer Audre Lorde about overthrowing a “racist patriarch” is closely associated with DEI ideology — but it is a helpful idea to remember for those who oppose it.

  Inserting the consideration of antisemitism into an essentialist, illiberal ideology is doomed to fail because Jews do not fit into its simplistic boxes. Such an effort continues to legitimize the very ideas through which antisemitism has been cultivated on many quarters of the Left. Caution must be taken not to use the language of DEI and the ideology undergirding it.

  It is fine to fight antisemitism by pointing out the truth, that Jews are not “white” by the American or European idea of the word, and are indigenous to Israel. It is fine to take pride in diversity and the success of members of minority groups in Israeli society. And it is great for Jews of different backgrounds to be proud of where their families came from and to educate others about it. However, to speak about Ethiopian or Mizrahi Jews as though they are somehow more legitimate than their Ashkenazi counterparts ultimately lends credence to false narratives and does more damage than good.

• Focus on instilling pride in Jewish identity on its own terms: Jews are not only a nation and not only a religion and not only white or only “people of color.” Jews are Jews, and Jews are one People. The unique nature of Jewish identity should be a source of pride. Jewish institutions and organizations do not have to contort themselves into new shapes to fit the boxes promoted by ideologies like DEI. When fighting antisemitism, this message and approach must be made a priority.

• Disengage and divest from DEI: Beyond the messages and words used, organizations, officials, activists, donors and others should not associate themselves with DEI and institutions that use it, just as any fair-minded person would not intentionally associate him or herself with racism.

  When Jewish organizations look for partners and when the government looks for service providers, they should be clear that DEI principles cannot in any way be part of the process.

  Jewish philanthropists and foundations should divest from organizations that promote DEI or put it into effect – venture capitalist Bill Ackman has been a prominent example of this policy.

• Rejecting DEI must not mean an end to Black-Jewish engagement: Finally, attempts to engage positively with the African-American community should continue, and Jewish communal organizations who pride themselves on fighting racism should continue to do so.

  The American Jewish community has a history of partnering with African-Americans to fight racism. The principled belief that discrimination against one group is an opening for injustice against all, which has long animated Jewish-Black cooperation, is also a good reason to dump DEI.

  What should be clear is that this activism and cooperation are meant to advance what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “a nation where [children] will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” There are plenty of African-American organizations, activists, writers and thinkers who believe this, including ones who provide alternatives to the usual DEI training.

In a private letter to US antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, Israeli President Isaac Herzog this week called the Biden administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism “a historic moment deserving of recognition and gratitude… The formidable language of the report contains a sound strategy, well-defined pillars and concrete, viable goals that will help create more tolerant and open societies.”

Well, yes and no. It is certainly important that the Administration acknowledges the growing threat to Jewish Americans amid record spikes in antisemitism and that it has made suggestions for action to counter antisemitism. But the language of the report is less than “formidable.”

As Jacob Olidort (director of the Center for American Security and its Middle East Peace Project at the America First Policy Institute) points out, “Charlottesville” appears four times in President Joe Biden’s two-page cover letter, including in the first sentence. “Judaism” appears seven times in the strategy document and “Zionism” does not appear at all. The acronym “LGBTQI+” appears seven times, “gender” seven times, “equity” 10 times, and “Islamophobia” 21 times.

Furthermore, the Biden Administration’s strategy paper omits any mention of Islamists, the Iranian regime, the Palestinian Authority, or the BDS movement. It “embraces” the super-important International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which includes attacks directed against Israel, but does not officially adopt it.

Instead, the paper “welcomes and appreciates” the Nexus Document, a tendentious definition of antisemitism which claims that no criticism of Israel or Zionism, however defamatory, should be considered antisemitic.

Adding insult and ridicule to dumb injury, the Biden strategy paper then includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – which has a notorious record of hostility towards Jews and Israel – as a partner in its plan, babbling that the Administration wants to “give people a chance to change their past behavior.”

In short, the strategy paper is blind to the weaponization of progressive and Islamic ideologies in fueling contemporary forms of antisemitism, especially antisemitism which masquerades as “only” opposition to Israeli policies.

BREAKING DOWN the report points to several underlying flaws.

First, as British columnist Melanie Phillip pointed out several years ago, even when condemning antisemitism, politicians and intellectuals feel the compunction to condemn “Islamophobia” and “all forms of racism” at the same time and in the same sentence.

This politically correct refusal to acknowledge the uniqueness of antisemitism (and the overwhelming preponderance of antisemitism, above and beyond all other hatreds including anti-Moslem hatred) demonstrates precisely that Jew-hatred. “People can’t stand the uniqueness of antisemitism because they can’t stand the uniqueness of the Jewish people,” says Phillip.

Second, the issue of antisemitism manifesting as mere anti-Zionism remains a flash point. As Prof. Eugene Kontorovich pointed out in rigorously erudite testimony given last week to the subcommittee on global health, global human rights, and international organization of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, referencing the Nexus document is an outrage. That document justifies double standards against Israel, while purveying the illusion that antisemitism is only such when it presents as pure unreasoned Jew-hatred or as stereotypes and “tropes.”

But this is demonstrably not true. Accusations leveled against Israel often resemble those made by antisemites throughout history. Kontorovich: “Instead of the Jews being accused of killing Gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children; instead of Jews being accused of causing plague among Gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease among Palestinians.”

“And the accusation of ‘apartheid’ is a modern blood libel – an absurd ‘Big Lie,’ but inciteful in ways that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. Just as the classic blood libel resonated with the theological preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice concerns of our times. That in our times several members of Congress can level such libels against the Jewish State without facing sanctions from their party demonstrates how dangerous ‘polite’ antisemitism is.”

The writer Peter Savodnik delves even deeper into this: “The American left has stumbled into the bottomless rage of identity politics,” he says. “They have embraced the new racial-gender taxonomy, which reimagines thousands of years of Jewish history into a wokified diorama. Today, the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be seen through this flattening prism, with Israel playing the role of the white, colonial settler and the Palestinian that of the settler’s dark-skinned, indigenous victim.”

“By squeezing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the Procrustean Bed of left-wing identitarianism, the new progressives have alienated the Jew, who for the most part remains attached to the Jewish State, from the American body politic. By transforming the Jewish State into a force for evil, they have forced the Jew to defend that attachment. They have created a space separating the Jew from America, and, in that space, they have legitimized violence against the Jew for defending the indefensible: Israel’s supposed apartheid, colonialism, white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”

In short, by dancing around this core issue, namely that Israel is the focal point for much contemporary antisemitism from the Left and its intersectional allies, the Biden administration strategy is far less than it seems.

Third, because of the above problematics, one must wonder whether government-led programs help or hinder the fight against antisemitism. US presidential historian Tevi Troy details (in an enlightening essay in National Affairs) Bush W., Trump, and Biden administration initiatives in this regard, reaching the conclusion that caution is warranted. These initiatives tend to create unwanted and unintended consequences.

“Sometimes an organization designed to address the problem ends up exacerbating it. The UN Human Rights Council, in which human rights abusers routinely condemn democratic nations, is a paradigmatic example of his phenomenon.”

The Biden administration strategy relies heavily on existing government-enabled diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to address root causes and promote anti-hate education. This is a worrisome development given that some DEI offices are more likely to house anti-Semitism than to combat it. A Heritage Foundation study of the social media patterns of 800 campus DEI officers found that they tended to reflect a level of hostility toward Israel that went far beyond policy disagreement and often descended into anti-Semitism.

Ridiculously, the Biden Administration also mandates agencies with no apparent connection to the issue to “fight” antisemitism. For example, it directs the Department of Transportation to “better understand the extent to which race, ethnicity and religion or religious appearance impact assaults on, harassment of and discrimination against transit riders.” The Department of the Interior is told to “highlight new resources on Jewish American contributions to American history and disseminate the content through the National Park Service website and mobile app.”

Troy: “This reminds me of President Ronald Reagan’s quip that ‘the most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’.”

Instead of this, Troy suggests a deep scrub of government-funded programs that indirectly subsidize antisemitism, such Higher Education Act Title VI programs that provide funds to anti-Israel Middle East Studies programs, academic departments that have issued extremist anti-Israel statements, and public institutions that pay membership dues to the virulently anti-Israel Middle Eastern Studies Association. Federal funds also should be cut to public schools that assign textbooks containing anti-Semitic materials, encourage anti-Jewish attitudes through ethnic studies or anti-Israel programs, or pay for anti-Semitic critical-race-theory training.

In addition to these education-related expenditures that may have the unintended impact of increasing anti-Semitism, Troy recommends that the US also cut off foreign aid that has a similarly destructive effect. These include contributions to the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, UNRWA, and any funds that go to programs that subsidize anti-Semitic textbooks or Palestinian terrorism.

Eliminating these programs would not only save taxpayers money and reduce funding to those who purvey antisemitism but also send the strongest possible signal that the federal government does not tolerate this animus, whatever its source may be.

Another orbit that the US government could usefully tackle is online hate, even though extreme freedom of expression is sacred to progressives.

According to the new “Toxicity Analysis,” a monthly report of the Combat Antisemitism Movement published in partnership with the Network Contagion Research Institute, a total of 1.3 million tweets pertaining to Jewish topics were collected in January 2023, and a statistically significant random sample of 10,000 were indexed using a machine learning model. The results showed 14% of the tweets were identity attacks on Jews, 11% were toxic toward Jews, 7% were insults to Jews, and 1% were threats against Jews.

Biden ought to start leaning on US social media giants to clean-up their act instead of funding more uncertain DEI programs.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, June 30, 2023; and Israel Hayom, July 2, 2023