From PR Newswire:
On Friday, August 7, 2020, a coalition of more than 120 NGOs submitted a letter to Facebook, urging the social media company to implement a comprehensive hate speech policy on anti-Semitism that incorporates the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
The objections to using the IHRA definition are all the same: critics say it would stop legitimate criticism of Israel. As Lara Friedman tweets, the IHRA definition is “a means to deplatform/quash criticism of Israel.”
It is a lie and they know it.
IHRA is explicit:
“Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. “
The exact opposite of their oft-repeated claim.
And when you call them on it, they run away and say the same lies again some other day.
There is only one explanation that makes sense: they want to criticize Israel in ways that no other nation is ever criticized. They need to. it is the basis of their activism.It is their
raison d'être. Because by any sane measure, Israel is no worse and much better than the vast majority of nations in any metric of ethics or morality you can come up with, given Israel’s situation of being surrounded by people who hate Jews and the Jewish state since way before “occupation” or even before Israel was reborn.
And the only possible reason for such a desire to paint Israel as uniquely evil – as a Nazi, racist, apartheid, baby-killing state – is old fashioned antisemitism.
These modern antisemites pretend to be against all forms of bigotry, giving them the moral high ground to accuse Israeli Jews of being racists.
So of course they don’t accept the truth, that their crazed hate and obsession with Israel is a form of antisemitism. They want to accuse others of bigotry, not look at their own pure selves. They use their self-righteousness to blind themselves from their own hate. And they really hate being shown what hypocrites they are.
Which is why every time a smug socialist says that the IHRA definition quashes legitimate criticism, insist that they explain exactly how. They will spout absurdities like “being pro-Palestinian is a violation of IHRA” – which it doesn’t.
In the end, they want the right to call Israeli Jews Nazis. And that is why they hate IHRA.