https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/moral-vacuity-pro-palestinian-social-justice-richard-l-cravatts/
In August, Florida State University was one of several universities to have adopted the now widely accepted IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, signaling that university leaders and others outside of academia have begun to see the wisdom of having guidelines by which to identify and, hopefully, eliminate hate from their respective institutions. Not surprisingly, some progressive groups—including even Jewish ones—have condemned the IHRA definition, claiming that it will chill their speech and punish their ideology, even though the use of the definition does nothing of the sort. Israel-haters and anti-Semites can still continue to defame the Jewish state and single it out for opprobrium, condemnation, and slander but now they can be called out for their behavior.
Something called the Progressive Israel Network (comprised of Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, Hashomer Hatzair World Movement, Jewish Labor Committee, J Street, New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel, and Reconstructing Judaism and T’ruah, left-leaning groups all) felt compelled to announce that, while, of course, they were all for defeating the world’s oldest hatred, they found the IHRA definition to be particularly unhelpful in their relentless quest to demonize Israel and critique the Jewish state. The IHRA definition, they announced ominously, is actually being weaponized to suppress progressive efforts to attack Israel, that the definition “is being misused and exploited to instead suppress legitimate free speech, criticism of Israeli government actions, and advocacy for Palestinian rights.”
IfNotNow, another group whose mission seems to be to hector lawmakers into distancing themselves from Israel and embracing the Palestinian cause without question or conditions, even hosted an event in January to discuss “how the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been destroying the progressive movement” by “criminalizing the BDS movement and “squashing free speech” of progressives obsessed with signaling their loathing of Israel and their tireless efforts to fight for social justice for the ever-aggrieved Palestinians.
That has meant that students, and left-leaning faculty, as well, are urged to advocate for social and economic goals described in decidedly liberal intellectual formulations such as “social and economic justice,” “distributive justice,” and “the global interconnections of oppression,” this latter view ideal for conflating, at least in liberal imaginations, the shared complicity of America and Israel in their long-term oppression of the indigenous people of the fictive nation of Palestine and the alleged “occupation” of their land.
