On 7 January 2021 The Guardian published a letter from eight lawyers who claimed that the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the UK government has instructed UK universities to adopt, undermines free expression. The signatories also claimed that examples included in the IHRA definition have been ‘widely used to suppress or avoid criticism of the state of Israel.’ Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust and a leading expert on left-wing antisemitism, argues that the letter rests on a ‘misrepresentation of what the definition says and does’, ‘unevidenced claims’ about its impact, and confusions about its legal status and power. The IHRA definition, he contends, offers universities ‘a modest, sensible and practical guide to antisemitism that would help Jewish students to play a full part in campus life’.

The campaign against the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism has been running for long enough that it is now possible to identify its common themes. These include repeated misrepresentation of what the definition does, and does not, say about Israel and antisemitism; unevidenced claims about the definition’s alleged impact on free speech; confusion of its legal status and power; and an appeal to authority by quoting others from within this same campaign.

A letter in last week’s Guardian (where else?), signed by eight experienced lawyers, is a helpful example of how this works. It opens with the claim that, ‘The legally entrenched right to free expression is being undermined by an internally incoherent “non-legally binding working definition” of antisemitism.’ The letter then cites the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Education Act 1986 before noting that the IHRA definition ‘has no legislative or other authority in international or domestic law.’

Given that this is the case, it is hard to see how a non-legal definition with no legal authority could undermine legally-guaranteed rights to free expression and academic freedom. Most universities understand this, even if these eight lawyers don’t: the University of Oxford, in announcing its recent adoption of the IHRA definition, stated that, ‘The IHRA definition does not affect the legal definition of racial discrimination, so does not change our approach to meeting our legal duties and responsibilities.’

There are other legal restrictions on free expression which these lawyers did not mention in their letter, including the Public Order Act, the Equality Act, the Protection from Harassment Act, the Malicious Communications Act and so on. These all limit free speech, including at universities, but the letter’s signatories do not seem troubled by this. Instead, a definition that even they concede is ‘non-legally binding’ is, apparently, such a grave threat to free expression that it is worth a letter to the Guardian. Why is this the case?

The answer lies in their misrepresentation of what the definition says and does. They claim, as others have before them, that ‘the majority’ of the IHRA definition’s ‘illustrative examples’ of potentially antisemitic speech ‘do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel. They have been widely used to suppress or avoid criticism of the state of Israel.’ The implication is that the IHRA definition is more concerned with, or directed against, anti-Israel speech than anti-Jewish speech.

This is simply not true: of the eleven ‘illustrative examples’ of potentially antisemitic speech listed in the IHRA definition, nine explicitly mention Jews or the Jewish people (seven mention Israel, of which five mention both Jews and Israel). Given that this is the case, the claim that ‘The majority of these examples do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel’ is so obviously untrue that it is difficult to understand how a group of such experienced lawyers can put their names to it. Either they did not read the definition before writing to theGuardian about it, or they read it but decided to ignore what it actually says. Perhaps they hoped that the qualifier ‘as such’ would magically change the meaning of the word ‘Jews’ that precedes it. I’m not sure which of those three explanations would be the most damning.

The examples that mention both Jews and Israel include ‘Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust’; ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel’; ‘Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis’; or ‘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.’ Do the signatories of this letter really intend to claim that these examples suppress legitimate, non-antisemitic criticism of the State of Israel? If that is the case, let them try. They will struggle to persuade many people of their argument.

More likely is that they object to the examples stating that it ‘could’ be antisemitic to deny ‘the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour’; and ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’; and perhaps the one that says ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is antisemitic. The IHRA definition says that these examples ‘could’ be antisemitic; implying that sometimes they could not be. Perhaps the lawyers who wrote this letter believe that these examples of anti-Israel speech could never, in any circumstances or context, be evidence of antisemitism. Again, if that is what they believe, let them argue the point. But they should represent the definition fairly and accurately in doing so.

Immediately following their misrepresentation of the content of the definition comes their equally unsubstantiated claim of its impact. The Israel-focused examples in the definition, they write, ‘have been widely used to suppress or avoid criticism of the state of Israel.’ Widely used? You would be forgiven for treating the suggestion that criticism of Israel is widely suppressed, either in our universities or elsewhere, as a laughable fantasy. One example that is sometimes put forward by people who claim otherwise – and it appears to be the only one from a British university – is the cancellation of a meeting at the University of Central Lancashire in 2017 that was part of that year’s Israel Apartheid Week. But one swallow does not make a summer, and anti-Israel events still take place at British universities on a regular basis, including but not limited to Israel Apartheid Week, even during a pandemic, in the years since that single meeting was cancelled. So much for widespread suppression.

Much of the current anger in academia over the IHRA definition stems from the fact that the secretary of state for education in a Conservative government, Gavin Williamson, is trying to force universities to adopt it. There is a respectable argument to be made about the autonomy of universities in this respect; but those who write in opposition to Williamson’s efforts rarely limit themselves to that point of principle. Instead, this letter, like the article it cites by Professor David Feldman in the same newspaper last month, ranges much further than an objection to ministerial overreach and extends firmly into a hostile critique of the definition itself.

Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents at British universities are at record levels and Jewish students, as represented by their national Union and local Societies, are asking their institutions to take stronger action against it. The IHRA definition, understood and used correctly, can be a useful tool in this work: the European Commission’s handbook on practical uses of the definition recommends its use in universities ‘to identify and intervene against antisemitism’ and ‘to create safer places for Jewish students, as problems can be identified and better solved at an early stage’. This is what the adoption of the IHRA definition by universities would actually involve: a modest and sensible use of a practical guide to antisemitism that would help Jewish students to play a full part in campus life. Is that really something worth opposing in the letters page of the Guardian?