I recently had a bit of an argument with the Chief of Staff to Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez had voted for a resolution, HR 1449, called “Condemning the global rise of antisemitism and calling upon countries and international bodies to counter antisemitism,” which passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 388 to 21. How could anyone oppose a resolution condemning antisemitism? you might ask. Are there 21 people in the House who endorse antisemitism? No. As Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the 21 “no” votes explained, the problem with this resolution is that it endorsed a very particular definition of antisemitism that would classify certain legitimate criticisms of the State of Israel as antisemitic. It’s called the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) “working definition” of antisemitism, and there’s been huge controversy over it, because the IHRA says that “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” or “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” would be examples of antisemitism. Human rights groups and civil liberties groups like the ACLU and Amnesty International have criticized adoption of the definition. 

The House resolution that Ocasio-Cortez voted for, on the other hand, calls the IHRA definition “important,” and “calls upon states and international bodies to take action to counter antisemitism, including by endorsing and embracing the Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism.” Those Global Guidelines also encourage the use of the IHRA definition.

Does Ocasio-Cortez support the use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism? I tried to get a straight answer out of her chief of staff, Mike Casca, but could not. Casca falsely claimed that the resolution “simply stated that the ihra definition exists,” defending AOC’s decision to vote for it by saying that it doesn’t codify the IHRA definition into law. When I pointed out that Casca was misrepresenting what AOC had endorsed, since the resolution does more than acknowledge the existence of the IHRA definition, he launched into a vicious, personal, and I would say deeply unprofessional outburst about me to his Twitter (“X”) followers: “The editor of current affairs, as is often the case, has no idea what he’s talking about. he had no idea this resolution existed until he saw it on social media 10 fucking minutes ago and he is simply trying to profit from anti-aoc outrage.” 

Now, I would note a few things. First, we are a nonprofit and there is very little money to be made in independent leftist media, a fact Casca surely knows well. Second, it is interesting that AOC’s first chief of staff was let go in part because he was excessively combative toward powerful centrist Democrats on Twitter; his replacement seems just as combative, but toward much weaker targets (independent media rather than House leaders). But most importantly, Casca could not refute my point: AOC had endorsed the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and he had falsely pretended she hadn’t. 

Okay, but why is this important? It’s important because there is a massive campaign to get the IHRA definition adopted far and wide, and that campaign is operating, very clearly, in part, to promote a specific definition that includes a broad swath of anti-Israel speech in its definition of antisemitism. After all, why is a special “working definition” of antisemitism even needed? Why isn’t something simple like “anti-Jewish bigotry” sufficient? Can’t we just open our dictionaries if we need a definition of antisemitism? What does the IHRA definition add?

Well, one thing it adds is the inclusion of speech that is plainly not antisemitic in the definition of antisemitism. Claiming that the State of Israel is an inherently “racist endeavor” is not “antisemitic” on the face of it. Israel is a state that prioritizes Jews above Arabs in a territory with a large Arab population. One can argue that this should not be considered “racist,” but calling it racist is not inherently antisemitic, if one applies the same standard to evaluating Israel that one would apply to other countries. If I believe that ethno-states are all racist, and I do not except Israel from that judgment, my view does not entail any kind of special hostility toward Jewish people. 

Comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany is also not automatically “antisemitic,” and no explanation is offered in the IHRA definition for why it would be. One can argue that the comparison is wrong, that Israel’s actions are not comparable to those terrible historic crimes. (Indeed, even though I think the word genocide accurately captures the destruction of Gaza, the Holocaust’s system of extermination camps has no analogue in our time.) I happen to think it is useful to show how some rhetoric used in Israel (a desire to wipe Gaza out entirely, or the treatment of Palestinians as an unwanted pox on the region) shares features with the rhetoric that was used to justify the worst of 20th century atrocities. But even if you don’t think those comparisons are fair in the present moment, to make such comparisons entirely off-limits means that Israel may never be accused of any Nazi-like barbarity even if it ever commits it. 

So the IHRA definition is deeply flawed. In fact, it’s just plain inaccurate. It’s not a correct definition of antisemitism, because it incorporates examples of things that aren’t antisemitic. As Jamie Stern-Weiner, who has written about the campaign for the definition, points out, it is also just badly written; antisemitism is defined at its core as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews.” A certain perception? What certain perception? The definition almost seems as if it’s vague on purpose. Stern-Weiner calls it “manifestly absurd” and “meaningless” for its failure to say what antisemitism actually is in what purports to be a clarifying definition. 

But the campaign to get the IHRA adopted has been very successful. The Anti-Defamation League explains that it “has been used by the U.S. State Department since 2010 and by the U.S. Department of Education since at least 2019. It was embraced in the 2023 U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism and has been adopted or endorsed by more than half of the U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia. Today, it is used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus.” 

In fact, I just received a press release today saying that the mayor of New Orleans is expected to attend an upcoming Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, "Antisemitism Action Index" ranking cities on how effective they are fighting antisemitism. Their top recommendation is that cities adopt the IHRA definition, which, as we know, says that calling Israel inherently racist is antisemitism. It is therefore hard to escape the suspicion that part of the aggressive efforts to get state and local governments to adopt antisemitism action plans is motivated by a desire to introduce new tools for punishing pro-Palestinian activism. Indeed, the Municipal Antisemitism Action Index explicitly encourages cities to crack down on protests, including instituting “bubble zones” where protests are not allowed, adopting laws prohibiting the wearing of masks, and prohibiting the city from doing business with any company that boycotts Israel. It’s very clear that a lot of the Action Index is about Israel specifically, as it encourages cities to require Israeli history in schools, an annual Oct. 7 massacre commemoration event, and to establish sister cities in Israel. (Note: no mention of Palestinian history, no commemoration of the deaths in Gaza, and no sister cities in the occupied West Bank.) Thus, cities will be ranked on how effective they have been at combating antisemitism, and they will be partly evaluated on how well they’ve done in adopting policies that are pro-Israel and quell Palestinian activism.

All of this is part of a larger push to suppress the pro-Palestine movement. As the New York Times reports, there has been a staggering push to enact authoritarian measures on campuses across the country in order to punish students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, and the repressive measures “have created scenes that would have been hard to imagine previously, particularly at universities that once celebrated their history of student activism.” For example, “at Indiana University Bloomington, some students and faculty members who attended candlelight vigils were referred for discipline under a new prohibition on expressive activity after 11 p.m.” This is perhaps the most important civil liberties battle in the country right now, and anyone who cares about freedom of speech should be speaking out about it.

It’s a shame that definitions of antisemitism are being weaponized as a way to attack legitimate criticism of Israel, because antisemitism is one of the worst ideological scourges our species holds. Given the hideous history of the treatment of Jews in the world, culminating in the unfathomable act of evil that was the Holocaust, we must always be vigilant against anti-Jewish bigotry. The Municipal Action Index is on solid ground when it recommends hosting Jewish cultural events and teaching Jewish history to children, and the IHRA identifies plenty of genuine examples of antisemitism like “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective.” But it’s clear that a lot of this is about trying to silence those who are rightly critical of Israel for its mass killing of Palestinians, not about antisemitism. 

There would be nothing wrong with adopting a “working definition” of antisemitism if it confined itself to clear examples of actual antisemitism. But the IHRA definition is badly in need of revision. It needs to expunge “examples” that are not cases of antisemitism. And until it is revised (“working” implies provisional, after all), nobody should support the use of this definition and should instead stick to the perfectly serviceable definition “bigotry against Jewish people.” 

That brings us back to AOC. Her fellow “Squad” members Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Cori Bush all opposed HR 1449 for very good reason. They could not in good conscience put their stamp of approval on a definition that is clearly being adopted because it has a special definition of antisemitism that incorporates non-antisemitic but anti-Israel speech. Ocasio-Cortez should have followed their example. While voting against an anti-antisemitism resolution might be politically risky, Ocasio-Cortez has an obligation to refuse to sign onto this kind of statement. It’s even worse that she signed onto it and then her chief of staff lied to critics about its content. It is a basic matter of principle to explain that until the IHRA definition is revised, it should not be approved of.