How the JDA can move forward and not Palestinian rights Israel-Palestine conflict

On April 21, before the latest escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence, Professor Mark Muhannad Ayyash offer creative reading of the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism (JDA) on this website. He chose several sentences from this document to be a lie, a hidden marginalization, or a Palestinian irrationality or pro-Palestinian political discourse.

When I read Professor Ayyash’s argument, I saw that I wanted to be that, to use the line often mentioned in Hamilton’s musical “in the room that happened”. My personal experience of the 20 people who helped discuss and write the JDA confirms that our explicit intent is to refute our work with subtly orientalist assumptions or underestimating Palestinian or other political views.

At the same time, among many JDA advocates, those who denounce the difficult conditions and serious power inequalities faced by the Palestinians also acknowledge that our document cannot help much. That is, the JDA should be useful in promoting clarity about the meaning of anti-Semitism in order to help address the ongoing challenges of this particular form of fanaticism. Read as designed by the JDA as a whole, it seeks in part to disarm the important struggle against prejudice against Jews against open and strong talks with Palestine-Israel.

In fact, JDA’s audience directors are Jewish and non-Jewish, and others are concerned about anti-Semitism. In creating the JDA, writers became aware of the vagueness and limitations of the main effort and impact of defining anti-Semitism on a global scale, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. This fall has led some organizations and activists linked to or sponsored by Netanyahu’s Israeli policies to demand that other governments and groups accept the IHRA and specifically extend it to limit or delegitimize political language critical of Palestinian Israeli state policies.

By providing a clear definition of anti-Semitism and examples of numerous statements related to Israeli politics and Zionism that are unlikely to fall into that definition, the JDA focuses its global fight against anti-Semitism in its proper place, the most malicious expression of global prejudice against historically oppressed groups. Like members of many groups, Palestinians, as well as finding victims because of their group status, are Jews, who made up the majority of JDA editors, who are within their rights in trying to identify what may be particularly prejudicial against Jews. while finding common cause with victims of mass prejudice or other models of attempted genocide. In short, the field of JDA is a group that is subject to constant patterns of prejudice and violence, trying to improve efforts to counteract these patterns, including anti-Semitism and slipping between other types of speech that some Jews or Israelis might not appreciate. , but they do not fit into the historical understandings of anti-Jewish prejudices in the face.

However, the JDA has been criticized for giving too much space to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, in its many examples, and for not having enough space, avoiding a clear statement against Zionism or the anti-Palestinian policy of the current state of Israel. . Each of these criticisms loses its basic point. That is, the recent politicization of the IHRA definition calls for further clarification of the specific ways in which it has been read to conceal pro-Palestinian language and anti-Semitism in order to dismantle Palestinian and Israeli policies from the basic purpose of anti-Semitism, namely anti-Semitism.

As for the first critic, JDA writers made an effort to suggest in specific guidelines that many forms of expression associated with Israel should not be anti-Semitic, in order to exclude the controversial Palestinian rights policy from the typical framework of current anti-Semitism. The goal is to focus on the clear manifestations of anti-Jewish prejudices, reflecting historical patterns that are often associated in the most dangerous forms with right-wing white nationalist groups or others, as exemplified by Part A. the surest source of contemporary anti-Semitism has been the subject of criticism. But the writers saw that their mission was to explain the expression of prejudices against Jews, rather than to characterize or make political points about the source of that prejudice.

In terms of criticizing the lack of something clearer about Palestinian rights, the JDA strives not to take a stand on Israeli-Palestinian politics at all, and its writers and signatories have no common position. Rather, we believe in the importance of an open door to lively discussion and disagreement on Israeli and Palestinian political issues and to achieve the best results for the future. Carefully read, point 12 of the JDA suggests that a proclamation in favor of a model or political system other than the current state of Israel, such as the only political organization governed and shared by current Israelis and Palestinians, should not be considered anti-Semitism.

Contrary to Professor Ayyash’s concern that the JDA is merely an Orientalism or Zionism-dominated liberalism, this point will be seen as highly contentious and challenging in many Jewish communities in Israel and the diaspora and contradicts examples of the IHRA. This, and other examples in the document, are aimed at people seeking enlightenment and political promotion to alleviate anti-Semitism, in part because of political discourse, not even political discourse, regardless of its source, unless it is believed to be anti-Jewish. trafficking in representations of Jewish racism as a Jew.

A key principle of the document is that the JDA guidelines can help assess the overall context of a statement. In this context, one could include the specific position and experiences of the Palestinians in relation to the power of the state of Israel, along with others, including some Jews, who witness these experiences. Of course, one could read the JDA’s points about Israel and Palestine, as Professor Ayyash does, with people of different positions quite different from their goals and contexts, especially positions that are not centered around the internal politics of the judiciary and other political policies. efforts to combat anti-Semitism.

In the end, the JDA is not and cannot be a document that directly addresses Palestinians or any political issues or enhances Palestinian rights. The only crossroads that the JDA has with Palestinian politics is to deny that any statement that strongly criticizes Israeli politics or practices carries with it the touch of anti-Semitism inherently or necessarily. This refusal is backed by the weight of a multi-multinational and representative group of Judaism, anti-Semitism, and respected scholars from the Middle East.

Therefore, while the JDA is unlikely to affect Palestinian and Israeli policies, it is part of a greater openness to political attitudes in the United States and the general public that are critical of Israel and / or pro-Palestinian. This important trend has accelerated in the wake of the recent Israeli-Gaza conflict. It is ambitious that the JDA will take on the global threat of prejudice against Jews in a way that can be useful without being too broad a tool to cool the political discourse around Israel. Based on a similar concern about Orientalism that Professor Ayash assumes, it would be inappropriate for the JDA to want a more stance on Palestine. However, others can help clear the way for this.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the attitude of the Al Jazeera editorial.