RSS
Oklahoma Legislator Introduces Bill to Adopt IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
The Tulsa, Oklahoma skyline. Photo: Photomakers/Wikimedia.
Oklahoma State Rep. John Waldron, a Democrat elected in Tulsa, has introduced legislation that would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to guide state employees in assessing bigotry against Jews.
Rising antisemitism on college campuses motivated Waldron to draft a bill to aid schools in identifying hate speech. He said he hoped to “give higher education tools for defining what political speech, and therefore protected under the First Amendment, and hate speech that tends toward violence, and should be dealt with according to administrative procedure is,” according to KTUL ABC 8 in Tulsa.
The legislation, House Bill 2243, was introduced last week and says that “state officials and institutions have a responsibility to protect citizens from acts of hate and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus, including antisemitism, and must be given the tools to do so; valid monitoring, informed analysis and investigation, and effective policymaking all require uniform definitions.”
Joe Roberts, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, released a statement advocating for the legislation.
“For Jewish Oklahomans, HB 2243 is more than policy — it is a statement that Oklahoma stands firmly with the Jewish community against rising hate,” Roberts said. “By adopting the IHRA definition, Oklahoma is taking a crucial step in ensuring that our community is protected, our voices are heard, and our concerns are taken seriously. The IHRA definition is the gold standard in identifying and addressing antisemitism, and its adoption here will help build a safer and more inclusive Oklahoma for all.”
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Dozens of US states have also formally adopted it through law or executive action.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
The Oklahoma legislation describes the IHRA definition as “an essential definitional tool used to determine contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and includes useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel acts that can cross the line into antisemitism.” The bill also notes its usage “by various agencies of the federal government and by over 30 governments around the world.”
Opponents of state legislation to codify into law the IHRA definition often claim that such moves threaten free speech, particularly criticism of Israel. However, the text of Waldron’s bill explicitly counters that objection, stating, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or the Oklahoma Constitution.”
The Oklahoma state legislature has scheduled the bill for its first reading on Feb. 3.
Other states where representatives have worked recently to introduce or pass similar laws utilizing the IHRA definition include New York, Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and South Dakota, among others. According to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, as of Nov. 1, 2024, 1,262 entities worldwide have adopted the definition, including 45 countries, 37 US state governments, and 96 city and county governments.
In a Wednesday guest column in The Oklahoman, Roberts further advocated for the bill and defended the IHRA definition from its detractors’ conventional argument.
“Critics of the IHRA definition have raised concerns about free speech, arguing that defining antisemitism in law could suppress legitimate criticism of Israel. This is simply not true,” Roberts wrote. “The IHRA definition explicitly states that criticism of Israel, similar to that leveled against any other country, is not antisemitic. What the definition does do is distinguish between legitimate discourse and hateful rhetoric — such as denying Israel’s right to exist, holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, or using classic antisemitic tropes to demonize the Jewish state.”
Roberts wrote that Waldron’s legislation “does not criminalize speech, it simply provides guidance for recognizing when antisemitism is at play.” He concluded his column warning that “antisemitism is not just a Jewish issue; it is a threat to the fabric of our society. It is an attack on the values that bind us together as Oklahomans and as Americans. If we are serious about protecting our way of life, we must act now. Pass HB 2243.”
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 8,800 Jews lived in Oklahoma in 2024, making up 0.22 percent of the state’s population.
Oklahoma Gov. J. Kevin Stitt has urged more Jews to move to Oklahoma and called for his fellow Christians to learn from Jewish traditions. “The Jewish community is welcome in Oklahoma,” he told the New York Post last year. “When you think about the values of who we are as Oklahomans it matches with the Jewish community, family-focused, very faith-focused, entrepreneurial, hard-working.”
Stitt, a self-described “Old Testament-loving Christian,” added, “Christians — we don’t do a good job of bringing the family together and really setting aside electronics and, and really focusing on the Sabbath. You know, one day a week, and I just think that’s something that we can learn a lot from the Jewish community.”
The post Oklahoma Legislator Introduces Bill to Adopt IHRA Definition of Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Germany’s Chancellor: ‘Anyone Who Incites Antisemitism Must Expect to Be Prosecuted’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addresses the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in a government statement about current security issues in Berlin, Germany, June 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Annegret Hilse
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday condemned the ongoing discrimination faced by the Jewish community, calling it “outrageous and shameful.”
Scholz emphasized that combating antisemitism is a task for all citizens, highlighting its growing importance amid “increasingly shameless attempts to normalize far-right positions.”
The German leader was speaking at an event organized by the International Auschwitz Committee, which was formed by survivors of the infamous Nazi death camp to promote Holocaust education and fight discrimination, during a ceremony in Berlin ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Monday.
The Holocaust is “a responsibility that each and every one of us bears in our country,” regardless of religion or family history, Scholz said.
Approximately 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, with about 1 million of them murdered at Auschwitz before its liberation by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945.
“They were gassed, shot, they died of hunger, forced labor, and medical experiments,” Scholz said. These were “more than a million unique people, individuals, wives and husbands, boys and girls, grandmothers and grandfathers.”
He also honored other Holocaust victims, including Sinti and Roma, political opponents of the Nazi regime, homosexuals, the sick, and people with disabilities.
“Anyone who supports terrorism, anyone who incites antisemitism must expect to be prosecuted,” Scholz said at the event.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview in 2023.
On Thursday, Scholz denounced recent attacks on individuals due to their beliefs, gender, or skin color.
“This fight for the inviolability of the dignity of each and every individual continues,” he said. “Our responsibility, 80 years on, is to resist this hatred.”
On Monday, a service will be held at Auschwitz to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which Germany has observed since 1996.
The event will be attended by Britain’s King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Scholz, and German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck.
At the 75th anniversary of the Nazi death camp’s liberation, more than 100 Auschwitz survivors participated in the celebrations in person. Steinmeier has now invited several survivors to travel to the camp for the upcoming event, with fewer than 50 expected to attend.
“There are fewer and fewer,” Steinmeier’s office said. “It is a special feature of the meeting that it will be one of the last with survivors.”
The post Germany’s Chancellor: ‘Anyone Who Incites Antisemitism Must Expect to Be Prosecuted’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Virginia Democrats Block Jewish Civil Rights Attorney’s Appointment to University Board
George Mason University students walking across campus on December 12, 2024. Photo: Dion J. Pierre/The Algemeiner
Democrats in Virginia have launched an effort to block several appointees of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, including a Jewish civil rights attorney who was picked for an important post at George Mason University (GMU) that would see him continue reforming the school’s handling of antisemitism.
In the summer of 2024, Youngkin selected Kenneth Marcus — chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, former assistant US secretary of education for civil rights, and one the most consequential litigants in the fight to eradicate campus antisemitism — to serve on GMU’s Board of Visitors, a role in which he has addressed longstanding issues affecting Jewish GMU students, including recent threats to their safety that were widely reported in the media.
However, Marcus’ appointment came while Virginia’s General Assembly, a bicameral legislature which has the final say on gubernatorial appointees, was in recess. While he served in the unpaid role, it was never confirmed by lawmakers. That left the door open for his appointment to be rejected, the first steps towards which took place earlier this week when Senate Democratic members of the privileges and elections committee, a body which oversees appointments and submits them to the General Assembly for a final vote, removed his name from a joint resolution containing the names of appointees whose confirmation is pending.
Their reasons for opposing the decorated attorney’s appointment to Virginia’s largest public university remain unknown, as no arguments enumerating concerns about Marcus’ beliefs, conduct, or political affiliations have been put forth.
The Democrats’ opposition to his appointment came as a surprise, Marcus, a native of northern Virginia, told The Algemeiner on Thursday during an interview.
“No one in the Virginia Senate reached out to me to express any concerns, so I don’t know what the issue is. There is nothing that I have done during my tenure at George Mason that has been particularly controversial other than that I have been both active and outspoken in addressing antisemitism,” Marcus explained. “It would be disturbing if my work on antisemitism has been controversial with the General Assembly because the actions that we’ve been taking have been both legally required and necessary.”
He continued, “What’s happening at George Mason is deeply concerning, and there has absolutely been a need to take serious action. That work has been important, but it is also ongoing and is by no means done. Much, much more needs to be done.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, George Mason University has been the center of two investigations involving the potential for mass casualty events motivated by antisemitism.
In December, a GMU student was permanently trespassed and arrested in Falls Church, Virginia for allegedly planning to manufacture a weapon of mass destruction for use in a jihadist attack on Israel’s General Consulate in New York City. FBI agents apprehended the student, GMU freshman and Egyptian expatriate Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, after he had allegedly discussed his plot, in which he considered a variety of options for creating as many Jewish casualties as possible, with an undercover informant.
Hassan’s case was the second time in less than a month that GMU students were arrested due to suspicion that they were preparing to commit a mass casualty event.
Earlier that month, the university criminally trespassed and suspended two siblings — the current co-president and former president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — after a law enforcement search of their off-campus home uncovered “four weapons unsecured, along with more than 20 magazines with 30 bullets each,” Hamas paraphernalia, and “arm patches” which said “kill them where they stand” — a phrase others have translated as “kill Jews where they stand.”
Additionally, George Mason University is currently under investigation for a series of antisemitic incidents which took place on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. In one widely reported outrage, a pro-Hamas student stormed through the campus tearing down posters of missing Israeli hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas. That student was filmed, and when an attempt was made to expose their identity, the university accused the student who captured the hateful behavior of doxxing and suggested that he could be punished. At the time, many Jewish students said that the idea that the university would discipline anyone for unmasking antisemites is startling and disreputable.
Given the immensity of the issues that remain to be addressed, Marcus hopes that “cooler heads will prevail” in the General Assembly. He recognizes, however, that they may not.
“I have to think that cooler heads will prevail and that the General Assembly assembly will change course, but I don’t know that,” he said. “There’s still time and I know that many people are having conversations and that’s a healthy part of the process. I am a volunteer part-time public servant asking questions and trying to make sure that George Mason students are well educated and kept safe. If my name is not restored presumably that means that my tenure would end and I would not receive answers to the questions I’ve been asking and would no longer have an opportunity to work to protect George Mason University and its students.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Virginia Democrats Block Jewish Civil Rights Attorney’s Appointment to University Board first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Punishment of Bullets’: Hamas Executes 11 Palestinians Accused of ‘Collaborating’ With Israel
Hamas terrorists appear to shoot civilians who are lying on the ground in a video posted by Gaza Now, a Hamas-aligned news outlet based in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
Hamas murdered 11 Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday who the terrorist organization accused of “collaborating” with Israel, according to Hamas-aligned media sources.
Gaza Now, a Hamas-aligned news outlet based in Gaza, reported on Thursday that “six collaborators of the Zionist occupation were executed in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, a short while ago.”
“And punishing 17 others by shooting them in the feet as a result of exploiting the suffering of the people of Gaza and cooperating with the occupation in suffocating the people, raising prices, and stealing humanitarian aid, including merchants,” Gaza Now added.
Then, the news outlet reported that “five collaborators of the Zionist occupation were executed in the southern Gaza Strip a short while ago, bringing the number of collaborators executed today to 11.”
Video posted by Gaza Now shows what appear to be Hamas terrorists shooting civilians who are lying on the ground.
According to the outlet, these executions are likely only the start of a widespread crackdown on those in Gaza who are suspected of “collaborating with Israel.”
Adding that executions will begin to take place across the Gaza Strip, not just in Rafah, the outlet said that “a special unit of the security services in Gaza will strike with an iron fist, and there will be no repentance for anyone except the punishment of bullets.”
In response to the news, Hamza Hawidy, a Palestinian originally from Gaza City who is a peace activist, explained that this was to be “expected” from Hamas, which has ruled Gaza with brutal force since it first took over the coastal enclave in the mid-2000s.
“This isn’t a novel tactic,” Hawidy argued. “It’s an age-old strategy employed by Hamas to silence critics and instill fear among citizens who oppose their rule. I would greatly welcome a position from the pro-Palestinian movement advocating for pressure on Hamas to end its ongoing oppression of the people in Gaza.”
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who is a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and a Palestinian peace activist originally from Gaza, argued that “many ‘human rights’ organizations around the world have long seen the videos of Hamas’s terrorist thugs brutalizing the civilian population in Gaza, never saying a word of acknowledgment or condemnation because, apparently, Palestinian lives are only worthwhile when Israeli military attacks kill them.”
He added that “anyone who is still remaining silent about Hamas’s brutal anti-Palestinian terrorism in Gaza after the ceasefire, when there is conclusive, visual, and overwhelming evidence of the group’s criminality, deserves to be ridiculed and forever shunned by the human rights activism and advocacy communities.”
The post ‘Punishment of Bullets’: Hamas Executes 11 Palestinians Accused of ‘Collaborating’ With Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.