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A manufactured ‘mainstream’ wants the White House to define antisemitism on its own flawed terms
(JTA) — As the Biden administration nears the long-awaited announcement of its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, tensions have emerged over what definition of antisemitism the White House will use. According to Jewish Insider, “major mainstream Jewish groups” are battling against the “left” to define antisemitism, suggesting that the groups’ preferred definition, that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, is the mainstream one.
The framing determines a winner before the contest even begins — this is the power play of the term “mainstream.”
Here’s how it works: A purportedly neutral source — Jewish Insider, say, or the Associated Press — names a set of players as the “mainstream.” Without any discussion of method or sources, the characterization produces reality. The self-fulfilling designation allows a select group of organizations to command the center. These groups and their spokespeople then use their “mainstream” power to naturalize and normalize their own agenda, like defining the IHRA definition as the “gold standard” despite concerns that it chills legitimate criticism of Israel, or condemning “progressive” voices for their refusal to conflate anti-Zionism and antisemitism, or chastising Rep. Rashida Tlaib for commemorating the Nakba, the “catastrophe” that befell her people with the creation of Israel.
Game on.
The strategy of claiming the center to control it is nothing new. In the annals of American Jewish institutional formation, it’s happened again and again. Just witness the names of organizations: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Zionist Organization of America, and the list could go on and on. One after the other, these groups have claimed to be the center, the “mainstream.”
RELATED: The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and why people are fighting over it, explained (2021)
As a historian who has written about many of these groups, I can tell you that every claim to be the united front, the central address, the singular American Jewish organization has rested on the surety that most American Jews believed no such thing. Indeed, words that posture such a “mainstream” are best read as indicators of dissent, debate and fracture.
When it comes to confronting antisemitism, some of today’s Jewish leaders might imagine that American Jews can achieve unity that has long eluded them or Jewish institutional life. They might be so certain of this vision as to pretend that it is true, with fundraising and media blitzes that appear to speak on behalf of all Jews. Slick advertising campaigns, whether on television and social media or highway billboards, and a hotly contested and poorly constructed yet exclusive definition of antisemitism may make it seem that the Jewish “mainstream” speaks as one, loudly for all Jews and all people who care about fighting antisemitism.
But don’t let the powerplay bulldoze you. Those television and social media blitzes? They are the product of one megadonor’s imagination and thick wallet. The pink highway signs that deliver glib “lessons” against antisemitism in the form of snark? They are brought to you by the same high-net-worth family that advertised its storage company with similarly cheeky taglines. And even the creation of and campaigns to endorse the IHRA definition have specific histories and funding sources.
None of this is to say that those efforts should be dismissed because they have histories and are tied to narrow but deep pockets of wealth. The problem comes when those histories and sources of power go unacknowledged and instead parade themselves as the “mainstream,” the authentic truth of what all Jews must believe.
RELATED: The White House intends to fight antisemitism. That starts with a sensible definition. (Opinion)
In the power plays to claim the Jewish “mainstream,” institutions and their leaders are trying to silence those who disagree with their policies and politics. The term “mainstream” acts as a cudgel against efforts to build solidarity between Palestinians and Israelis who oppose the actions of the Israeli government. Its purveyors vocally and consistently defend harsh anti-boycott laws, on the books in several American states, that penalize institutions or individuals for engaging in or promoting boycotts against Israel. Or they helicopter onto American college campuses to pressure university administrators to subscribe to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Instead of arriving at the field ready to play an honest game, “mainstream” Jewish institutions and their leaders want to be the only players. To argue that we must all agree on one definition in order to talk about antisemitism is like clearing the field before the game even begins.
Because this is more than a game — because hatred and bigotry fuel violent crimes at an alarming rate in the United States — Jewish and non-Jewish people who have a stake in the conversation about antisemitism should refuse to play. Publications that insist on anointing a “mainstream” ought to be called out. And the press, instead, should investigate the role that some of its agents play in advancing the power play of the “mainstream” — including, for example, Jewish Insider, which is less than transparent about its own history and sources of funding.
As a participant in one of the “listening sessions” convened by the White House in February of this year, I can report that the scholars who joined me around the table (OK, Zoom screen) had a wide range of perspectives. When asked to share our views on antisemitism, none of us got to call ourselves the “mainstream” expert on the questions. Instead, we identified the methods, sources and theories that authorized our understandings of the roots and manifestations of antisemitism.
I can only hope that the other listening sessions and the White House process has proceeded accordingly, with little reverence for the self-appointed Jewish “mainstream.” A resolve to understand the diversity of views and what led people or groups to them will upset any single view — or definition. A successful strategy will not be cowed by the “mainstream” but instead will highlight the varieties of truly and authentically held ideas that together can animate efforts to stem the tide of antisemitism and bigotry.
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What It’s Like to Be on ‘Silent Alert’ in Israel
Rescue personnel work at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
It’s a very Israeli “thing” — so much a part of our identity that we don’t even have a word for it. I call it the “silent alert.”
When the Israeli government prefers to not cause panic or tip off its enemies, when it wants to project confidence and strength, it sometimes announces … nothing at all. And yet somehow, we all know to prepare.
Despite the threats emanating from the situation in Iran, the Israeli government has not put out an official warning or any particular instructions to all of us here on the “Home Front” — even at points when a military response from Iran seemed very likely.
Yet still, we’re already double checking our bomb shelters. When away from home, we’re aware of our surroundings, and we note the location of the nearest shelters, as we did for almost two years during the Gaza war. We’re just a little more careful about keeping our phones charged, and our kitchens stocked.
Why?
The superficial, intellectual reason is this: If the United States strikes Iran, then Iran will likely respond by striking us. There’s precedent: after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, Saddam Hussein fired massive Scud missiles on Israel, an absurd response given that Israel was one of the only countries in the Western world that had NOT joined the international strikes on Iraq.
Yet there is another significant and more Israeli reason: we just know.
Entrance to the bomb shelter at the RealityCheck offices in Tel Aviv. Photo: RealityCheck.
Israel is a small country, where everyone knows everyone — not literally, but almost.
Soldiers are not unknown figures on some distant base or overseas — they are our parents and children, our neighbors and co-workers, our friends — and in my case, many of my students. Small talk by the פינת קפה (Israel’s equivalent of the “water cooler”) or discussions over family dinner, are basically low-key intelligence briefings.
Of course we don’t know the specifics of secret capabilities in advance, such as the stunning “pager operation” against Hezbollah in 2024, or the myriad of tools brought to bear against Iran last June, but we know when “something’s up.”
This happened numerous times in the last few years — around conflicts with Hezbollah, and Iran. And we always come back to our “Silent Alert.”
Intellectually, we remember that some of Iran’s most deadly attacks during June’s “Twelve Day War” came in during its final days, with notable improvements in both targeting and munitions power. If the Iranian regime is truly nearing its end, it may decide to use the most powerful weapons it has been holding in reserve. Even chemical weapons, though not expected, are not entirely out of the question. On the other hand, Israel’s defenses have improved as well, including the unveiling of Iron Beam, the IDF’s new laser-based missile defense system.
Yet beyond intellect, we all “just know.” Like Hezbollah’s plan to wipe out Israel’s civilian infrastructure, these concerns might not come to pass. Yet for now, the danger is real, and Israeli civilians remain on “Silent Alert.”
Our thoughts are primarily with the astonishingly brave Iranian protesters, risking their very lives just to march and speak out — but in Israel, the threats are always real.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
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On Canadian Campuses, Intimidation Is Becoming Policy
Anti-Israel mob moments before it shattered glass door to storm Jewish event featuring IDF soldiers near Toronto Metropolitan University. Photo: Provided by witness of incident
Canadian universities like to describe themselves as guardians of free inquiry. But across the country, they are quietly training students to learn a different lesson: that some ideas are simply not worth debating, defending, or discussing.
Over the past two years, pro-Israel events have become uniquely difficult to hold on Canadian campuses — not controversial in the abstract, not banned outright, but rendered practically impossible through a combination of administrative obstruction and tolerated disruption.
Whether this pattern stems from ideological sympathy or institutional cowardice matters less than its effects. The result is the same: one set of students learns that their speech is a liability, while another learns that intimidation works.
The incidents are not isolated anomalies; they have become the norm over the past two years. Since late 2023 and continuing through 2025, anti-Israel protestors have repeatedly shut down or derailed campus events.
At Toronto Metropolitan University, anti-Israel protestors disrupted a pro-Israel event to the point of chaos. At Concordia, a student group was barred from holding an Israel-related event on campus entirely. When the event was moved off campus, protestors followed and physically blocked entrances.
In Winnipeg, a pro-Palestinian group protested an IDF soldier event at a community centre with children and families present, after the event was forced out of a college campus.
Less visible, but just as telling, are the quieter administrative encounters that epitomize how pro-Israel activity is increasingly treated as a problem to be managed rather than an expression to be accommodated.
Universities often respond by insisting that they’re merely enforcing neutral policies: security requirements, space approvals, risk assessments.
But neutrality collapses when the same scrutiny is not applied evenly. Pro-Israel events routinely face heightened security fees, last-minute conditions, location changes, or outright cancellations, while other politically charged programming often appears to proceed with fewer obstacles.
In practice, this amounts to a quiet “Jewish tax” on participation: higher security bills, more paperwork, more scrutiny, and more risk simply for wanting to host an event connected to Jewish identity or Israel.
In several cases, approvals are granted only to be quietly reversed days later, with vague references to new policies and no clear explanation, leaving students with no appeal and no timeline.
When the price of speaking is predictably higher for one community, exclusion no longer needs to be explicit to be effective.
Over time, this selective enforcement reshapes campus life in ways administrators rarely acknowledge. Student leaders internalize risk aversion. Event organizers self-censor choices, titles, and themes in the hope of slipping under the radar. Jewish and pro-Israel students stop expecting equal treatment and start planning around institutional resistance as a given.
What looks like peace from an administrative office is actually a culture of withdrawal. Students quickly learn that persistence brings scrutiny, while retreat brings quiet relief, and many choose accordingly.
Even more troubling is what this normalization teaches those who oppose these events. When protestors can disrupt, blockade, or intimidate with little consequence from the school directly, they receive a clear signal that escalation is rewarded.
The cost-benefit analysis becomes obvious. Why argue, debate, or organize a competing event when shouting loudly and causing enough chaos can make the opposition disappear? By failing to enforce their own rules consistently, universities in Canada and the US convert protest from expression into ideological enforcement.
This is not how pluralistic institutions are supposed to work. Universities exist precisely to host contested ideas without allowing one faction to exercise a heckler’s veto to another. Once administrators begin quietly calculating which viewpoints are too expensive, too disruptive, or too politically inconvenient to accommodate, the university ceases to be an arena for debate and becomes a manager of reputational risk.
The consequences extend beyond Israel. Today, it is Jewish activism. Tomorrow, it might be foreign policy dissent, religious expression, or unpopular research. Precedents do not remain neatly confined.
Universities will insist they are under immense pressure, and that may be true. But pressure is not an excuse; it is the test. Institutions that pride themselves on courage and independence cannot outsource their values to whomever shouts the loudest or threatens disruption most effectively.
This is where students, parents, alumni, and donors should step in. Silence has costs. Universities respond to incentives, not press releases or paltry condemnations. When unequal treatment becomes reputationally and financially uncomfortable, policies change. When it does not, administrative drift hardens into doctrine.
The demand here is not special treatment for pro-Israel students. It is equal treatment. Clear rules, enforced consistently. Events allowed to proceed without ideological filtering. Protest protected, but disruption penalized. Safety ensured without turning one group’s existence into a logistical burden.
If universities cannot guarantee that, they should stop pretending they are neutral forums. And if Canadians care about the future of higher education as a space for genuine debate rather than managed conformity, now is the moment to insist that campuses live up to the principles they so eagerly advertise.
Because once students learn that they can shut down ideas they disagree with, the damage is already done.
Adam Katz is a 2025-2026 CAMERA on Campus fellow and a political science and history student at the University of Manitoba.
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Palestinian Authority Just Disguised 6,000 More Pay-for-Slay Terrorists as Innocent Pensioners
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
In the first week of February 2026, the Palestinian Authority (PA) camouflaged the files of 6,000 Pay-for-Slay recipients.
The PA turned some of those terrorists into “pensioners,” and others are now being paid salaries in the civil service for fictitious jobs, so the payments are obscured from international scrutiny and impossible to monitor.
Palestinian Media Watch has acquired original copies of the following three conversations held between recipients of Pay-for-Slay.
Conversation #1: PA disguises 6,000 prisoners and injured terrorists as pensioners:
Recipient One: “Has anyone received a call from any government office and been asked to provide a bank account number in the last two weeks?”
[There was no response.]
“How many times have we told you: demand, demand, demand [your payments]. And what happened? The whole matter was reduced to only 6,000 cases that were transferred to [government] offices, and now they’re verifying their names, calling them, and asking for active bank account numbers to deposit their salaries.”
Member A: “Who told you?”
Member B: “Who is this about?”
Member C: “On what basis did they choose the 6,000?”
Member B: “No one knows.”
Recipient One: “This is the issue: The wounded and prisoners — 6,000 of them [had their files] transferred to pensions in different offices, and they are now registered there, and they are calling them one by one, asking them for bank account numbers to confirm them as pensioners.”
There was great frustration that no one in this particular group of Pay-for-Slay recipients had been notified that they were among the 6,000 new camouflaged members.
Conversation #2: Released prisoner: I went to the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and they confirmed that salaries for released prisoners are being paid and “all matters will be resolved:”
I was at the [PLO] Commission [of Prisoners’ Affairs], I went to have them sign my insurance and asked them about the salaries. They told me word for word that there are currently salaries for those who served 5 years, meaning for released [prisoners] who served 5 years or more.
They are given a salary of 1,500 [Israeli] shekels ($500 – ed.), and those who served 10 years are given a salary of 3,000 shekels ($1,000 – ed.), as he told me. I asked him, what about someone who is under 5 years. He told me word for word, come back to us in a month, Allah willing the issues will be resolved. In other words, don’t [complain] every day: ‘The salaries, the salaries, the salaries.’ Allah willing, from now on the matters will be resolved.
Conversation #3: All families of Martyrs and wounded will be moved to government offices
Member A: “Good morning. We have learned that the issue with the last payment is being fixed. There will be allowance payments soon, Allah willing. And we have learned that the committee that was established is studying several proposals to handle the matters definitively. When approval and agreement on a procedure [is reached], we will inform you about it … and coordinate the necessary steps with you, with Allah’s help. Explicitly, they are going to divide up [the families of] the Martyrs and the wounded across government offices.”
Member B: “Okay. So we understand from this that there will be a payment soon[?] … At the same percentage. Will they commit[?]”
Member A: “The old percentage of your salary. The [PA] Labor Ministry took on some of those [Martyrs and wounded] who weren’t paid. Other government offices also took on those about whom there is no [information]. PNEEI is done with; this is the last salary we receive from them. Do you understand? Be well.”
Member B: “That’s what I meant.”
Member A: “Sure, the [old] percentage of your salary.”
Member B: “Okay. The distribution to government offices [will be] under which clause [?]”
Member A: “There will be a payment before Ramadan.”
All of these authentic conversations among recipients of Pay-for-Slay confirm beyond a doubt that the PA is intentionally lying to the US, the EU, France, and other Western countries, claiming to have stopped Pay-for-Slay, while working around the clock to find ways to secretly continue rewarding Palestinian terrorists.
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.