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The White House intends to fight antisemitism. That starts with a sensible definition.
(JTA) — In the coming days, the White House is expected to release what President Joe Biden has called “the first-ever U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism.” It will likely include calls to action by Congress, state and local governments, as well as guidance for technology and other companies, civil society and faith leaders.
In preparation, the Biden administration sought input from a wide range of Jewish community members and stakeholders, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which I lead. In addition to this engagement with the forthcoming report on antisemitism, I will travel to Cordoba, Spain, next month for the United Nations antisemitism summit, and then to the European Parliament in Brussels with parliamentarians from across the globe convening against antisemitism.
In both settings, the message of world Jewry remains unchanged: Adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, known as IHRA, is an essential and seminal tool to combat anti-Jewish hate
Support for adopting the IHRA definition is significant, as seen in a letter last week from over 175 Jewish community organizations around the world, a letter last week from over 600 rabbis from all four Jewish streams and dozens of letters from American Jewish organizations, all making the important case for adoption of the IHRA definition. Members of Congress have weighed in. Mayors have weighed in. Across the board, a strong and clear consensus of support exists for the definition.
The IHRA definition is the most authoritative and internationally accepted definition of antisemitism. Forty-one nations, as well as hundreds of local governments, academic institutions, NGOs and other entities have formally adopted in different ways the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Over half — 31 — American states also adopted it.
RELATED: The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and why people are fighting over it, explained (2021)
Since the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of State has utilized and promoted the IHRA definition (and previously, its similarly-phrased predecessor from the European Union’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia). Both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt are leaders in advocating for its usage around the globe. The U.S. Department of Education also employs the IHRA definition as a tool in determining antisemitism discrimination in Title VI discrimination cases.
The IHRA definition continues to gain significant attention and support among governments and civil society actors. Fifty-one of the 53 member organizations of the Conference of Presidents adopted the definition – a clear recognition from every corner of a disparate Jewish community that we are unified when it comes to applauding the comprehensive approach it provides for labeling and addressing antisemitism.
One particular aspect of the IHRA definition that draws attention — and criticism from some groups — is its treatment of the relationship between anti-Israel bias and antisemitism. For too long, definitions of antisemitism failed to account for how anti-Zionism often serves as a cover for antisemitism. Forms of antisemitism that are masked as “anti-Zionism” and that deny the right of the Jewish people to self-determination are among those most frequently encountered by many Jews today, whether or not they are Zionists, as documented in surveys by the Anti-Defamation League and by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
RELATED: A manufactured ‘mainstream’ wants the White House to define antisemitism on its own flawed terms (Opinion)
The IHRA definition addresses the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, while not conflating legitimate criticism with actual antisemitism. Critics fail to identify actual instances where the IHRA definition suppressed free speech. In fact, over the last 20 weeks, as debates raged around the world over Israel’s proposed judicial reform — with hundreds of thousands of Israelis of all political stripes expressing virulent criticism of the Israeli government’s proposed overhaul — I have yet to hear one individual accuse the critics of being antisemitic. Despite the fact that the IHRA definition is so ubiquitous, legitimate speech that is critical of Israeli government policy is not censored. When put to the test, the IHRA definition does not do what its critics say it does.
We at the Conference of Presidents steadily campaign for states, localities, international governments and organizations to adopt the IHRA definition. The Biden administration seems poised to reassert their ongoing endorsement of the IHRA definition, pushing back yet again against those who distort the nature of the definition’s treatment of legitimate criticism of Israel governmental policies.
In a time when antisemitism in the United States has become all too often lethal, this would mean a vital and praiseworthy evolution of policy.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.