The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism has been adopted by 38 countries around the globe and has served as an effective tool for nations to combat hatred and racism against the Jews.
Yet, a United Nations report is recommending the suspension of this definition.
E. Tendayi Achiume, a UN special rapporteur on racism, shared her conclusions with the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on Monday, October 31.
“I highlight the controversial status, divisive effects and negative human rights impacts of the IHRA working definition on antisemitism,” Achiume said, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post.
Fortunately, Achiume’s recommendation was rejected by 38 countries that have adopted the definition, including the United States, Canada, the European Union and Israel.
According to Laurie Cardoza Moore, founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, and Special Envoy to the UN for the World Council of Independent Christian Churches, the IHRA definition is an effective tool for stemming the global flood of antisemitism.
“This definition stands in the way of antisemitic hate and is helping protect Israel,” she noted. “This is an attempt to water down or suspend the use of this powerful declaration so that other countries will not face the consequences of violating its parameters.”
The IHRA definition includes the following guidelines for what constitutes antisemitism: “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”
“Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g., gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).”
“Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.”
“Israel is facing many antisemitic attacks, both inside and abroad,” Cardoza Moore noted. “Israelis are being murdered, attacked on the streets. We need to remain vigilant as we stand with our Jewish brethren and with the state of Israel against global antisemitism.”
Cardoza Moore urged concerned citizens to declare their support for the IHRA definition over social media and to reach out to the UN via email and phone calls and urge a rejection of Achiume’s recommendation.
“We can’t stand by and allow the UN to give any serious consideration to this erroneous proposal to drop the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” she said.
Cardoza Moore has been named among Israel’s top 50 Christian allies by the Israel Allies Foundation, a Goodwill Ambassador to Israel by the Israel Consul General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a Friend of Israel by the Center for Jewish Awareness.