CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

From Toledo, Ohio to Rome, Italy: BDS and Grassroots Solidarity Defy the IHRA Smear and Israel’s Genocide

Photograph by Michael Leonardi

Two cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic—Toledo, Ohio, my hometown, and Rome, the ancient capital of Italy—are rising together in defiance of the same machinery of repression. In both places, local movements are demanding an end to all ties with apartheid Israel, while their respective governments—Ohio’s state legislature and Italy’s national government under Giorgia Meloni—are rushing to codify the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism into law. This definition, pushed aggressively by pro-Israel lobbies, deliberately equates legitimate criticism of Zionism and Israel’s settler-colonial project with Jew-hatred. The result is a global campaign to criminalize solidarity with Palestine, silence BDS, and shield Israel’s ongoing genocide from accountability. From the banks of the Maumee River to the banks of the Tiber, ordinary people are refusing to be silenced.

The IHRA “working definition,” adopted in 2016 as a non-legally binding tool by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, was never meant to be law. Drafted by Kenneth Stern under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in the early 2000s, it defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” However, its 11 examples—particularly those relating to Israel—have been weaponized by Zionist forces to stifle dissent. Examples include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” (e.g., calling Israel a racist endeavor) or “applying double standards” to Israel. Stern himself has warned that it’s being abused to chill free speech, as pro-Israel groups use it to attack academics, activists, and even Jewish critics of........

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