In the UK, as in other European countries, there has been an effort by Jewish groups to encourage the government and public institutions to make use of the “working definition of anti-Semitism” proffered by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This short document—intended not as an ironclad legal definition, but simply as a useful rubric for determining what is and isn’t anti-Semitic—has been adopted by some British universities, the Labor party (after much contention), and, for certain narrow purposes, by the U.S. government. But it also has its enemies, including eight lawyers who recently penned an open letter calling it an attack on freedom expression. Dave Rich begs to differ:

[I]t is hard to see how a nonlegal definition with no legal authority could undermine legally guaranteed rights to free expression and academic freedom. Most universities understand this, even if these eight lawyers don’t: the University of Oxford, in announcing its recent adoption of the IHRA definition, stated that, [it] “does not affect the legal definition of racial discrimination, so does not change our approach to meeting our legal duties and responsibilities.”

What then, Rich asks, is the source of the intense opposition?

The answer lies in [the letter writers’] misrepresentation of what the definition says and does. They claim, as others have before them, that “the majority” of the IHRA definition’s “illustrative examples” of potentially anti-Semitic speech “do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel. They have been widely used to suppress or avoid criticism of the state of Israel.” The implication is that the IHRA definition is more concerned with, or directed against, anti-Israel speech than anti-Jewish speech.

This is simply not true: of the eleven “illustrative examples” of potentially anti-Semitic speech listed in the IHRA definition, nine explicitly mention Jews or the Jewish people (seven mention Israel, of which five mention both Jews and Israel). . . . The examples that mention both Jews and Israel include “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.”

[Most] likely . . . they object to the examples stating that it “could” be anti-Semitic to deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.” . . . . Perhaps the lawyers who wrote this letter believe that these examples of anti-Israel speech could never, in any circumstances or context, be evidence of anti-Semitism. Again, if that is what they believe, let them argue the point.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”