Yossi Schwartz, ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 04.06.2024
The “three Ds” or the “3D test” of the IHRA that defines pro-Zionist antisemitism is a set of criteria formulated by the alleged Israeli human rights advocate and politician Natan Sharansky to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three D’s stand for delegitimization, demonization, and double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism. When these 3 tests are applied to Sharansky, we can see in front of us a scum of the earth.
Anatoly Shcharansky (born Jan. 20, 1948, Stalino, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. [now Donetsk, Ukraine]) is a Soviet dissident, a human-rights advocate who was imprisoned (1977–86) by the Soviet government and then allowed to go to Israel.
“Shcharansky’s father was a Communist Party member in Ukraine, working for a time on the party newspaper, and Shcharansky himself was a Komsomol member as a youth. He studied mathematics and computer programming at the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute (1966–72) and then worked in Moscow as a computer specialist for the Institute of Oil and Gas. A Jew, he applied in 1973 for permission to emigrate to Israel; he was not only refused but also harassed by the KGB and, in 1975, discharged from his job. With an excellent command of English, he became a spokesperson for the dissidents and refuseniks in contacting Western correspondents to publicize their cause. On March 15, 1977, Shcharansky was arrested by the KGB, accused of treason and espionage, tried secretly, and sentenced to 13 years in prison and hard labor camps. He was released in a prisoner exchange with the West on Feb. 11, 1986, and settled in Israel.”[i]
He was characterized as a great human right advocate when he arrived in Israel. It did not take a long time, and he showed his accurate colors when he became a right-wing Zionist politician. Sharansky served as Minister of Industry and Trade in the first Netanyahu government. Sharansky joined the Barak government as interior minister but resigned in July 2000 before the Camp David Conference. Following the special elections for Prime Minister in which Ariel Sharon, the butcher, was elected, he joined his government. He served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction and Housing. In elections to the 16th Knesset (2003), his right-wing party, Yisra’el Ba’aliyah. won only two mandates (Sharansky and Yuli Edelstein). Following the failure in the polls (decrease from 6-7 mandates to only 2) and financial difficulties, the party merged within the Likud. Sharansky resigned from the list even before the Knesset was sworn in and was appointed Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, the Diaspora, and the fight against anti-Semitism. On May 2, 2005, he resigned from the government to protest Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza. In the elections to the 17th Knesset (2006), he ran on the Likud list, where he was placed 11th and entered the Knesset. On June 25, 2009, Sharansky was elected chairman of the Jewish Agency as a candidate for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; he served in this position for nine years and was replaced in the summer of 2018 by Yitzhak Herzog.
“In late March 2001, Jerusalem’s Planning & Construction Committee approved building another 2,800 housing units for Jews in the Har-Homa neighborhood in 1967-occupied East Jerusalem. Housing Minister Natan Sharansky announced plans to build 700 new homes in the West Bank settlements of Ma’aleh-Adumin and Alfei-Menashe in early April” [ii]
After a visit to the US, he said: “I have to say frankly that in some places, some students respond that it is almost a chutzpah, a big surprise, how it can be that a member of the Israeli government dares to speak about human rights. Isn’t it a fascist government? Isn’t it a racist country? How can the representative of this fascist government speak about human rights? I have to say I have even more considerable chutzpah to say that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that respects human rights and is democratic. Then, the question is, how can such differences affect perception? Many people in the world see Israel as the biggest violator of human rights, as an awful dictatorship. And other people like myself believe that it is the only democracy and the only country in that part of the world that respects human rights.”[iii]
“The plan, termed by those groups as a ‘land grab’ and ‘legalized robbery’, was initiated by Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Natan Sharansky on 22 June 2004 and approved by the Israeli cabinet on 8 July. Its objective was to apply the 1950 Absentee Property Law, through which the bulk of Arab lands were appropriated from Palestinian refugees after the 1948 War and then passed on to Jewish immigrants. The new plan would have subjected thousands of dunums of Palestinian land in metropolitan Jerusalem to Israeli control since their owners now reside in areas whose residents have been barred from entering the city, including the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Many legal experts observed that these regulations, enacted under the rubric of security concerns, expanded the area of land confiscation around Jerusalem. This is augmented by the construction of the ‘Separation’ Wall since its contours have been designed to optimize the separation of Palestinians from their land. Recent decisions by the Israeli High Court have altered the originally planned boundaries of the walls, but – significantly – did not address their land grab intent in the manner exposed by the International Court of Justice at The Hague.” [iv]
The IHRA has been used not only in the US but also in Europe to silence the critics of the Zionist apartheid state. The IHRA definition is a highly problematic document whose imprecisions do not allow for it to be used as a legal basis for fighting antisemitism. It defines itself as a “non-legally binding working definition] meaning it lacks the clarity and precision needed from a legal, statutory definition. The language is ambiguous and imprecise: antisemitism is delineated as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed through hatred,” thereby reducing the burden of proof of antisemitism to the identification of an internal psychological status. Consequently, if applied as a statutory definition or as a tool to support other regulations on antisemitism, the IHRA opens the door for any criticism to be conflated with an expression of hatred – a purely subjective evaluation of intent that cannot be judged objectively. In a practical sense, this means that an authority could decide unilaterally that any action or expression against Israeli policies or Zionism has, at its core, an expression of hatred against Jews and order its censorship.
“IHRA targets those who use the legitimate language of apartheid to describe Israel’s practices against the Palestinians;
IHRA targets those who use the legitimate language of settler-colonialism to describe Israel and the Zionist movement;
IHRA targets criticism of Israel’s violations of international law and human rights;
IHRA targets those who use strong language to express outrage about the actions of the Israeli government;
IHRA targets those who say that Zionism is racism;
IHRA targets those who call for a single democratic state in Palestine-Israel;
IHRA targets those who criticize the actions of pro-Israel organizations, including their advocacy in support of IHRA.”[v]
“The definition was used to censor or criminalize criticism of Israel almost simultaneously after its adoption. National laws conflating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement with antisemitism were adopted by the German, Czech, and Austrian parliaments in 2019, citing the IHRA definition as one of the theoretical sources of their decision. The parliaments of these three EU Member States also called on their respective governments not to financially support groups or projects that call for a boycott of Israel or support the BDS movement”
These regulatory measures have created a chilling effect on public discourse. Since 2019, several prominent artists and academics in Germany have been smeared with accusations of antisemitism and saw their events canceled and/or defunded due to their involvement with or support of BDS. This censorship extends to bizarre levels – even Jewish Israeli artists were declared to be “antisemites” and defunded under the clampdown of any BDS-involved activity.
In Germany, accusations of antisemitism were also raised to cancel protests, sack reporters, and arrest over 100 individuals[in the United Kingdom – the first nation to adopt the IHRA definition in 2016 – the definition was used to pressure universities into canceling events related to the Israel apartheid week or the Palestinian solidarity movement discouraging students from researching the Nakba] and weaponized as a form of financial blackmail on these institutions Critically, this process of systematic censorship is not limited to the national jurisdiction of EU Member States. Still, it has been encouraged by the EU legal and political framework itself.” [vi]
Even today, when the Zionist state is committing genocide, the imperialists are using the IHRA to attack those who oppose the genocide.
“More than 100 Israeli and international civil society organizations have asked the United Nations to reject a controversial definition of antisemitism because it is being “misused” to protect Israel from legitimate criticism. The groups have written to the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, saying he should resist pressure from Israel to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism.” The definition has been accepted by the US State Department, several European governments, including the UK and Germany, and EU bodies after solid lobbying by pro-Israel groups and others. Governments and institutions often adopt the definition as an essential step in efforts to combat antisemitism. In practice, however, the IHRA definition has often been used to label criticism of Israel as antisemitic wrongly, and thus chill and sometimes suppress non-violent protest, activism, and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism, including in the US and Europe,” the letter said.” [vii]
Another hero of the Zionists is the American Jewish spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. Upon arriving in Israel, he supported the far-right Shaked; he created headlines following the attack in Huwara in February 2023 and the subsequent arson rampage by settlers, saying that Israel should destroy the town.
Since a growing number of Jews oppose the Zionist state, the IHRA can define them as Anti-Semitic. Thus, clearly, the function of the IHRA is to protect the Zionist crime as Israel has been considered the front line of Western imperialism. At the same time the scum of the earth are the great heroes of the Zionist apartheid state.
Down with the Zionist war criminals!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anatoly-Shcharansky
[ii]https://www.jewishpeacelobby.org/?page_id=84
[iii] https://international.ucla.edu/institute/article/17697
[iv] https://www.palestine-stuondies.org/en/node/77815
[v] https://www.cjpme.org/ihra_intentions
[vi] https://www.badil.org/publications/al-majdal/issues/items/3491.html
[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/apr/24/un-ihra-antisemitism-definition-israel-criticism