Missouri antisemitism measure is really an attack on 1st Amendment rights | Opinion
As a member of Kansas City’s Jewish community, I see so much at stake around me. I observe the most powerful people in our society peddling antisemitism for profit and political gain, while programs that advance racial and social justice are under nationwide attack. Masked government agents are actively sweeping door to door across the country, arresting our immigrant neighbors, harming citizen observers extrajudicially and evoking some of the most horrible imagery from the recent Jewish past.
The safety of the Jewish community and the wider community in which we’re situated is deeply important to me. It feels ironic, then, that I find myself forced by circumstance and conscience to speak out against current political efforts supposedly protecting Missouri’s Jews.
House Bill 2061, sponsored by state Rep. George Hruza, which the Missouri House perfected Feb. 11 by a voice vote, claims to provide “protections against discrimination and antisemitism in public schools and public postsecondary education institutions,” but this is a masquerade. In truth, H.B. 2061 is a targeted effort to chill Palestinian voices on campus, shield Israel from criticism and advance a far-right, anti-First Amendment agenda.
The glaring problem with the so-called “protections” that H.B. 2061 offers results from its use of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. The IHRA working definition was originally developed as a tool to help European countries track data on antisemitism. The way that the definition is worded, however — especially in the 11 “contemporary examples” of antisemitism it offers — brings heavy focus to criticism of Israel over and above instances of genuine antisemitism. Even its lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, has spoken out against the use of the working definition as a political code and sees it as a barrier to free speech when applied as law.
Last month, I testified before the Emerging Issues committee when H.B. 2061 received a public hearing. Also in attendance was the director of state engagement for CAM, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, David Soffer. CAM is one of the main organizations pushing H.B. 2061 and similar bills across the country, and has succeeded in codifying the working definition into law in many states, including Kansas. Reporting on CAM by Current Affairs showed that CAM’s leadership and advisory board include individuals with strong ties to the Israeli military and government. CEO Sacha Roytman-Dratwa was formerly in the IDF’s Spokesperson Unit and went on to establish and command the IDF’s New Media Division. Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Danny Dannon and current Israeli President Isaac Herzog sit on the CAM board. CAM was also originally founded by Kansas oil magnate Adam Beren, who has donated to both Donald Trump and other MAGA candidates.
These ties between the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the Israeli government and H.B. 2061 should give anyone pause. Israel is a country and Judaism is a culture and religion, just not in the world that CAM and H.B. 2061 seek to foster. It should come as no surprise, then, that trying to codify the IHRA working definition into law leads to logical ambiguity and intellectual unseriousness.
Who decides what behavior is demanded?
Let’s examine just one example from the working definition: “Applying double standards (to Israel) by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” To start, whether Israel should be classified as a democratic state is highly debatable given that millions of Palestinians within Israel are subjected to military rule separate from the laws under which Israelis live. It is also completely unclear within the working definition who decides what “behavior” should be “expected or demanded” of one or another democratic state, or what “requiring” something of Israel even means.
Reading between the lines as best I can, the goal seems to be to prohibit, for example, accusing Israel of genocide while other countries behave just as badly and do not receive the same focus in the public sphere. However, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, B’Tselem, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International and numerous genocide scholars inside and outside Israel have unambiguously asserted the genocide accusation against Israel’s military and political actions in Gaza.
Shut down voices for fear of Title VI violation?
Put yourself in the place of an educational administrator who has been told to enforce this very vague definition after there has been an antisemitism accusation. Out of very real fear that your institution might face a Title VI violation, it might feel much safer and easier to simply shut down any pro-Palestinian speech from the start.
No other country is afforded the same speech protections in Missouri as Israel would be here, including America itself. There already exist discrimination protections in the public education milieu for Jewish and other students. Despite what its boosters argue, the fact that more than 30 other states have codified the IHRA working definition into law in some form does not speak to its logical validity or consensus acceptance. It is merely effective public relations campaigning at local, state and national levels that have led us here.
Organizations such as the Combat Antisemitism Movement are playacting as protectors of Jewish students while pushing a partisan agenda that prioritizes right-wing political interests and shields Israel from what in any other context would be reasonable criticism of a country’s actions. Any state representative who is considering voting in favor of H.B. 2061, but especially any Democrats (I’m looking at you, co-sponsors Nick Kimble and Steve Butz), I am here urging you to reconsider. Let Missouri set an example amongst other states. Let free speech win the day in the Show-Me State.
Solomon Alpert is a psychotherapist and member of Jewish Voice for Peace — Kansas City. He co-authored this with Jewish Voices for Peace — Kansas City member Sam Brian.