Amid the police crackdown on Gaza protests coast-to-coast—drawing concern from the UN human rights office—hostage advocacy organizations, rights groups and co-existence activists have been protesting in Israel, and similarly meeting with repression. They are, at a minimum, demanding a deal with Hamas for release of the hostages and putting off the promised invasion of Rafah. While far-right Israelis have been blocking the roads to the Gaza crossings to prevent aid trucks from entering, the group Rabbis for Ceasefire held a march to the border of the Strip to deliver food in defiance of the siege, and were met with arrests. Such voices begin to de-escalate the dangerous polarization which has also infected the scene on American campuses. Bill Weinberg discusses in Episode 224 of the CounterVortex podcast.
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House vote embraces IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Antisemitism Awareness Act on May 1. The act would direct the Department of Education to use the definition of anti-Semitism promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. (CBS)
As we have pointed out before, this problematic definition cynically conflates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. A more sopisticated and nuanced definition of anti-Semitism is advanced by a group of Holocaust scholars in the 2021 Jerusalem Declaration.