The IHRA Definition & the Fight Against Antisemitism Part 6: Implications and Impacts of the IHRA Definition on Palestinians

Resource

The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) and Palestine Legal invite you to attend 

The IHRA Definition & the Fight Against Antisemitism

Part 6: Implications and Impacts of the IHRA Definition on Palestinians

Friday, February 19th, 2021

You can listen to this conversation as a podcast here.

FMEP is proud to host a webinar featuring Palestinian scholars and activists discussing the implications and impact of the IHRA definition of antisemitism for Palestinians. Join us as we host Ahmad Daraldik, Florida State University student and former Student Senate President, Dima Khalidi, Founder and Director of Palestine Legal, and Dr. Sherene Seikaly, professor and historian of the modern Middle East — all in discussion with FMEP President Lara Friedman. 

For the list of resources shared during this webinar, please scroll down. 

To find past recordings and future events and resources in this series, click here

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The IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) “working definition of antisemitism” — including its examples — is on its way to being adopted and used across the globe, where it poses a serious threat to free speech. From the State Department to English Premier League soccer teams, from universities to social media platforms, concerted campaigns to label criticism of Israeli policies and challenges to Zionism as antisemitism — and to impose formal/legal consequences — continue to gain momentum. 

In this webinar, we will explore the unique and urgent impacts on Palestinians of the IHRA definition, which Palestinian and Arab scholars describe as “a stratagem to delegitimise the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land.” Palestinians are especially targeted by the implementation of the IHRA definition, from attacking their activism and advocacy on their own behalf to labeling expressions of their identities, their lived experiences, and their history and experiences antisemitic. This impossible dynamic is especially visible on college campuses, where students and faculty face campaigns that undermine their rights to constitutionally-protected freedom of speech. 

Panelists

Ahmad Omar Daraldik is a third year student majoring in International Affairs at Florida State University where he serves as a Student Senator. He is a 1st Generation Palestinian Muslim American and was the first with this background to serve FSU as the Student Senate President. His university education is supported by the Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement (CARE), which assists students who are traditionally underrepresented for socioeconomic and educational reasons. His instagram is https://www.instagram.com/deeko_the_palestinian/.  

Dima Khalidi is the founder and director of Palestine Legal and Cooperating Counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). She oversees Palestine Legal’s array of legal and advocacy work to protect people speaking out for Palestinian rights from attacks on their civil and constitutional rights. Prior to founding Palestine Legal in 2012, Dima worked with CCR as a cooperating attorney on the Mamilla Cemetery Campaign, submitting a Petition to United Nations officials to stop the desecration of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, and advocating on behalf of Palestinian descendants of individuals interred in the cemetery. Dima has a JD from DePaul University College of Law, an MA in International and Comparative Legal Studies from the University of London – SOAS, and a BA in History and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan. 

Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Seikaly’s Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores how Palestinian capitalists and British colonial officials used economy to shape territory, nationalism, the home, and the body. Her second book, From Baltimore to Beirut: On the Question of Palestine focuses on a Palestinian man who was at once a colonial officer and a colonized subject, an enslaver and a refugee. His trajectory from nineteenth century mobility across Baltimore and Sudan to twentieth century immobility in Lebanon places the question of Palestine in a global history of race, capital, slavery, and dispossession. Seikaly is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Academic Senate, the University of California, Santa Barbara; the Harold J. Plous Award at UCSB; and the UC President’s Faculty Research Fellowship. She currently serves as co-editor of Journal of Palestine Studies and co-founder and co-editor of Jadaliyya.

Moderator

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) and a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to her work at FMEP, Lara is a Contributing Writer at Jewish Currents and a non-resident fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). She tweets at @LaraFriedmanDC.

Resources shared during this webinar: 

Palestine Legal: 

Two interviews with Dima Khalidi: 

Statement from Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists, and intellectuals, “Palestinian rights and the IHRA definition of antisemitism” → https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/nov/29/palestinian-rights-and-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism?fbclid=IwAR1j_NOutmYAC6sduOE4GP4DgUp1M037x-3sO4cO0Hk4HhvQrrdOhkgkMok

Sherene Seikaly’s New York Times essay: “Anti-Zionism Can and Should Be Anti-Racism,” part of their “Is Anti-Zionism Merely Anti-Semitism in Disguise?” debate → https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/04/is-anti-zionism-anti-semitism/anti-zionism-can-and-should-be-anti-racism

For more on the University College London IHRA decision, which Dima Khalidi referenced —> https://www.palestinecampaign.org/press-release-ucls-academic-board-finds-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism-not-fit-for-purpose/

Resources from Lara Friedman: