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US hate expert describes proposal to adopt antisemitism definition as a ‘disaster’
Kenneth Stern, director of the US-based Bard Center for the Study of Hate, said it is a “disaster” that Australia is considering the adoption of a working definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as part of a plan to end anti-Jewish hatred. Jillian Segal, the federal special envoy to combat antisemitism, recommended last week the definition be adopted by all levels of government and said universities should face funding cuts if they fail to fight such hate speech, among other efforts.
I think when you make things a free speech fight, that’s a problem. What I started seeing back around 2010 in the United States is the definition was being weaponised to go after pro-Palestinian speech, and a lot of that speech I don’t like either. But when you start having official definitions of what is a particular type of hatred, that leads to problems that are, in my country at least, the United States, reminiscent of McCarthyism …
We wouldn’t do that about racism, we wouldn’t do it about anti-Palestinian animus, we wouldn’t do it about other things. But it’s being used this way, you know, to go after speech. And what that does is not only harm democracy, it blinds us to how antisemitism actually works.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/jul/14/australia-news-live-anthony-albanese-china-nsw-koala-deaths-greens-ntwnfb
Author : Nick Visser
Publish date : 2025-07-13 22:18:00
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