Student Intifada as Counterinsurgency Target: How IHRA Definition operates as a Security Doctrine

Abstract

The fact that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism was adopted has created much debate in the academic and activist spheres. Although it is presented as a means of fighting anti-Semitism, critics say the definition has been abused to silence opposition, especially the pro-Palestinian scholarship and activism. In this paper, the IHRA definition is analyzed in terms of academic freedom and counterinsurgency and its deployment is contextualized in terms of larger silencing student protest and human-rights advocacy strategies on Palestine. Based on the recent scholarship, we maintain that the usage of the IHRA definition is a kind of epistemic government which diminishes the conditions of possibility of academic freedom, especially where the concept of Palestine solidarity is being presented as illegitimate. Through foregrounding the convergence of discourse of human-rights, student activism and institutional power, this study proposes how the definition of IHRA serves as a counterinsurgency strategy to sanction academic and political dissent. 

Keywords: IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism, Anti-Insurgency, Academic Freedom, Epistemic Government, Student Activism, Solidarity