International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

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IGOIntergovernmental organisation

IHRA  link () Facebook Infogalactic LinkedIn Website
File:International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.png
Formation	1998
Founder	Göran Persson
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Type	Intergovernmental organisation
Interests	The Holocaust, Anti-semitism
"The most blatant attempt to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism"

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), formerly the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF) until January 2013, is an intergovernmental organisation established in 1998.

Dr Ranjeet Brar has described the IHRA as follows:

"It parallels NATO in its composition and framework. It's like an ambassadorial, institutional body.

"Like we send ambassadors to countries – United States, Belgium, Canada – Britain sends an ambassador to the IHRA."

Official narrative

The IHRA's mandate is founded upon the principles laid out by the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust. The stated aims of IHRA are to mobilise and coordinate political and social leaders' support for Holocaust education, remembrance, and research at national and international levels. In 2007, IHRA expanded its thematic mandate to include the genocide of the Roma and other topics, such as genocide prevention and combating antisemitism.

IHRA definition of antisemitism

The IHRA definition of antisemitism is the "non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism" that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. It is also known as the IHRA working definition of antisemitism (IHRA-WDA). It was first published in 2005 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), a European Union agency. Accompanying the working definition are 11 illustrative examples, seven of which relate to criticism of Israel, that the IHRA describes as guiding its work on antisemitism.

The working definition was developed during 2003–2004, and was published without formal review by the EUMC on 28 January 2005. The EUMC's successor agency, the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), removed the working definition from its website in "a clear-out of non-official documents" in November 2013. On 26 May 2016, the working definition was adopted by the IHRA Plenary (consisting of representatives from 31 countries) in Bucharest, Romania, and was republished on the IHRA website. It was subsequently adopted by the European Parliament and other national and international bodies, although not all have explicitly included the illustrative examples. Pro-Israel organisations have been advocates for the worldwide legal adoption of the IHRA working definition.

It has been described as an example of a persuasive definition, and as a "prime example of language being both the site of, and stake in, struggles for power". The examples relating to Israel have been criticised by academics, including legal scholars, for being open to weaponisation of antisemitism used to stifle free speech relating to criticism of Israeli actions and policies. High-profile controversies took place in the United Kingdom in 2011 within the University and College Union, and within the Labour Party in 2018. Critics say weaknesses in the working definition may lend themselves to abuse, that it may obstruct campaigning for the rights of Palestinians (as in the Palestine exception), and that it is too vague. Kenneth S. Stern, who contributed to the original draft, has opposed the weaponisation of the definition on college campuses in ways that might undermine free speech. The controversy over the definition led to the creation of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Document, both of which expressly draw distinctions between antisemitism and criticism of Israel.

Text

The working definition reads:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

Critique

On 16 April 2026, in his talk show headlined “America’s new civic religion is Israelism, Christianity without the New Testament, and it’s the most unforgiving faith of all,” Tucker Carlson broadcast this critique of the IHRA definition:

This is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Do you know what it is? It's on their website. It's worth looking at. Spent the morning reading it. Fascinating. So, here's the actual definition of antisemitism. And, by the way, this is a now globally recognised definition enshrined in law around the world in more than 40 countries.

This is the definition, and I'm quoting “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews.”

Huh? So, antisemitism is a perception. It's a feeling. Okay. I thought you’re allowed to have any feeling or perception you wanted. You could look at facts and come to any conclusion you wanted. No, no, no, no. Certain perceptions are inherently immoral. They're quote “antisemitic.” which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Oh, so you don't have to hate the Jews to be antisemitic? No. Well, that answers the question for those of us who don't hate Jews at all.

How could you be antisemitic if you don't hate Jews? Well, you can be according to the official definition of it. Continuing the quote, “Rhetorical (rhetorical meaning talking, words, speech formerly protected no longer rhetorical) and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Wait a second. So, antisemitism is not necessarily hatred of Jews and it can be expressed toward non-Jews. So, you don't have to hate Jews and you don't have to express or have these perceptions, these feelings toward Jews. You can be non-Jews, too.

What is this? Well, the people who wrote it at the IHRA probably anticipated this would be confusing to you. So, they gave 11 examples of what antisemitism is. Just so you know, like, how do I know if I'm being antisemitic? Well, here are 11 examples. Of those 11 examples, and we did the math, 2/3^rds are criticism of Israel, the state of Israel, the nation with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, criticism of Israel in 2/3^rds of the examples that the IHRA gave.

That's antisemitism. Including, here we go, drawing, quote, “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Oh, in other words, if you think what's happening in Gaza is genocide, well, Nazis committed genocide. Now, the state of Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, meaning they're trying to eliminate people on the basis of their blood. You are an antisemite. Oh, okay. You're an antisemite if you think that. It also tells us that the suggestion that Jews killed Jesus is quote classic antisemitism.

Classic antisemitic. So there goes the New Testament. The whole New Testament is antisemitic, too. Read the Gospels and see if they fall under that definition. They do. Why does this matter?

Well, because about 40 US states and the District of Columbia and our biggest cities, Miami, Los Angeles, have adopted this. This is their standard that they voted on and adopted. It's in the law. This standard, the one that tells you that criticism of the secular state of Israel or portions of the New Testament are quote antisemitism. the government of almost 40 states in the US (I think 39 states) 40 countries around the world but not just countries, NGOs, sports teams, the British soccer league club Chelsea United, all of them have adopted this standard.

Now why would a sports team adopt this? Well, who knows why? Think about it for a minute: why? Why would you declare something illegal? Oh, because you want to punish people who violate it, that's why! This happened today. Ukraine, that beacon of democracy and freedom that we've sent hundreds of billions of dollars to, just made it law today that antisemitism, in other words, criticism of Israel, is a felony punishable by up to 8 years in prison. 8 years in prison.

How could a rational person understand that? Well, a rational person could not understand that. Why would a citizen of one country be sent to prison for criticising the leadership of another country, a country not his own? Why would a citizen of one country be sent to prison for having opinions about historical events that he did not participate in and that were almost a century ago? Does that make any sense?

No. Except in religious terms. Those are blasphemy laws: same as the old blasphemy laws. And for all the talk of how the mullahs are bad, the mullahs are bad. Well, the mullahs probably are bad. Not defending the mullahs, but why are we told the mullahs are bad? The mullahs are bad because they're religious extremists. They have blasphemy laws. They'll hurt you if you say certain things. Okay.

Well, that looks a lot like what we're seeing here. Almost 40 states. Now, it's interesting the president has been all of a sudden it makes sense. This may be the Rosetta Stone that helps us interpret events we're watching now that are very confusing. And those would include the president advocating for re-upping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Now, FISA, without getting too boring about it, is the law which has to be voted on periodically by Congress that allows the US government to spy on Americans, to spy on them. Now, the whole point of it is supposed to be to spy on foreigners for threatening us. But the nature of the technology being what it is, there are cases where we pick up communications from Americans and, in order to make that legal, we need this thing called FISA.

Now, what's interesting is that the president himself was a victim of the misuse of these laws in his first term. They were used against him in what became a kind of bureaucratic attempted coup against him that we call Russiagate. And so, the president was personally very sensitive on this question. He'd been the victim of the misuse of these laws. And so, he said many times, "I'm not for that. I don't think Americans should be spied on by their own government.” I don't think you pay your taxes in order to be spied on by your government when you've done nothing wrong. But we are. Everyone knows that. And this allows it to be legal. All of a sudden, the president is advocating for this new law. He wants the Congress to allow the US government to spy on Americans. Why could that possibly be? Well, there are a couple of clues.

One comes from the documents unearthed and made public, God bless him, by Ed Snowden some years ago that showed that NSA, the National Security Agency, the largest of all of our spy agencies, turned over raw data to, can you guess? Oh, the Israeli government that included private information about Americans. So, they sweep up all this information, the communications of American citizens, and they just turn it all over without taking private information about Americans, our citizens. is turned over to a foreign government and its intel service to be used God knows how. That's one.

Two is a very revealing moment in the Congress two and a half years ago with a man, a congressman from Ohio called Mike Turner who at the time was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. And he was arguing as chairman of the House Intel Committee always do for more spying on Americans. So, the House and Senate intel committees are supposed to provide oversight of the intelligence agencies because you don't really know what they're doing. You don't know what their budget is. The whole thing is secret.

You can't know. So, your representatives on these committees oversee just to make sure that they're not violating the US Constitution or your human rights given to you by God and protected by the US government. That's the whole point. But for my lifetime, those committees have worked in concert with the intel agencies to violate the civil rights of Americans. and they've almost always been run by some of the most dishonest and personally screwed up people in the entire Congress.

So, maybe it's not always true, but certainly in the case of Mike Turner, it is true. You know, the guy publicly accused of corruption with a chaotic personal life, that guy winds up as the chairman of an intel committee. Hmm. I wonder why someone who's vulnerable to control winds up in charge of oversight of the intel agencies. Okay, that's definitely Mike Turner. So, anyway, Mike Turner is running this and he's making the case to about 200 staffers on the hill and he's saying, "We got to do this. We got to do this."

And he has a bunch of slides behind him and one of the slides he puts up shows people protesting the murder of civilians by the Israeli government in Gaza, those Gaza protests. And he says, "We need this because these people clearly taking orders from Hamas. These are like college kids who were mad about babies being murdered by the IDF.

But because Mike Turner and a lot of people like Mike Turner look at them and say you've got foreign connections. You can't have come to this conclusion on your own. You didn't just choose apostasy. You clearly were corrupted by some outside force, some foreign power. We get to spy on you. He made that case in the Congress. So, how does this connect to blasphemy laws as outlined and adopted by almost 40 states by the IHRA? Really simple. If having these quote perceptions is a crime, then that gives the US government pretext to spy on you and then punish you.

The Tucker Carlson Show, 16 April 2026 (43:03 to 53:17)

Court rejects Zionist mis-definition

On 2 September 2026, Hugh Jaeger posted on Facebook:

A decade ago, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) contrived a dishonest "working definition" of antisemitism, in order to intimidate critics of Israel worldwide, and suppress their free speech. It was meant to be "legally non-binding" but, around the world, about 30 countries have stupidly adopted the "working definition" into law, with disastrous consequences.

In the UK, the Labour Party National Executive Committee notoriously adopted the IHRA "working definition" in 2018, for the deliberate purpose of undermining their own party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and to make it easier to suspend socialists who supported him.

NSW Supreme Court Ruling

The "working definition" has intimidated many governments and organisations into submission. But at last, one Judge has called it out for the crock of shit that it is. He is Desmond Fagan, Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Mr Justice Fagan has correctly described the "working definition" as "detached from the reality of the common usage and understanding of antisemitism" and "ineptly drafted".

The terms in which Mr Justice Fagan dismantles the "working definition" are correct, thorough, and accurate. The "working definition" grossly limits criticism of Israel and Zionists. It thereby hobbles the defence of the human rights of Palestinians. And that is exactly what the politically-motivated IHRA intended it to do.

Poisoning discourse in the UK

Unfortunately, in the UK, the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Scottish and Welsh governments, National Health Service, London Assembly, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Church of Scotland, and my alma mater King's College (London) have all adopted the toxic "working definition".

University College London had adopted the "working definition", but later had the sense to announce a re-think in 2021. The University and College Union and the British Medical Association have wisely rejected the "working definition".

All governments and institutions in the UK should heed the New South Wales Supreme Court ruling. Individually, they should revoke any adoption of the "working definition". Better still, the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments should rule the "working definition" defective and void, and thus ineligible for adoption by any organisation in the UK.