By Susannah Pickering-Saqqa, Emanuela Girei, Ibrahim Natil and Fiorenzo Polito. 

This blog is part of a collective reflection that started a few days before the 2024 DSA Conference when we shared the cognitive and emotional dissonance we were experiencing about the upcoming conference.

Reflecting the struggles of development studies to shed its colonial baggage, the conference, themed “Social justice and development in a polarising world” was structured by overarching themes such as “embedding justice in development”, “land, water and development” and ”decolonisation and development”. 

Despite these themes, we found only three papers on Palestine and genocide out of 457 presented. Neither of our panels on activism and localisation from social justice perspectives included papers on Palestine. We questioned how this could be and wondered if and how we had also been complicit in the silencing through self-censoring. How could we hold a panel on activism while literally looking down over the SOAS Students’ Encampment, whose activists were barred from entry to the University buildings? 

These questions sparked further discussions at the conference, on which we will return later, after contextualising our reflections within the wider debate on academic freedom, freedom of speech and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which, as we shall argue below, impacts any debate on Palestine in the UK Higher Education sector and beyond.

In 2016, the UK Conservative government adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, and, in 2020, mandated universities to adopt the definition, threatening sanctions for those not complying. As a result, by November 2021, it was adopted by 75% of universities in the UK and by over 200 UK higher education institutions. The UK is not an isolated case. Since its introduction in 2016, the IHRA definition has been adopted by 1,216 entities worldwide, including 25 EU member states, 34 U.S. states, and 8 out of 10 Canadian provinces. 

However, the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism has been met with critiques and contestations in various countries and from different perspectives, including trade unions,  Jewish and Israeli commentators, genocide scholars, and even Kenneth Stern, the original definition’s drafter, who pointed out that its adoption in the higher education sector threatens academic freedom and free speech.

In this particular historical moment, as we have been witnessing a live-streamed ‘plausible genocide’ continuing despite the ICC arrest warrants, the ICJ rulings, and Amnesty International report, which concludes that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, it is crucial for us to critically reflect on how the widespread adoption of the IHRA definitions might constrain our freedom of expression and academic freedom.

Below, we discuss three clusters of critiques in relation to the risk the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism poses to scholars and practitioners in the field of development. The first focuses on the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism and the implications of this for research and practice; the second addresses the impact of this definition on academic lives and careers; the third critiques the IHRA definition for silencing and delegitimising Palestinian voices, further eroding the already fragile academic freedom surrounding Palestine. 

The IHRA definition conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism through seven of its eleven accompanying examples, which effectively “transform Israel into an avatar of Jewish identity” (Gordon, 2024). In doing so, it suppresses criticism of Israel’s policies and actions, with multiple consequences. 

One of those consequences is the creation of “a McCarthyist landscape”, which shapes all debates about Palestine and Israel. Efforts to advocate for justice for Palestinians risk being framed as “antisemitic”. Recent research by the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), shows that since its adoption by UK higher education institutions, the IHRA definition has been used as a weapon to stifle free speech, particularly viewpoints critical of Israel and/or in support of Palestinian rights, thus violating academic freedom and freedom of speech. This suppression has been evident in the harsh responses to student encampments and protests around the world, which have been framed as security risks requiring disciplinary responses and police (often violent) repression. 

The impact of this “landscape” is also felt in NGO funding. In November 2023, a coalition of international NGOs wrote an open letter addressing the restrictions on EU funding for Palestinian civil society. It highlighted unsubstantiated claims that civil society organisations’ denunciation of Israel’s human rights violations was deemed as antisemitic. The signatories included several organisations with which DSA members have collaborated, such as ActionAid International, Amnesty International, Oxfam International, Norwegian People’s Aid, and Troicaire, 

A second critique advanced by the ELSC-BRISMES report focuses on the damage inflicted by the adoption of the IHRA definition on the careers and reputation of staff and students researching. Notably, the majority of those targeted with complaints related to the IHRA definition are Palestinian or belong to marginalised and global majority communities.

The case brought by Portsmouth University against a staff member suspended and referred to Prevent (with the case later dropped by the British Crown Prosecution Service) further shows how academic solidarity with Palestine is silenced and sanctioned, often on ill-founded grounds, with prolonged impact on academics’ wellbeing, reputation and careers.

Another worrying consequence of the IHRA definition is that it silences Palestinian voices and their lived experiences of occupation and displacement over the past decades, ultimately, belittling their right to self-determination and normalising a concerning double standard. The silencing of Palestinians is neither innocent nor accidental, but it instead serves Zionists’ colonial strategy through the invalidation and de-legitimisation of Palestinians’ anti-colonial struggles. 

One mechanism by which the IHRA definition renders Palestinians invisible is by becoming a mechanism distracting from the material and cultural devastation of Palestine, including the decimation of civil society, the demolition of the building of all twelve universities in Gaza, the killing and injuring of thousands of students and professors in the broader historic and ongoing  “scholasticide”. Meanwhile, many in the UK university sector have been tied up by the slow, time-consuming and energy-sapping grind of responding to and being cleared of accusations of antisemitism. 

Additionally, the IHRA definition further works as a distractive mechanism through its “chilling effect”, orienting attention toward the risks and dangers of engaging with Palestine, leading to widespread self-censorship both within and outside academia. 

These critiques and concerns around the IHRA definition resonate with the many constructive conversations with colleagues at the 2024 DSA conference, often focusing on various shared challenges in speaking up about Palestine in academic contexts. Early career researchers (ECRs) particularly felt the chilling effect created by the adoption of the IHRA definition.

Learning how many colleagues shared the same sense of dissonance upon arriving at the conference was both relieving and concerning. As we arrived on campus on Wednesday, 26 June, the use of the IHRA definition as a “counterinsurgency tool” was noticeable and palpable in the security measures enacted upon the assertions of Palestinian rights. The campus featured a prominent presence of black-suited security contractors on each building’s doors and alongside the student-led SOAS Students Encampment, where visible demands for disclosure and divestment were being made.

In response to our reflections on self-censorship, we explored how best to engage with this during the conference. A small group visited the SOAS Students’ Encampment to explain the purpose of the DSA conference and invited one of them to join the panel on Activism. It was further decided to conclude the panel at the encampment, continuing the conversation on activism for Palestine justice in HE.  The SOAS Students’ Encampment contribution to our panel enormously enriched our discussions, leaving us with a powerful definition of activism as “a collective duty to act”.

More broadly, conversations about Palestine and academic freedom continued at various formal and informal conference moments. 

A few colleagues replied to our concerns with a “whataboutism” strategy, e.g. asking “what about Sudan and Yemen?”. We see this as a deflective strategy that, by closing down meaningful debate, especially on issues already widely censored, within and outside academia, undermines and weakens the broadly shared commitment to decolonise development from its very roots.

Breaking with the silencing of the oppressed and their resistance is a key and shared cornerstone among the various decolonial/decolonising perspectives that have animated recent debates in development studies. Thus, engaging with the various ways through which (pro) Palestinian voices are currently silenced can be a productive learning journey for all of us that could help undoing coloniality also in other contexts.

Furthermore, the “whataboutism” strategy further casts a shadow over the long-standing complicity of our academic institutions, which, in the UK alone, invest nearly £430m in companies involved and complicit in Israel’s ever-expanding colonial settlements and violations of international law.

In conclusion, the IHRA definition of antisemitism poses significant risks to development scholars and practitioners by threatening their academic freedoms and careers. It undermines the values that development studies as a discipline seeks to uphold in its quest to shed colonial legacies and bring to the fore the voices of the marginalised and oppressed. We hope to continue these conversations with the DSA Council, its members, staff and partners. A constructive step forward would be for the DSA to engage proactively to call out the censorship and sanctioning of academic solidarity for Palestine, as done by similar associations (such as BISA,  BRISMES and DSAA), and to raise awareness about the dangers of the IHRA definition for development research and practice. 

By Dr Susannah Pickering-Saqqa, Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader, University of East London; Dr Emanuela Girei, Reader in Management, Liverpool John Moores University; Dr Ibrahim Natil, Research Fellow at Institute of International Conflict Resolution and Re-construction; and Dr Fiorenzo Polito, Researcher, LAMA social enterprise