Our campus is trying to clarify the distinction between antisemitism and legitimate debate about the state of Israel

Last month, the faculty at Bucknell University voted to endorse the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, a significant act in defense of the right to free expression on campus.

The Jerusalem Declaration clarifies the distinction between antisemitism and legitimate critique of the actions of the state of Israel. The resolution came as a direct response to the silencing of critical voices related to Israel and Palestine occurring on college campuses and in political debate, often using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

Both academic freedom and the First Amendment affirm the right of citizens and scholars to speak freely without fear of government or university retaliation.

Although one of the authors of the Remembrance Alliance’s standard has said it “was never intended to silence speech,” the group’s framing — which has always been described as a “working definition” — has been criticized for being imprecise.

Not only that, but the Remembrance Alliance’s definition has been the linchpin in numerous efforts to criminalize advocacy for Palestinian liberation, most visibly in the executive orders of the current U.S. administration that were ostensibly intended to combat antisemitism.

The Remembrance Alliance’s definition indicates that “[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” is antisemitic.

That seems to contradict another portion of the definition which states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

It’s hard to see what criticism of Israel the Remembrance Alliance definition would deem permissible given its internally contradictory examples.

The Jerusalem Declaration offers an alternative framework to the Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which dangerously conflates Zionism — support for the state of Israel — with Jewish identity.

Jews have argued about how to respond to antisemitism for centuries, if not millennia. The Zionist movement, a modern political effort to establish a Jewish homeland, is but one of these responses.

Whether Zionism provides the best avenue for ensuring Jewish security remains hotly debated. The Jerusalem Declaration affirms that governments and institutions have no business dictating to Jews or others what is permissible to advocate.

Conversely, the Jerusalem Declaration defends open debate, insisting that it is not antisemitic “to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants ‘between the river and the sea,’ whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.”

Further, the Jerusalem Declaration affirms that “evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state,” including “its institutions and founding principles … its policies and practices, domestic and abroad, such as the conduct of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, the role Israel plays in the region, or any other way in which, as a state, it influences events in the world,” is not in itself antisemitic.

We cannot, and should not, prohibit evidence-based criticism of Israel out of concern that any criticism implies agreement with Hamas’ most extremist calls to purge Jews from Palestine. And yet, this assertion has already been falsely leveled against campus protesters at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA.

The stakes for all Americans in preserving rights to free expression and how to self-identify, whether Jewish or not, are high. Lamentably, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism has been used primarily to disrupt the free expression of Palestinian Americans and their allies.

An earlier definition has been the lynchpin in numerous efforts to criminalize advocacy for Palestinian liberation.

The cosponsors of Bucknell’s resolution brought their motion forward before the federal government sent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student and lead negotiator for the Columbia pro-Palestine protest movement, and deported Brown University assistant professor Rasha Alawieh and Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri, though these types of actions were anticipated in the language of the motion.

Endorsing the Jerusalem Declaration provides a more appropriate framework for our community of scholars and students, both U.S. citizens and foreign alike, in which the long-enduring American ideals of lawful protest and open inquiry are upheld and secured.

By passing this vote, Bucknell faculty insist open space for discourse about Israel and Palestine is integral to the mission of the university and principles of academic freedom, and is, even more so, protected by the First Amendment.

We were horrified the governor of New York would attempt to quash the job posting seeking a professor of Palestinian studies at the City University of New York’s Hunter College, or that the president of the United States would demand control of the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies programs at Columbia University.

The implicit assumption that the study of a people’s history and culture is a priori antisemitic is both wrong and dangerous. University faculty have primary responsibility for curricular decisions, not politicians and partisans.

We praise the brave Jewish activists from Jewish Voice for Peace and Not in Our Name among others who have vocally and visibly stood up for Palestinian rights on campuses across America.

They do not deserve the false loyalty tests, the epitome of antisemitic tropes, leveled against them by the likes of the Anti-Defamation League and Christian Zionist organizations.

To our knowledge, Bucknell is the first university to endorse the Jerusalem Declaration. One may wonder, what can a relatively small act from a rural university do? It is our hope that despite legitimate concerns any definition of antisemitism risks instrumentalization, other colleges and universities may follow our lead and say no to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s easily corrupted guidance.

The Bucknell faculty who voted yes last month sent a clear message that we stand together to protect all the diverse voices on our campuses. We hope other colleges will follow, as we work together to defend academic freedom, the issue at the core of our university values and a free society.

Michael Drexler, professor of English, Ron Smith, associate professor of international relations, and Clare Sammells, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, are faculty members at Bucknell University.