The IHRA definition is failing. What would a fair definition protecting Palestinians from racism look like?

HWAC view: the IHRA "working definition" of antisemitism was written as a monitoring tool. It is now used by employers and campaigners to police lawful speech about Israel and Palestine, including by doctors and nurses. Its own lead drafter, senior lawyers, a Commons committee and over 100 human rights groups have warned about its flaws. Here is why it can and should be challenged, and what a fair definition protecting Palestinians from racism could look like.

What the IHRA definition actually says

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted its "non-legally binding working definition" in May 2016. Its core is just two sentences: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." The rest is a list of 11 "contemporary examples". Several of them concern Israel, including "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" and "Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

The same text also says that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic". The UK government adopted the definition on 12 December 2016.

Weakness 1: it is vague

In a 2017 legal opinion, Hugh Tomlinson QC wrote that "The phrase 'a certain perception' is vague and unclear in the context of a definition", and that the definition "does not have the clarity which would be required" of a legal definition. He warned of "a potential chilling effect on public bodies which, in the absence of definitional clarity, may seek to sanction or prohibit any conduct which has been labelled by third parties as antisemitic without applying any clear criterion of assessment" (Tomlinson opinion).

That last sentence describes exactly what healthcare workers face: complaints generated by third parties, judged against a test nobody can pin down.

Weakness 2: it focuses on Israel

The scholars behind the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism point out that "The IHRA Definition includes 11 'examples' of antisemitism, 7 of which focus on the State of Israel." They say the definition "is unclear in key respects and widely open to different interpretations" and that it "blurs the difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism", "delegitimizing the voices of Palestinians and others, including Jews, who hold views that are sharply critical of Israel and Zionism."

Weakness 3: even its drafter says it is being misused

Kenneth Stern was the lead drafter of the original working definition. In The Guardian in 2019 he wrote that it "was created primarily so that European data collectors could know what to include and exclude" and "was never intended to be a campus hate speech code". He warned that groups "will hunt political speech with which they disagree", and wrote: "I'm a Zionist. But on a college campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a right to free expression."

In written testimony to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2024, he said: "Once the door is opened to using a tool like IHRA via law to suppress speech, partisans stretch and bend and use it in any way they can to achieve their political goals, knowing even if they don't win a particular case, the threat is enough to chill speech through law."

Replace "law" with "regulator" and that is a fair description of mass referrals to the GMC and NMC.

Weakness 4: its safeguards don't work in practice

When the Commons Home Affairs Committee looked at the definition in 2016, it only "broadly" accepted it and asked for two additions:

• "It is not antisemitic to hold the Israeli Government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli Government's policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent."
• "It is not antisemitic to criticise the Government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent."

In April 2023 a coalition of 104 civil society organisations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the ACLU and the Israeli group B'Tselem (HRW), urged the UN not to adopt the definition. They wrote that it "has often been used to wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and thus chill and sometimes suppress, non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism". They added that IHRA's own disclaimers "have failed to prevent the politically motivated instrumentalization of the IHRA definition in efforts to muzzle legitimate speech".

How IHRA can be challenged

None of this is legal advice. But these points are on the public record, and every healthcare worker should know them.

• It is not law. IHRA itself calls the text "non-legally binding". Tomlinson's opinion concluded that "The Government's 'adoption' of the IHRA Definition has no legal status or effect and, in particular, does not require public authorities to adopt this definition" (opinion, para 25).
• Article 10 still applies. According to the same opinion, a public body that adopts IHRA "must interpret it in a way which is consistent with its own statutory obligations, particularly its obligation not to act in a matter inconsistent with the Article 10 right to freedom of expression", and "The fact that speech is offensive to particular group is not, of itself, a proper ground for prohibition or sanction."
• The examples are not stand-alone offences. Tomlinson's view was that the conduct listed "is only antisemitic if it manifests hatred towards Jews" (para 25).
• Anti-Zionist belief can be protected. In Miller v University of Bristol (2024), the employment tribunal unanimously held that the claimant's "anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic pursuant to section 10 Equality Act 2010" (judgment). The tribunal also cut his unfair dismissal award by 50% because of his own conduct, so it protects the belief, not every way of expressing it.
• There are better tools. The Jerusalem Declaration describes itself as "an alternative to the IHRA Definition", adding that "Institutions that have already adopted the IHRA Definition can use our text as a tool for interpreting it." Its guidelines state that "Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state" and boycotts are "not, in and of themselves, antisemitic". Employers, royal colleges and trusts can be asked to adopt it, or to add the Home Affairs Committee caveats.

The missing half: racism against Palestinians

There is no internationally adopted definition of anti-Palestinian racism. The most developed one comes from the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association's 2022 report Anti-Palestinian Racism: Naming, Framing and Manifestations:

"Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives. Anti-Palestinian racism takes various forms including: denying the Nakba and justifying violence against Palestinians; failing to acknowledge Palestinians as an Indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging and rights in relation to occupied and historic Palestine; erasing the human rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians; excluding or pressuring others to exclude Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians and their allies; defaming Palestinians and their allies with slander such as being inherently antisemitic, a terrorist threat/sympathizer or opposed to democratic values."

The report lists Nakba denial first. Under it, the report includes "claims that there are no such people called Palestinians" (ACLA report).

The definition is gaining ground. In 2025 a motion to the Canadian Association of University Teachers asked that, where anti-Palestinian racism is named in its academic freedom report, it "acknowledge and cite the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association report on the term now widely used throughout North America" (CAUT motion). In November 2024 the Ontario Human Rights Commission confirmed that existing grounds in its Human Rights Code protect against discrimination "including anti-Palestinian racism".

HWAC's proposal: an International Nakba Definition of Anti-Palestinianism

The text below is HWAC's own draft for discussion. No organisation has adopted it. It builds on the ACLA definition and tries to avoid the faults critics found in IHRA: it is short, it gives examples of what is not racism as well as what is, and it does not turn criticism of any state or ideology into bigotry.

The point is not to build a mirror-image weapon. The point is to show that you can define racism against a people without outlawing debate about a state. If that can be done for Palestinians, IHRA's failure to do it for Jews is a choice, not a necessity.

Why this matters for the NHS

Doctors and nurses see the human cost of war and have a duty to speak about health. A vague definition, applied by employers and fed by organised complaint campaigns, puts that duty at risk. Stern's warning that "the threat is enough to chill speech" (2024 testimony) applies to regulators as much as courts. Healthcare workers have every right to ask their trusts, colleges and regulators which definition they use, and why.

If you are a healthcare worker facing a complaint, read our Know Your Rights page and download the free HWAC rights guide (PDF).