UK tenders $7m pro-Israel contract, imposing discredited IHRA definition of anti-Semitism on students 

A new £5.5 million ($6.9 million) pro-Israel initiative aimed at students has been launched by the UK. It’s reported that the initiative will seek to propagate the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition” of anti-Semitism, to young children and students.

Details of the initiative were revealed by the UK government on Tuesday as part of what it calls an initiative to tackle anti-Semitism in education. According to the government website, the British Department of Education is seeking to tender a contract worth $6.9 million for potential suppliers to undertake the task of delivering its programme to schools and universities.

The successful bidder will be required to deliver the contract across the UK in the North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West. Bids have to be placed by 7 March this year.

The procurement is split into two distinct lots: The first is to develop and implement a programme of initiatives aimed at tackling anti-Semitism in universities. “The cornerstone” of the contract is the anti-Palestinian IHRA, which will be rolled out across the country and used to set basic guidelines.

The second lot requires the supplier to develop and implement a programme of initiatives aimed at tackling anti-Semitism in schools and colleges. This will involve the development and rollout of training for school and college staff and student engagement opportunities.

Concerns have been raised over the government’s deployment of the discredited IHRA definition of anti-Semitism for an initiative targeting children and universities. The so-called “working definition” of anti-Semitism favoured by Israel has been weaponised against critics of the apartheid state.

This week saw advocates of the IHRA suffer a major blow in their effort to proscribe anti-Zionist and anti-Israel views. In the landmark case involving Professor David Miller, a Bristol-based Employment Tribunal ruled that “anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic.”

Read: Anti-Zionism is now a protected belief in Britain; time for a reckoning for pro-Israel lobbyists?

The case is seen as being not only a vindication of Miller, who successfully sued the University of Bristol for wrongful dismissal, but the verdict has also exonerated those who have been warning for years about the weaponisation of anti-Semitism by the pro-Israel lobby against critics of the apartheid state.

Miller was a victim of a toxic anti-free speech culture generated after UK institutions adopted the IHRA definition. Governments, political parties, employers and universities began to impose speech codes with the clear aim of policing the boundaries of free speech regarding Israel and Zionism.

As an expert on the threat to democracy posed by corporate lobbying who exposed, among other things, the role of the global Zionist movement in fuelling anti-Muslim hatred, Miller became an obvious target. He was accused of breaching the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. The University of Bristol adopted in full the “working definition” in 2019, three years before firing Miller.

Miller’s victory has sent shockwaves through the pro-Israel lobby in Britain. Already there are calls for reckoning to take place over the way in which anti-Semitism has been weaponised through the adoption of the IHRA definition in order to purge members from the Labour Party for their avowedly anti-Zionist views.