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In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) published what the organization called their “working definition” of antisemitism.
According to its lead writer, “It was created primarily so that European data collectors (of antisemitic incidents) could know what to include and exclude. That way antisemitism could be monitored better over time and across borders.”
She added, “It was never intended to be a campus hate speech code, but that’s what Donald Trump’s executive order accomplished this week.”
These words were written by the American Jewish Committee’s antisemitism expert Kate Aronoff, in 2019. She, as the author, was condemning the application of the definition by the Trump administration, which signed an executive order in December of that year that made Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act apply to antisemitic acts defined under the IHRA.
Many worried that this order, which was signed nearly four years before the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas — and the mass killing, devastation and starvation of civilians in Gaza that has followed — would serve to stifle critics of the Israeli government. In many ways, as international students in the U.S. have been arrested and threatened with deportation for expressing pro-Palestinian political views, and schools have cracked down on student protesters for fear of getting federal funding yanked, it has.
Today, the IHRA claims its definition has been adopted by nearly 1,300 entities, including 45 countries, the United States Executive Branch among them, as well as 37 U.S. state governments and 96 U.S. city and county governments.
So what is the definition?
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may (emphasis) 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.” It might not be limited to that. Is anti-Zionism, antisemitism? IHRA’s website attempts to explain: “Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” That language seems ambiguous too.
The text goes on to cite examples of antisemitism including, “Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.” Does criticizing Israel’s government qualify as this? Or this other IHRA antisemitism bullet point: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”
The definition’s language does not read like law, because, according to Aronoff, it was never intended to be law. However, critics say IHRA and supporters of Israel are using it to chill and quash criticism of Israel’s government policies, and most recently, military operations in Gaza and the West Bank here in the U.S.
Aviva Chomsky spelled out what’s happening in an essay at The Nation last week: “Creating legal avenues to suppress what would otherwise be protected political speech about Israel is a major reason that the IHRA and its allies have felt the need to turn their definition into law. And advocates for the legal adoption of that definition claim that it’s necessary because antisemitism is on the rise in this country.”
The proliferation of these laws came within months, if not weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, when over 10,000 Gazans had already been killed, mostly civilians, in IDF operations in the Strip. Protests were ramping up in American streets and especially college campuses as Americans began questioning U.S. military aid to Israel. Government officials, including the FBI, were warning that incidents of antisemitism were already climbing to "historic levels" across the country.
On his November 2023 bill to require the Department of Education “to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for use in enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said outright, “we have seen a rapid rise in antisemitism on these college campuses, and we need to crack down on it.”
The U.S. House eventually passed a pro-IHRA definition bill, 320-91, in May 2024. The Senate, so far, has failed to do the same.
In the meantime, the crackdown on speech has been in full force, often justified by some variation of IHRA-defined prohibitions on antisemitism.
Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in March “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”
After last year's protests over the war in Gaza, the Trump administration said it expanded on its 2019 order and would take “forceful and unprecedented steps to marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of anti-Semitism on our campuses and in our streets since October 7, 2023.”
In late July, The Times of Israel reported that at Columbia University alone “nearly 80 students were suspended or expelled” as the school came under pressure to crack down on alleged antisemitism or lose federal funding. Columbia is by no means an outlier.
When Republican Ohio State Senator Terry Johnson proposed a bill in November — that passed — to define antisemitism under state law to determine whether an individual has committed “ethnic intimidation,” he said that “demonstrations related to pro-Gaza protests on college campuses have been marked by disturbing displayed aggression and intolerance.”
“Many of these protests cross the line into antisemitism by targeting Jewish students and expressing hateful rhetoric,” Johnson added, not issuing any specific examples for the record.
His efforts had critics. “By tying the IHRA definition to legal and administrative decisions, this bill risks confusing legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies or the political ideology of Zionism with antisemitism,” said Ann Ghazy, who joined others at the state capitol ahead of the December 2024 vote that nonetheless overwhelmingly passed Johnson’s bill. “Such conflation undermines valid discussions about human rights and self-determination and threatens to stifle debates necessary for a healthy democracy.”
Kenneth Stern is the director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College who authored the IHRA’s original definition of antisemitism in 2006. Stern said that weaponizing the definition through law, or executive order, "puts pro-Israel Jewish students in a situation where they may be seen as trying to suppress speech rather than answer it.”
Stern, who says there is real antisemitism in America, including on college campuses, nonetheless charges that the definition he helped to craft is being distorted and misused to silence anti-Israel critics, and that could make the situation worse.
Critics contend that merely using this definition to enforce new laws or de facto speech codes could lead to other abuses. This is already happening. As independent journalist Glenn Greenwald noted on X on Sunday: “A Jewish professor of Holocaust Studies may leave Columbia because the texts she always used include the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, who compared Zionists to Nazis and said Zionism is racist: now banned ideas under the IHRA hate speech code Trump forced on universities.”
Greenwald was referring to the Trump administration’s funding cuts to schools that the White House feels are not properly investigating for antisemitism offenses as defined by the IHRA.
As Columbia professor Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar, told the Associated Press, “A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry. I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”
Hirsch has been using the same curriculum for years but suddenly it’s an offense. It shouldn’t be, nor should speaking against Israel’s government, or any other government, and especially one’s own.
As Aronoff put it, “If you think this isn’t about suppressing political speech, contemplate a parallel. There’s no definition of anti-black racism that has the force of law when evaluating a Title VI case.” She added, “If you were to craft one, would you include opposition to affirmative action? Opposing removal of Confederate statues?”
Good questions, messy and unanswered, and likely unanswerable, because few would even think to go there legally, due to the First Amendment.
Whether or not something is considered “hateful rhetoric" — does waving a Palestinian flag, or calling what is happening in Gaza a genocide qualify? — this display of speech is something most Americans for the last half century understood was protected under the First Amendment, a precedent set by the Supreme Court in 1978 in a case brought by the ACLU in defense of neo-Nazi speech.
The Ohio state senator mentioned above insists that his “legislation should not be construed to diminish or infringe on any right protected by the First Amendment.” This addendum is what most government leaders have said to brush off Constitutional concerns over their antisemitism speech bills. And they are wrong — just because they say it passes Constitutional muster doesn’t make it so.
Courts are already considering whether using the IHRA definition of antisemitism to forge policies and law is unconstitutional.
In October 2024, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas found in Students for Justice in Palestine v. Abbott that an executive order directing all Texas higher education institutions to use the IHRA definition of antisemitism to create and enforce speech codes likely violates the First Amendment and that affected student groups can proceed with lawsuits against the governor.
There has been much racial and religious upheaval throughout the history of the United States and an often bruised and battered First Amendment has, thankfully, survived it all.
Is this now but a memory? And for what cause — another country’s government?
As Glenn Greenwald posits, “There's no Israel exception to the First Amendment of the US Constitution.”
Russia’s economy is at a critical juncture. It is not an understatement to say that Moscow needs these Alaska peace talks with the Trump administration on Friday to end the Ukraine war as much as Kyiv does.
Mixed indicators in June signal that the overall economy seems relatively stable for the near term, but recession may be on the horizon. It may be trying to hide it, but Moscow can no longer obscure the true costs of the war, which are in part to blame for current conditions.
After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin initially used budget spending, counter-sanctions measures, and credit growth to boost investment, which were largely successful as the economy grew near 4 percent in 2023 and 2024. However, in late 2024, the measures used to secure a war economy led to economic overheating, wage growth, and rampant inflation.
Now the economy is experiencing decline after more than two years of solid growth. Contraction has been driven by falling activity in mining, trade, real estate, and leisure — which parallel growth in agriculture, manufacturing, and public administration were not able to offset. As a result, the Russian Central Bank is predicting annual growth in 2025 between 1 and 2% and growth near 1% in 2026.
Despite the Central Bank’s optimism, the IMF recently cut its own 2025 projection for Russian GDP growth to 0.9% and 1% in 2026.
Russia’s current economic slowdown may be viewed as an opportunity for policy makers in the United States and Europe to escalate pressure on Russia. However, it is important to note that these same policymakers have overestimated Russia’s economic weakness since 2022 with negligible results on Russia’s management of the war in Ukraine.
Therefore, a policy of economic restraint, as opposed to economic warfare, would still appear the best approach to ending the war in Ukraine. Additional sanctions on Russia and countries who trade with Russia, as President Trump has threatened, may impact the global economy more severely than Russia.
Trump’s call for secondary sanctions has only served to bring the BRICS closer together and reinforce anti-American distrust in the Global South. Brazil's President, Lula da Silva, has revealed plans to call the leaders of India and China to discuss a joint BRICS response to tariffs and secondary sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump.
"What President Trump is doing is tacit — he wants to dismantle multilateralism, where agreements are made collectively within institutions, and replace it with unilateralism, where he negotiates one-on-one with other countries," Lula said.
Meanwhile, increased geopolitical instability or even escalation in current hotspots such as Israel, Iran, or the Caucasus, particularly Armenia, could cause fluctuations in oil prices and require Russia to divert resources it does not have, impacting Russia’s budget in unexpected ways.
The continuing slowdown during the first half of 2025 has contributed to a widening budget shortfall that has left the country with less to spend on infrastructure and public services. Apparently, the Kremlin has started to reallocate funds from vital investment projects in road, rail, and utilities to military budget items, but this is difficult to decipher given publicly available statistics.
The Moscow Times speculates that the data “blackout” is the latest in a broader trend that began after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A recent article cites a report by Promsvyazbank (PSB) which suggests Russian authorities are increasingly limiting public access to core economic statistics as concerns grow over a potential economic slowdown, The PSB report notes that RosStat, the state statistics service, has not published several key macroeconomic figures for June and the first half of 2025.
For example, the PSB report notes inflation-adjusted retail and wholesale trade data were missing in the latest figures. RosStat reported a nominal 12.2% year-on-year rise in retail turnover for June but omitted the real, inflation-adjusted number. PSB analysts estimate real turnover growth may be closer to 2-3%.
The recent absence of key data follows Russian President Vladimir Putin's sharp remarks regarding a possible economic slowdown at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June. During the Forum, Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned that Russia’s economy is “on the brink of a recession.”
In later remarks, Putin commented that “several specialists have pointed out that there are risks for stagnation and even a recession. This will absolutely under no circumstances be allowed.”
Despite the Kremlin’s assertions, the S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey for Russia showed the manufacturing sector dropped to 47.5 from 50.2 in May, signaling a sharp contraction. “Falling output, dwindling new orders, and job cuts are driving the manufacturing slump and mark a severe challenge for an economy heavily reliant on industrial production.”
The survey also showed that job losses accelerated at the fastest pace since April 2022. The survey predicts Russia’s unemployment rate of 2.9% in 2024 could increase to 3.5% in 2025. The country lacked around 2.6 million workers at the end of 2024, according to Russia’s Higher School of Economics, largely due to men going to war or fleeing abroad to avoid it.
The employment news is slightly concerning because record employment was one of the significant achievements of the war economy along with higher wages. Data for June confirmed that wage growth still increased by 12%, but the figure marked a drop from 19% in the same period in 2024.
In an effort to address the severe inflation and investment issues resulting from overheating, the Russian Central Bank lowered the key rate from 20% to 18% in July. Russian business viewed the measure as a positive sign in the battle to lower crushing inflation that has restricted borrowing costs and investment into the economy.
After the Central Bank lowered the rate from 21% to 20% in June inflation had dropped to 9.2% in July from 9.4%. The Central Bank predicts inflation will reach 6 to 7% by the end of 2025 with a target of 4% by the end of 2026.
Lower inflation will help lessen the ruble’s strength, which had been hampering trade. The Russian ruble's 45% rise against the U.S. dollar since the start of the year had made it one of the world's best performing currencies. However, the strong ruble also resulted in higher prices for Russian merchandise exports, which decreased 6% year on year as of June.
Another downside of the strong ruble is that dollar-denominated energy revenues generate fewer rubles for the Russian budget. As a result, Russia's oil and gas revenues have fallen due to sanctions and weaker pricing and were down by 27% year-on-year in July. Oil prices averaged $59.8 for Brent crude in June of 2025 versus nearly $70 in June 2024.
Although the projected economic stagnation is not something the Kremlin likes to discuss, measures to reduce inflation and stimulate greater business investment should boost the flagging economy enough to give Moscow the economic stability necessary to continue pursuing its aims in Ukraine through at least 2026 — if it has to.
Beyond 2026, the question would be whether Russia’s economy can recover in a way to force a peace in Ukraine and still achieve its full list of objectives.
For a fleeting moment last year, Nairobi was Washington’s darling. In a rarity for an African leader, President William Ruto was honored at the White House, and Kenya was designated a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA), the first in sub-Saharan Africa.
It was the capstone of a transactional bargain: Kenya would serve as America’s anchor state in a turbulent region, providing peacekeepers for Haiti and a stable partner against a backdrop of coups and Chinese and Russian encroachment in Africa. In return, Nairobi would receive security assistance, and a powerful friend in Washington.
Just over a year later, that bargain lies in tatters. The first invoice for its failure has arrived in the form of an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) submitted recently by Sen. James Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,calling for a formal review of Kenya’s prized MNNA status.
The rationale, according to the amendment, is a devastating catalogue of Nairobi's recent transgressions: its dubious ties with "nonstate armed groups and violent extremist organizations, including the Rapid Support Forces and al-Shabaab," its role as a "financial safe haven" for sanctioned entities, its deepening security and economic entanglement with China, and its use of "United States security assistance" for "abductions, torture, renditions, and violence against civilians."
Kenya’s descent has been swift and self-inflicted. Historically, Kenya built its foreign policy on the soft power of mediation. Nairobi was the indispensable venue where peace deals for Somalia and Sudan were hammered out two decades ago, It was a stable anchor in a volatile neighborhood. Under Ruto, this reputation has been tarnished.
The most calamitous blunder has been in Sudan. In February 2025, while the country burned, Nairobi played host to the leaders of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as they signed a charter to form a parallel government. Kenya’s foreign ministry framed the effort as a step towards peace-building, but the Sudanese government, led by the army, furiously recalled its ambassador, branded Kenya a "rogue state," and banned all imports from the country, a significant economic blow.
To make matters worse for Ruto, his own former deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, publicly accused him of having a "business" relationship with the RSF leader, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, alleging that Kenya was being used to launder Sudanese gold to fund the RSF’s war machine.
Whether true or not, the perception of a private deal overriding principled foreign policy was cemented. The African Union recently warned against the "fragmentation of Sudan" and implicitly condemned Nairobi’s role in providing a platform for the paramilitary group.
A similar pattern emerged in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In late 2023, Nairobi hosted leaders of the M23 rebel group, which is backed by Rwanda and has terrorized eastern Congo. The move infuriated Kinshasa, which refused to accredit Kenya’s ambassador and accused Ruto of "supporting Rwanda." The peace initiative was ultimately seized by the United States and Qatar, who brokered a resource-driven deal, leaving Nairobi irrelevant in a crisis in its own neighborhood.
Ruto’s foreign policy misadventures cannot be divorced from the collapsing political bargain at home. The "Hustler Nation" narrative that swept him to power in 2022 on a tide of populist promises has evaporated, replaced by the grim reality of IMF-mandated austerity. The government’s attempt to ram through a finance bill laden with taxes on basic goods ignited a youth-led uprising — the "Gen Z protests" — that has shaken the foundations of the state.
The state's response has been brutal, fulfilling the darkest premonitions about Ruto’s authoritarian tendencies. Security forces have met peaceful protesters with live rounds, abductions, and torture. This is the domestic context for the Risch amendment’s concern about the misuse of U.S. security assistance.
The Biden administration’s embrace of Ruto was a calculated risk. Facing a wave of anti-Western coups in the Sahel and China’s expanding influence, Washington needed a reliable partner. Ruto, an astute political operator, played his part brilliantly, offering up police for the U.S.-backed Haiti mission and positioning himself as a key interlocutor on climate and regional security. The MNNA designation was his reward.
But the arrival of the Trump administration, and the Risch amendment, signals a fundamental shift in how Washington calculates its interests. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly canceled a planned visit to Nairobi earlier this year, a clear diplomatic snub that came shortly after Ruto’s visit to Beijing and as Washington began quietly cutting aid programs.
Indeed, the amendment is a checklist of how Kenya has failed its end of the transactional bargain.
First, Kenya has cozied up to America’s adversaries. President Ruto, for his part, has defended the relationship, insisting that it is aimed at securing vital export markets rather than signalling strategic realignment. This distinction, however, has not ameliorated concerns in Washington. Ruto’s speech in Beijing, where he declared Kenya and China "co-architects of a new world order," was viewed in Washington as a slap in the face. Sen. Risch entered the full text of that speech into the congressional record, sending a clear message: you cannot be a Major Non-NATO Ally and a "co-architect" with Beijing.
Second, Kenya is undermining U.S. security objectives. By providing a platform and alleged financial services to the RSF — accused by the United States of genocide and had ties to Russia's Wagner mercenaries — Nairobi is not just meddling in a civil war, but is working against U.S. policy of weakening Wagner (and its successor, the Africa Corps) and ending the war in Sudan.
Additionally, the Risch amendment demands an inquiry into official ties with Al-Shabaab. Weaponizing long-standing concerns — acknowledged by the U.S. State Department — about the deep-seated corruption within Kenya’s security apparatus that allows individual officials to profit from the very smuggling networks that finance Al-Shabaab. More recently, the U.S. Treasury identified and sanctioned a Kenya-based financial network as a crucial hub for laundering Al-Shabaab funds.
Substantively, Risch’s proposal is compelling because it neatly bridges the partisan divide, crafted to appeal to Republican anxieties about Chinese and Russian influence in Africa while simultaneously satisfying traditional Democratic demands for accountability on human rights and the misuse of U.S. security aid.
Moreover, the amendment is structured as a review, not an immediate punishment. It doesn't revoke Kenya's status or cut off aid; it simply mandates a report. This presents a much lower bar for passage, allowing skeptical lawmakers to support it as a call for greater oversight.
This political potency is amplified by the legislative vehicle to which it is attached. The law itself, the NDAA, is the annual bill that authorizes the budget and sets the policies for the U.S. Department of Defense. For over six consecutive decades, Congress has passed the NDAA, creating a powerful institutional momentum that transcends partisan divides.
Consequently, the initiation of a formal review seems more a question of when than if. The final determination will rest not only on the assessment by key figures in the administration, but critically, on whether President Ruto's government can credibly address Washington’s concerns before a verdict is rendered.
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