In a letter to the Treasury and State Secretaries on Tuesday, 18 Democratic members of Congress called on the U.S. government to impose sanctions on the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, along with three other cyber companies, as punishment for their role in aiding human rights abuses by authoritarian governments. NSO, whose Pegasus spyware has…
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The Biden administration “embraces and champions” the so-called IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, a State Department official said on Monday.
Kara McDonald, deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, praised the definition “with its real-world examples” as “an invaluable tool” to “call hate by its proper name and take effective action,” according to the JTA news agency.
McDonald is serving temporarily as the Biden administration’s point person on the issue until it names a special envoy on anti-Semitism.
The IHRA definition has been promoted by Israel and its lobby groups.
It has been strongly opposed by civil libertarians and Palestinian and Jewish organizations which see it as a pretext to smear and censor supporters of Palestinian rights.