Keep up the pressure: Tell the MoCo Council the Reject the harmful and anti-Palestinian IHRA definition

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Keep up the pressure: Tell the MoCo Council the Reject the harmful and anti-Palestinian IHRA definition

We have received information that the resolution adopting the harmful and anti-Palestinian IHRA definition could come up again on October 25th. We are calling on community members to take action to tell the Montgomery County Council why the IHRA definition is so harmful and dangerous by sending emails and calling Council offices (phone numbers and sample script below).

Fill out the fields to your right to send an email to the Council about why the IHRA definition is harmful.

One of the central arguments proponents of the IHRA definition have been making is that resolutions are non-binding. The reason both sides of the debate are pushing so hard on this resolution is because it will have real implications.

One of the goals of the resolution is to use the harmful IHRA definition for Police Department Tracking of hate bias incidents. This will create a reporting mechanism that can potentially target students, teachers, county employees, and community members for their political speech, tracking cases that could include simply bringing up Palestine or being sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle as hate bias incidents.
- These cases are investigated and documented by the Montgomery County Police Department and forwarded to the Maryland’s State database. The 2019 Executive Order from President Trump, which similarly adopts the IHRA definition, enables the Department of Education to withhold funds to colleges based on this harmful and wrong definition of antisemitism.
MCPS Leadership has Already Used the Anti-Israel = Anti-Semitism Definition. In June 2021, during the height of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the forced displacement and dispossession of families in Sheikh Jarrah, the MCPS Superintendent and Board President sent out an e-bulletin which read: “The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has resulted in a significant uptick of threats of violence, expressions of bigotry and antisemitism in Montgomery County and across the nation.”

The only way to stop this vote is with vigorous constituent pushback. Even if you signed a prior alert, we need you to send more emails to Council. You can email all of the current and incoming Councilmembers here (start entering your info to the right to send an email using our action alert tool), and we encourage you to customize your email to include where you live and your personal connection to this issue if comfortable.

CALLING COUNCILMEMBERS:

We also encourage you to call your Councilmembers, and leave a message if after hours! Calling and leaving a message is harder to ignore than an email!

Sample message: Hi, my name is ___, I live in ___, and I am urging Councilmember ___ to oppose adoption of the harmful IHRA definition of antisemitism because it threatens our collective safety and goes against humanistic values of anti-racism.

Additional talking points on why IHRA is harmful can be found here.

Here is the contact information for members of the County Council and for the County Executive:

Councilmember Gabe Albernoz - Office: (240) 777-7959,

email: Councilmember.Albornoz@montgomerycountymd.gov

Councilmember Andrew Friedson - Office: (240) 777-7828,

email Councilmember.Friedson@montgomerycountymd.gov

Councilmember Evan Glass - Office: (240) 777-7966,

email: Councilmember.Glass@montgomerycountymd.gov

Councilmember Tom Hucker - Office: (240) 777-7960,

email: Councilmember.Hucker@montgomerycountymd.gov

Councilmember Will Jawando - Office: (240) 777-7811,

email: Councilmember.Jawando@montgomerycountymd.gov