The antisemitism conference

Next week the Israeli government will host an International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, with speakers and delegates from across the world gathering “to raise awareness about the key drivers of modern antisemitism and to address the critical challenges posed by the evolving realities since October 7, both for the State of Israel and for Jewish communities worldwide.” This ought to be welcome: such a conference is long overdue, and there is much to discuss. But instead, the decision of the Israeli government to invite politicians from some of Europe’s far right and populist right wing parties has led several other participants to withdraw. It has caused unnecessary division at exactly the time when efforts to combat antisemitism ought to be unified, and points to the potential for further disagreements ahead.

The problems have been widely reported. The far right politicians billed to attend the conference include leading figures from National Rally in France, Vox in Spain, Sweden Democrats, and Hungary’s Fidesz. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter will be there. These are parties with dubious pasts rooted in far right, and at times openly Nazi, politics, and while some of them have more recently condemned antisemitism and supported Israel, their ranks still include old-school antisemites and Holocaust deniers. In contrast, those who have pulled out include some of the most forthright and committed people in the fight against anti-Jewish hatred and the delegitimisation and demonisation of Israel. Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Bernard-Henri Levy, ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt, the UK government’s Independent Advisor on Antisemitism Lord Mann, his German counterpart Felix Klein, and antisemitism expert Professor David Hirsh: these are not cowards who are scared to stand up to the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people.

Israel used to host a Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism every two to three years, and it was usually an impressive and worthwhile event. I attended a few of them and spoke at some, and you could always find a wide cross section of opinion and activism from across the diaspora, academia, and Israel itself. Foreign politicians from mainstream parties and civil servants working on tackling antisemitism in European countries would sometimes be there too. I was not planning to attend next week’s conference - I received an invitation but it clashed with a commitment in the UK that I couldn’t change. But even without that clash, I had a sense that this conference would be different from the Global Forums of the past.

It is striking that unlike the clutch of far right politicians who are due to speak at the conference, there is a relative lack of advertised speakers from European centrist or left wing parties. It is reported that the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs did invite some who declined the invitation, but I find this explanation unconvincing. Just thinking about the UK, I am sure there are Conservative or Labour Parliamentarians who would have happily accepted a speaking slot, at least before the far right speakers were announced. Instead, it is as if the Israeli government put all of its eggs in the far right basket. And even without the issue of a lack of balance, the far right politicians who will be in Jerusalem next week would never have been invited to previous Global Forums anyway. Israeli governments, just like diaspora Jewish communities, did not engage with them. And that has changed.

Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli has defended these invitations by arguing that “The real threat to European Jewry is radical Islam, not the right”. I would question his inference that one threat is “real” and another not - threats can come from all sides - but I do not think many European Jews would dispute his assertion that Islamist extremism poses a real and immediate danger to European Jews. Opinion polls repeatedly show that anti-Jewish attitudes amongst Muslim communities are higher than in the wider population, and repeated terrorism and violent anti-Jewish hate crimes involving Muslim perpetrators drive home the reality of this threat. The wave of antisemitic murders in France, from Ilan Halimi in 2006 to Mireille Knoll in 2018, overwhelmingly involved Muslim perpetrators. Intuitively, this danger is likely to have got worse since October 7.

But the answer to Islamist antisemitism is not to embrace the far right. There are plenty of moral reasons why this is the case, to do with their wider xenophobia, racism and so on, but even putting all of that to one side and concentrating purely on the danger to Jews: it is a false choice because the far right also threatens Jewish life in Europe. Even if you disregard the violent neo-Nazi fringe with its own recent record of anti-Jewish terrorism, right wing populist parties that support Israel still have policies that endanger other aspects of the Jewish way of life: kosher food, circumcision, restrictions on wearing kippot, opposing dual nationality for Israelis in Europe, and so on. These are all guaranteed in Israel so perhaps are not on the radar for Israeli politicians, but they are very much a concern for European Jewish communities. Nor can an alliance with the far right cohabit with a strategy of building bridges between Jewish and Muslim communities. Anti-Israel hatred and Islamist violence have been serious problems since long before October 7, but a binary choice between Islamist extremism and the far right cannot answer all the challenges faced by Jews today.

This is why the decision to invite European far right politicians over the heads of the Jewish communities in those European countries, without any consultation, is potentially so damaging. Although a minority of Jews in Europe do support the far right, the representative, leadership bodies in those Jewish communities generally do not engage with them. This is a long-standing position, part of their collective strategy to hold a line against encroaching extremism. If the Israeli government wants to open relations with those parties then that is their decision, and they may have their own reasons for doing so. However, it means something altogether different to conduct that engagement via a conference against antisemitism, because it forces diaspora Jews to be part of Israel’s relationship with the European far right if they also want Israel to be part of their own struggle against antisemitism. Some diaspora Jews will be comfortable with this and others won’t, but either way, the Israeli government should not be forcing them to choose. These are, in many cases, Jewish organisations who have stood up to the wave of anti-Jewish hatred and anti-Zionist malice in their own countries for the past 18 months, and it seems a shabby way to thank them for their efforts.

It is a reminder that the State of Israel and diaspora communities will always have differing, if overlapping, priorities. In itself, this is perfectly normal. All states prioritise their national interests and sometimes, as a result, do things that are morally or ethically dubious, and Israel is no exception. But Israel has an added dimension in its stated mission to stand for, and defend, Jewish people the world over. This notion represents the idealism that sits at the heart of why Israel exists: for its citizens first and foremost, like all states, but also for all Jews, everywhere. This might sound naïve, but it is supposed to matter.

The whole episode poses a fundamental question of what fighting antisemitism actually means: is it primarily to secure diaspora Jewish communities, or to combat the campaign to delegitimise, and ultimately destroy, the State of Israel? Both priorities are valid and up until now they have run in tandem as a natural fit, because so much antisemitism is expressed via, or occurs in the context of, anti-Israel hatred. It would be darkly ironic if one consequence of a conference against antisemitism is to damage relations between the Israeli government and diaspora Jewish organisations, and to cause divisions within diaspora communities themselves, at precisely the moment when unity is most needed in the fight against antisemitism.