The Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs staged a highly successful event at the 5th Global Forum for
Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem between 12-14 May.
Delegates from around the world
gathered to hear an impressive array of speakers, led by Israel’s Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The conference was intense. Even the lunches
during the three days became platforms for keynote speakers including Malcolm
Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Confederation of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organization, Robert Wistrich, Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, and
US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro.
The third day was taken up with
numerous working groups each delegated to address specific aspects of global anti-Semitism
and come up with solutions and action plans to counter this ongoing plague.
I joined the group discussing
Anti-Semitism in the Guise of Delegitimization and Anti-Zionism, which was
chaired by Mitchell Bard and Dr. Pascal Markowicz.
We were presented by a screen
listing the many challenges and questions faced by everyone affected by
anti-Israel activism that morphs into expressions of Jew-hatred and Israel
denial.
It was clear, hearing the
problems faced by students of campus to the problems that heads of Jewish
communities are increasing dealing with, that anti-Semitism posing as
anti-Zionism is rampant worldwide.
Participants from North and South
America, Europe including the UK, South Africa and Australia, told of the
challenges they are trying to counter in their countries.
True to the title of our session,
it became apparent that, although we discussed in depth the difficulties that
Jews abroad and Israel in general have been suffering from in recent times, the
big black cloud that shadows all our concerns is the anti-Semitism linked to
all aspects of the Palestinian cause.
As described in my book ‘Fighting
Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism,’ its fertile roots are deeply embedded in
Gaza and Ramallah. Here is the spearhead of a wider Arab malevolence against
Jews rooted in their faith and political systems.
As the title of our working group
suggests, this strain of anti-Semitism radiates from the Middle East into
Western societies, fanned by far left
agitators, racial professors, lecturers and other voices who call and act for
the delegitimization of Israel and an end to anti-Zionism.
The excuse that “we don’t hate
Jews, we only hate Israelis” won’t wash anymore. We in the know are now on
the case, exposing the fraud of this lie, a lie that has replaced the older
canard of “I can’t be an anti-Semite, some of my best friends are Jewish.”
The evidence is clear and is now
being documented. It’s time the name and shame the perpetrators, and call it
for what it is.
Anti-Semitism is an international
crime. However, despite the efforts of major European Jewish organizations, the
EU has been dodging the issue of coming up with a definition of what is
Anti-Semitism. We were witness to statements made at the Jerusalem conference
by European representatives of an attempt of lumping any resolution or
definition of anti-Semitism with other issues such as Islamophobia into a broader
mix of “hate crimes.” We need to make the case that we deserve, especially
in Europe, a specific attention to our individual and collective predicament.
One important outcome of the
event was a wall-to-wall affirmation that only Jews have the right to define what
is, or isn’t, anti-Semitism. As one person at the conference said, just as most
Americans accept that African Americans are the ones to recognize anti-black
racism, it is the Jews, and not the goyim who instinctively know, from
generations of bitter experience in every culture, what is anti-Semitism.
If anti-Semitism is evil, and if
the world desperately desires peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it is
legitimate to demand that the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab
League stop supporting the development of a national movement that has the
words “Oh Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me! Come out and kill him” as
the cornerstone of their founding charter as does Palestinian Hamas.
It is this, together with their declared
admission that the Palestinian cause is an Islamic movement of jihad in the
name of Allah, that must give every reasoning mind, let alone the political
representatives of Western liberal democracies, pause.
How is it possible that they
invest hundreds of millions of dollars and euros in the advancement of a
Palestine that will, inevitably, be a Jew-hating, Jew-denying entity?
How can there be any doubt of
this when the Hamas hatred and the Jewish state denial of the Palestinian
Authority spills over into the manifestos and charters of the PLO (adopted by
the Palestinian Authority) and the constitutional document of the Fatah Party?
The aims and objectives of the
Palestinian cause are blatantly defined. They are consolidated by the statements
of Mahmoud Abbas, he of the Holocaust denial doctorate, who denies three
thousand years of Jewish heritage and existence, rejects the Jewish state and the
existence of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people as legitimated in
the international treaties of the League of Nations and further enshrined in Article
80 of the United Nations Charter. In further anti-Semitic references, Abbas has
declared that Palestine will be Jew-free and that any Arab selling land to a
Jew will be executed.
This is part of the Palestinian anti-Semitism
that denies and delegitimizes Israel.
A question that usually leaves
European diplomats with a blank look in their eyes is what sort of Palestine they
are trying so hard to create. Some
mutter that they are working to develop institutes necessary to achieve a
democratic Palestine living in peace with Israel. But they are stumped when asked what
responsibility they take if Israel surrenders essential territory according to
their demands and political pressure that results not in peaceful Palestine but
a radical Hamastan?
According to all Palestinian polls
and elections, Hamas consistently gains the support of between 64-78% of
Palestinian society. That’s a majority every time. The latest evidence that
Palestine will be Hamastan was the student elections at Bir Zeit University in
April where Hamas won 26 seats compared to Fatah’s 19. It must be pointed out that Bir Zeit is not
in the Gaza Strip but seven kilometers north of Ramallah within easy reach of
Palestinian Authority headquarters, and only 20 kilometers from Jerusalem. So a
Hamas controlled Palestine is not a guess. It’s a certainty.
This makes the US Administration
and European urging for the establishment of a Jew-hating, jihadi state
standing on territory belonging to a liberal democracy, highly disturbing.
What is equally disturbing is the
apparition of the fevered efforts of hundreds of dubious NGOs, supported
politically, morally and financially by most European governments. Some have
politicians who are being exposed for their dislike of Jews.
Those of us active in defense of
Israel against the demonization and delegitimization campaigns that use thousands
of eager young European volunteers regularly witness their Palestinian lovefest
comes with an equal, if not more passionate, Israeli hatefest which leaves us
wondering if Jew-hatred is not at the heart of it.
Therefore, we are entitled to ask
why they adopt this aspect of Palestinian concern yet ignore the abuse of
Palestinian rights at the hands of both Palestinian leaderships in Ramallah and
Gaza. They also do or say nothing about Palestinians that are suffering in Arab
lands. Their exaggeration of anti-Israel claims and insults is out of
proportion to other world crisis points that apparently do not concern them.
This obsessive behavior that targets the Jewish state points to anti-Semitism.
In fact, colleagues can attest to fairly regular outbursts of anti-Jewish
utterances from these NGO volunteers.
And so we see the spread and
growth of anti-Semitism in the guise of delegitimization and anti-Zionism.
Once, and for a period far too long, they claimed victory with a slogan of “Zionism
is Racism” which won favor in the United Nations for sixteen years until,
after a prolonged struggle, it was struck down in 1991. It was struck down, but
didn’t die. It is still alive and killing.
It is the anti-Zionists who are
the racists. It is the Israel deniers who are the discriminators.
It is essential to define
anti-Semitism to include the denial of Jewish rights to freedom of expression,
freedom of religion, and the denial of Jewish rights to self-determination as
enshrined in internationally binding documents.
The delegitimization of Israel
and the attempt to deprive the Jews, and only the Jewish people, of the right
to self-determination and nationhood is anti-Semitism.
(These are the personal reflections of the author and not the official positions of the working group nor the Israeli government.)
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