A growing number of participants in the Israeli government’s upcoming conference on combating antisemitism have dropped out, citing the proliferation of far-right politicians on the docket.
The dropouts include German officials, the British chief rabbi and one of France’s leading public intellectuals. In response, at least one prominent participant has announced that he still plans to attend — even while criticizing how Israeli officials organized the conference.
Germany’s antisemitism czar, Felix Klein, was the first to announce his exit last week, shortly after news broke that Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Diaspora affairs minister, had invited representatives of European far-right parties to participate. Chikli sees the parties partners in a shared fight against surging Muslim influence in Europe; Israel recently changed its policy in order to open relations with several of them.
Klein said he had been unaware that far-right politicians had been invited when he accepted his invitation. Another German, a former lawmaker named Volker Beck who now heads the Israel-German Friendship Association, joined Klein in withdrawing from the event.
“The fight against antisemitism and solidarity with the Jewish and Democratic State must be the issue of all democratic currents. I do not find this approach reflected in this program,” Beck tweeted. “If we associate ourselves with extreme right-wing forces, we discredit our common cause; it also goes against my personal convictions and will have a negative impact on our fight against Antisemitism within our societies. In light of this, I had to cancel my participation.”
Over the weekend, the French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy joined the Germans in dropping out, according to a report in the European Jewish Press. He was reportedly particularly concerned about the fact that Jordan Bardella, head of the French National Rally party, and Marion Marechal, granddaughter of its antisemitic founder Jean Marie le Pen, were speaking.
On Sunday, David Hirsh, a British sociologist who heads the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, said he was following suit.
“In an increasingly hostile world, the State of Israel is hungry for allies, but it must be disciplined in keeping some distance from those who do not share its values,” Hirsh said in a statement. “Israel could listen more attentively to the advice of local Jewish communities and it should not offer the populist right, which has fascistic antisemitism in its heritage and amongst its support, an official Jewish stamp of approval.”
Hirsh added, “There is obvious danger to Jews in fomenting populist contempt for a fictional and all-powerful, dishonest, liberal, metropolitan, finance-capital, educated, cosmopolitan, globalist elite.”
And on Monday, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis told eJewishPhilanthropy that he was backing out. “Having been made aware of the attendance of a number of far-right populist politicians at the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, the Chief Rabbi will no longer be attending,” his office said in a statement.
In addition to the far-right European politicians on the docket, the conference is also set to include William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former populist president of Brazil; and Javier Milei, the president of Argentina who has reoriented his country’s foreign policy around support for Israel.
The conference has drawn criticism from an array of Jewish voices who say that in its haste to gather support at a time when it is perceived to be scant, Israel has cultivated dangerous allies.
“Neither the left nor the right are friends of Israel and the Jewish people,” the former longtime head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, told Haaretz. “Since the explosion of left inspired antisemitism and anti-Israel hate in the last several years, the pseudo-Fascist right is trying to use the Jewish community as a platform, to demonstrate how legitimate and tolerant they are. Israel and the Jewish community should not give them legitimacy.”
Foxman’s successor, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, is on the agenda to speak.
Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet refusenik and Israel politician, said his decision to attend was unchanged, writing on Facebook that he believed that “it is important for the fight against antisemitism to include all political camps — from left to right.”
He suggested that a history of antisemitism alone should not rule out any politician or party that seeks to join the fight. “Those who continue to hold onto their antisemitic views obviously have no place in conferences against antisemitism. However, those who claim to have changed their views towards Jews certainly deserve to be heard,” he wrote.
But he also sounded a cautionary note for Chikli, writing, “Alongside this, it is expected that the Minister of Diaspora, by virtue of his position, will organize such conferences in coordination with the communities in the Diaspora.
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