European Leaders Are Making a Show of Taking Anti-Semitism Seriously. But Will They Actually Do So?
Last week, Sweden’s prime minister announced a conference on anti-Semitism to take place in October 2020 and to be attended by European heads of state. It will be held in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, the location of numerous anti-Semitic incidents in the past few years, some of which were violent—the most recent involving a youth group affiliated with the prime minister’s own party. Ben Cohen notes that the conference, despite its apparent good intentions, poses several dangers:
[T]he first potential danger [is] that the conference will allow Malmo to clean up its image as a center of anti-Semitism without cleaning up its act. The degree to which a conference on anti-Semitism hosted by a left-wing government in Europe would be willing to address the elephant in the room—the anti-Semitism that doesn’t come from the far right—is as yet unclear . . .
First, there is the need to recognize that anti-Semitism is politically promiscuous and can be found with equal venom on the left and the right. . . . Second, government efforts against anti-Semitism have rightly pushed a broader message of tolerance and openness. . . . But [these efforts] also require . . . recognition that anti-Semitism is a problem not just of the ethnic majority but of minorities as well, and particularly Europe’s multiple Muslim communities.
At the present time, if a swastika is daubed on a Jewish building in Germany and the perpetrator remains unidentified, the police will categorize the crime as “far right,” despite having seen the profusion of signs equating the Star of David with the swastika at numerous left-wing, anti-Zionist demonstrations. That perhaps exemplifies why a wholesale transformation of how anti-Semitism is understood by law-enforcement officials, teachers, and social workers is necessary.
Gerald Steinberg: Boycotts, antisemitism and free speech
Are ethical guidelines or legal restrictions legitimate means of responding to the singling out of Israel through boycotts and similar attacks? Or, as critics of these measures claim, are these guidelines anti-democratic infringements on free speech and attempts to prevent criticism of Israel?
The intensity of this debate has been increasing in parallel to the rise in violent antisemitic attacks in which the perpetrators justify their actions as responses to Israel and Zionism. Clashes surrounding BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns add to the friction, including (unsuccessful) efforts by activists to boycott the recent Eurovision song contest held in Israel, as well as the latest BDS initiatives led by global NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In responding effectively, it is necessary to encompass the “old” theologically-based form, from the right of the political spectrum, as well as the “new” dimension that targets Israel, as David Hirsh (Goldsmiths College, London University), documents in his book on Contemporary Left antisemitism.
These concerns have produced a growing global consensus based on the working definition of antisemitism, adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and built on an earlier EU version. This document has been officially endorsed by the 32 state members of IHRA (France was the most recent addition). It has been used for training of police in the UK and elsewhere in order to provide criteria by which hate crimes directed at Jews can be identified with consistency. There are proposals to include in ethical guidelines for journalists and media platforms – the recent case of a New York Times cartoon, for which the editors apologized, highlighted the importance of an accepted definition of antisemitism. Other potential venues include influential NGOs and the United Nations.
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— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) June 3, 2019