Europe is changing and Jew-hate is back in force
That was the sobering consensus at a gathering of world experts on antisemitism this week
TWO CONCLUSIONS appeared to unite those gathered at the third conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA). First, that the battle against antisemitism must be waged by government and civil society; and second, we will inevitably lose.
Antisemitism is “an age old demon that perhaps can never be entirely put to rest”, EU Commissioner and First Vice President Frans Timmermans told some 140 parliamentarians from nearly 40 countries who gathered here for two days of brainstorming and briefings. “But it must be kept small enough so that it doesn’t infest the rest of our society.”
“We are not going to solve this problem; it does not take a rocket scientist to recognise this,” said Ira Forman, US State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. “We can’t turn the faucet off, but we can turn it down. It was turned down after the Second World War, and we need to turn it down now.”
The gathering of parliamentarians — led by All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism chair John Mann MP — came against the backdrop of increased concern about antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere. And it was acknowledged that the phenomenon takes many forms — whether the neo-Nazi brand or the anti-Zionist brand, whether from the left and right extremes, the middle of society, or from Muslim radicals. Fears of the latter have been exacerbated by the influx of more than one million refugees from wartorn Syria and Iraq , as well as other Arab and Muslim lands.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door policy to refugees has shaken support for her party, told the gathering that everyone living in Germany, whether refugees or those born here, must accept “that antisemitism and other prejudices have no place in our society.
“The words ‘never again’ have to be followed by deeds,” she said.
It has been 1 4 y e a r s s i n c e t h e ICCA was founded, but there is still a great deal of frustration. Although the problem is increasingly on the public radar, “we are today struggling more than ever with finding the right tools to combat an antisemitism that has not abated but worsened,” said Andrew Baker, Personal Representative on Combating Antisemitism for the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe). The fact that many incidents reported in Western and Northern Europe “are coming from parts of the Arab and Muslim communities … remains a very difficult thing to say,” said Mr Baker, director of International Jewish Affairs of the American Jewish Committee. “How can Jewish communities have faith that their governments will address a problem that cannot even be named?”
At the conference, which took place during Germany’s chairmanship of the OSCE, best practices were presented, and participants from across Europe, the US and Israel described challenges and solutions in their own countries.
Many speakers expressed frustration at overly vague definitions of antisemitism, and urged adoption of an official standard that would include everything from verbal abuse to Holocaust denial to the demonisation of Israel.
“Criticising Israel is not wrong and it would be wrong to say so, but singling Israel out… and denying Israel’s right to exist is hateful and discriminatory and antisemitic, and not saying so is dishonest,” Irwin Cotler, former Canadian minister of justice told the gathering on Tuesday.
To accomplish the Sisyphean task of defining and controlling antisemitism, a combination of initiatives are required. Those include legislation and enforcement, whether aimed at violent hate crimes or the more insidious, ubiquitous hate and incitement found on the internet.
There was overall agreement that the internet — specifically social media — was a serious threat.
“The only difference between now and 70 years ago is that bigots don’t have to get out of bed,” said Eric Pickles, the UK’s Envoy on Post-Holocaust Issues. “If Twitter and Facebook had been available in Nazi Germany, [Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph] Goebbels would have been an enormous hit… and if you look at the darker fringes of Facebook and Twitter, Goebbels’s spirit lives on.”
Paul Giannasi, UK National Point of Contact to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights on hate crime, pointed to one case in which a British teacher recently asked students to prepare for a visit by a Holocaust survivor by doing research online.