Prominent figures, including several Jewish leaders, have stayed away from an international conference on antisemitism held in Jerusalem, in protest at the inclusion of politicians from across Europe associated with the far right.
Those who declined to attend included Israel’s own president and the chief rabbi of the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis.
At the conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning about the rise in antisemitism.
He said Europe was at risk of allowing antisemitism to go unchecked in a similar way to the years leading up to the Nazi Holocaust.
“Racial antisemitism is inciting a global war against the existence of the Jews as a race that poisons human societies,” his own father had written in 1933, Netanyahu said.
“Today,” he said, “we issue a similar warning. The fate of free societies is tied to the willingness to fight the scourge of antisemitism.”
But the inclusion at the event of representatives of European far-right parties, like France’s National Rally, Spain’s Vox and the Sweden Democrats, had proven controversial.
The UK government’s antisemitism advisor Lord Mann turned down his invitation, saying: “There is nothing for the UK to learn about tackling antisemitism from some of these characters.”
Chief Rabbi Mirvis declined to participate “having been made aware of the attendance of a number of far-right populist politicians”, his office said in a statement issued last week.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog did not attend either. He hosted his own separate event with Jewish leaders instead in what was seen as a compromise.
The conference was organised by Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister, and an outspoken member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. Chikli has over the past several months courted ties with far-right parties across Europe.
Early last year he met the Sweden Democrat leader who visited Jerusalem, and was a speaker at a Vox conference in Madrid.
Chikli defended the inclusion of far-right politicians from Europe, saying they had faced “lies spread against them by those who slander the State of Israel worldwide”.
Among those at the conference whose presence had caused some consternation was National Rally President Jordan Bardella, whose party was originally founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man accused of antisemitism and found guilty of Holocaust denial.
Jean-Marie was expelled from the party – then called the National Front – in 2015 by his daughter Marine over his comments about the Holocaust being a “detail” of history. But since his death in January she has said she can’t “forgive herself” for doing so.
The 29-year-old Bardella – a rising star of the French right – spoke on stage where he acknowledged the “eminent symbolic significance” of his invitation to Israel.
Whilst he did not explicitly reference his party’s past, he made vows for its future under Marine Le Pen, who heads the group in parliament.
“I would like to tell you in all sincerity, through its positions, its proposals and its steadfastness in the face of this threat, the National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, is the best shield for the Jews of France,” he said.
“Islamism is the totalitarianism of the 21st century,” he warned. “It threatens to destroy everything that is not like it,” echoing a claim often made by his party that France is facing an “Islamist threat”.
Bardella had earlier visited some of the places where Hamas carried out attacks on 7 October 2023, and Israel’s Holocaust memorial institute Yad Vashem.
The conference was also a reminder of how Israel sees itself under attack by parts of the international community. Panel discussions were held on topics including “Addressing Anti-Israel Bias in International Institutions”, “How Radical Islam Fuels Antisemitism in the West?” and “Double Standards, From the Battlefield to the ICC”.
The ICC – International Criminal Court – has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes against the Palestinians.
The move caused outrage across Israel, which accused the ICC itself of being motivated by antisemitism.
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