-OpEd-
TURIN — The International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, which begins Wednesday in Jerusalem, offers a telling sign of a troubling confusion between the fight against antisemitism and the fight in favor of it.
The guests invited to the conference are, in fact, some of the most prominent figures of the European far right, the grandchildren and ideological heirs of those who, more than 80 years ago, collaborated with the Nazis to send Jews to the extermination camps. These are people who, until very recently, spoke of Jews in unmistakably antisemitic terms.
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And while it is true that in recent decades many among them have declared themselves “friends of Israel,” it is just as true that this has never automatically meant being friends of Jews.
The European far right, along with American Evangelicals, has drawn closer to the Israel of recent years, led by racist and anti-democratic governments such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current administration, on the basis of a shared political and ideological affinity. And it is a similarly political and ideological rationale that drives the Israeli government’s embrace of those politicians who today are preparing to discuss antisemitism with Netanyahu, his extremist Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the other Israeli politicians.
Considerable embarrassment
As one might expect, the focus of the debate will not be on the past but on the present. Holocaust denial will be addressed only when it comes from Arab countries, and much attention will be directed toward alleged antisemitism on the left, or the supposed antisemitism of the United Nations and international legal institutions. These will be the main targets of the conference, already previewed by Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly in September 2024, when he described the UN as a “swamp of antisemitism.”
Important rabbis and leading members of major European and American Jewish institutions have declined the invitation.
Among the far-right party leaders attending the conference will be senior politicians from Hungary’s Fidesz, Spain’s Vox, France’s Rassemblement National and Identité Libertés, the Dutch Party for Freedom and the Sweden Democrats.
The presence of such leading figures of the European far right has nevertheless caused considerable embarrassment within the Jewish world, both in Europe and the United States. Important rabbis and leading members of major European and American Jewish institutions have therefore declined the invitation. Several Jewish intellectuals have done the same, including French intellectuals Bernard-Henri Lévy, who explained his refusal in a recent editorial in La Stampa.
This is not a misunderstanding
European Jewish institutional representatives will not take part in the conference, but without openly taking a stand against the paradox of a conference that claims to fight antisemitism while hosting the most extreme voices of European sovereigntism and populism. Yet one would have liked their dissent to be made public. That the European diaspora, heir to the millions who perished in the Holocaust, would have voiced its opposition openly.
What we are witnessing seems to be a shift by the Israeli right.
It is true that taking a stand on this issue would carry the consequence of having to rethink many of the diaspora world’s tacit or explicit alignments with Netanyahu’s government. But the issue is not a minor one. We are not dealing with a misunderstanding, nor simply with Israel’s desire to broaden its base of support. The European and American far right has already given Israel its full backing.
What we are witnessing seems to be a shift by the Israeli right: the overshadowing of the memory of the Holocaust, except when needed for propaganda purposes; and creation of a far-right alliance that is explicit and firmly grounded in shared principles and agendas. In short, it is the rejection of democracy and the rise of racism, even when it is cloaked in the convenient language of fighting antisemitism.
