An international antisemitism conference scheduled to take place in Jerusalem next week was hemorrhaging after various planned European participants backed out due to the inclusion of far-right French lawmakers, despite their strong support of Israel.
The extraordinary development at a time of global antisemitism set off by the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, highlights the chasm that exists between liberal Jewish and non-Jewish officials, and ultra-nationalist and populist parties in Europe that have become increasingly vocal supporters of Israel in recent years in the wake of Arab migration.
The two-day International Conference on Combating Antisemitism organized by the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs—set to run from March 26-27 in Jerusalem—includes top Israeli government leaders and experts from around the globe. The program made news even before it got underway after German, British and French officials pulled out in a series of back-to-back cancellations over the last week due to the participation of Jordan Bardella, the head of the French National Rally party, and Marion Maréchal, the granddaughter of its known antisemitic founder, Jean-Marie le Pen, who died in January at age 96.
Hermann Tertsch, a Spanish member of the European Parliament from the conservative and pro-Israel Vox party, is also due to attend.
‘It goes against my personal convictions’
The wave of conference dropouts, which surprised organizers, included Germany’s antisemitism czar Felix Klein; Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the United Kingdom; and French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
A spokesperson for Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli declined repeated requests this week for comment.
The cancellation by prominent European officials scheduled to attend the gathering indicated that the inclusion of the far-right politicians was unacceptable to them in light of their parties’ history, irrespective of the lawmakers’ current support for Israel.
“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,” Mirvis’s director of communications wrote in an email to JNS on Tuesday.
A statement from Klein, the German federal government commissioner for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism, who canceled his participation on Friday, said that when he accepted the invitation at the end of January to speak on a panel, “no information about other speakers and participants was provided.”
“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,” wrote Volker Beck, the head of the Israel-German Friendship Association and a former lawmaker, who also canceled his attendance.
The conference will include addresses by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Chikli and visiting Argentinian President Javier Milei. Organizers are also planning stops in southern Israel and perhaps Judea and Samaria. Also expected to attend are William Daroff, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; human-rights activist, Israeli statesman and former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky; and U.S. evangelical leader Mike Evans.
The decision by the Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs to invite the far-right European politicians to the conference—ties he has long favored—follows a recent change in policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem greenlighting contacts with several far-right European parties that have renounced their anti-Jewish or Nazi past and have emerged as major political players in a changing European political landscape.
Sharansky, long a highly respected voice in the international arena, said the totality of the map opposing antisemitism needs to be heard.
“It is important for the fight against antisemitism to include all political camps—from left to right,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “Those who continue to hold onto 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.”