The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, the pre-eminent American Jewish organisation combating anti-Semitism, has withdrawn from a Jerusalem conference next week due to the participation of representatives of European far-right parties.
Jonathan Greenblatt said on Wednesday he would not take part in the International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, initiated by Israel’s diaspora affairs minister, Amichai Chikli, “in light of some of the recently announced participants.”
He joined a list of prominent participants withdrawing from the event. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who was due to deliver the keynote speech at the conference’s opening dinner, pulled out along with Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Felix Klein, Germany’s commissioner against anti-Semitism and others.
The decision to invite far-right politicians reflects a change in Israeli policy over recent years.
Previously, far-right parties tainted with a history of anti-Semitism, some of whom were led in the past by openly anti-Jewish leaders, were considered beyond the pale.
More recently, Mr Chikli and other Israeli politicians have met European far-right politicians and invited them to visit Israel, arguing that the main threat to Jews in Europe today comes from Islamic anti-Semites.
Among the far-right politicians addressing or attending the Jerusalem conference will be Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally; Marion Maréchal, an MEP and the granddaughter of France’s National Front founder and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen; MEP Kinga Gál of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party; Hermann Tertsch, an MEP from Spain’s nationalist right-wing party Vox; and Charlie Weimer, an MEP from the far-right Sweden Democrats.
“In Europe we fight to keep extremist parties out of the mainstream, yet in Israel politicians invite them, mistakenly believing these parties support Israel. They do not. These parties seek legitimacy, and I cannot understand why an Israeli minister would provide them with such validation,” said Ariel Muzicant, president of the European Jewish Congress.
He said the four largest Jewish organisations in the world – the American Jewish Committee, the European Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress and the Conference of European Rabbis – plan to boycott the conference.
Mr Chikli dismissed the criticism as “political correctness” arguing that Israel should accept support from any group expressing pro-Israel views and standing up against what he termed “Islamic extremism”.
The chair of the Knesset committee responsible for relations with diaspora Jewry, Gilad Kariv, urged the government to revoke the invitations extended to far-right politicians.
“Inviting representatives of extremist parties with anti-Semitic roots undermines the foundations of the Israeli, Jewish and international struggle against anti-Semitism,” he said.
