Prominent Jewish figures boycott Israel anti -Semitism event

The prominent figures, including several Jewish leaders, have remained away from an international conference on anti -Semitism held in Jerusalem, in protest of the inclusion of politicians from all over Europe associated with the extreme right.

Those who refused to attend included the president of Israel and the Rabbi Chief of the United Kingdom, Sir Ephraim Mirvis.

At the conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning about the increase in anti -Semitism.

He said that Europe was at risk of allowing anti -Semitism not to be controlled in a similar way to the years prior to Nazi Holocaust.

“Racial anti -Semitism is inciting a global war against the existence of Jews as a race that poisons human societies,” said his own father in 1933, Netanyahu said.

“Today,” he said, “we issue a similar warning. The fate of free societies is linked to the will to fight the scourge of anti -Semitism.”

But inclusion in the case of representatives of the European parties of the extreme right, such as the national demonstration of France, Vox of Spain and the Sweden DemocratsHe had proven to be controversial.

The anti -Semitism advisor of the United Kingdom government, Lord Mann, rejected his invitation, saying: “There is nothing for the United Kingdom to learn about addressing the anti -Semitism of some of these characters.”

The Rabbi Chief Mirvis declined to participate “having been aware of the assistance of several populist politicians of the extreme right,” said his office in a statement issued last week.

The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, either attended. He organized his own separate event with Jewish leaders instead of what was seen as a commitment.

The conference was organized by Amichai Chikli, the Minister of Affairs of the Diaspora de Israel and an open member of the Netanyahu right Likud party. Chikli has courted ties with extreme right parties in recent months.

At the beginning of last year, he met the Sweden Democratic leader who visited Jerusalem, and was a speaker at a Vox conference in Madrid.

Chikli defended the inclusion of extreme right politicians of Europe, saying that they had faced “extended lies against them by those who slandered the state of Israel worldwide.”

Among those of the conference whose presence had caused a certain consternation, Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, whose party was originally founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man accused of anti-Semitism and declared guilty of denial of the Holocaust.

Jean -Marie was expelled from the party, then called the National Front, in 2015 by her daughter Marine about her comments about the Holocaust as a “detail” of the story. But since her death in January, she has said she cannot “forgive herself” for doing so.

Bardella, 29, a rising star of the French right, spoke on the stage where he recognized the “eminent symbolic importance” of his invitation to Israel.

Although he did not explicitly refer to his party’s past, he made votes for his future under Marine Le Pen, who directs the group in Parliament.

“I would like to tell you all sincerity, through their positions, their proposals and its firmness in the face of this threat, the national demonstration, directed 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. “Threatens to destroy everything that is not so”, echoing a claim often made by his party that France faces an “Islamist threat.”

Bardella had previously visited some of the places where Hamas carried out attacks on October 7, 2023, and the Holocaust Memorial of Israel Yad Vashem.

The conference was also a reminder of how Israel sees itself under attack in parts of the international community. Panel discussions remained on issues that include “addressing anti-Israel bias in international institutions”, “how radical Islam feeds anti-Semitism in the West?” and “double standard, from the battlefield to the ICC”.

The CPI, the International Criminal Court, has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes against the Palestinians.

The measure caused outrage in Israel, who accused the ICC itself of being motivated by anti -Semitism.