5 Summer 2025 Welcome to 2025! Across every university campus that I have visited, every city space where I have come to speak, Zionism is equated with Nazism. Moynihan understood already 50 years ago that there is a very short mile to go between the appropriation of international institutions and mechanisms, and the claim that “Zionism is racism” as the forerunner of this modern mutation of antisemitism. We have arrived now at this understanding − 50 years after the Resolution, and 80 years after the liberation of the concentration camps. I am a trustee in the Rabbi Sacks Legacy. Rabbi Sacks had an understanding that explains what it is about antisemitism that in many ways is different from every other kind of hate. It is a very particular kind of lethal hate because it has the ability to mutate by latching onto the guiding social constructs of religion, science, and the secular religion of our times: human rights. This evermutating virus develops new strains, resistant to the inoculation that we may have created in the past, 80 years ago, where we were able to recognize how the mutation latched onto the guiding social construct of science. The older strains, as we know in a post-COVID world, do not die or disappear. Rather, the new strains are the ones that enable the outburst of the virus once again. Therefore, “Zionism is racism” as the gateway in this unconventional war for public opinion leads me to the 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism. That conference turned into an antisemitic hate fest, witnessed precisely by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Bob Bernstein and others, that saw their life's work — human rights and the pledge of “Never Again” that demanded the equal and consistent application of foundational principles — be appropriated, hijacked, and weaponized for purposes of demonization, delegitimization, and double standards. Following Dreyfus, seated on the dock of the accused as a Jew, now, the Jew among nations is seated on the dock of the accused in international institutions and vilified by their legal mechanisms. Meir Linzen mentioned the ICC and the ICJ in his speech at this forum. I will delve further into the implication of why this is not just a Jewish issue or a Jewish lawyers’ issue, but a far more existential moment for all who cherish these foundational principles, mechanisms, and institutions that were mandated and entrusted to uphold, promote, and protect this international rules-based order equally and consistently. The 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism gave birth to a second blood libel, the accusation that “Israel is an apartheid state.” Israel Apartheid weeks have occurred since that 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism on every campus across North America, Europe and Australia, and in other areas as well. So, we have “Zionism as racism” as blood libel number one and “Israel Apartheid week” as blood libel number two. Now there are 24 years’ worth of university graduates who believe that “Zionism is racism” and who opine that “Israel is an apartheid state.” In addition to, or alongside, these Israel apartheid weeks, what takes place is the very lengthy democratic process to create a holistic definition of antisemitism. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism is a critical resource. It enables us to identify all strains of what an evermutating virus is. That is why it includes eleven examples. The working definition was adopted by more than 40 countries, and more than 1,200 entities, including many universities. As lawyers, we know that every law begins with definitions. If you cannot define a phenomenon, you cannot identify and then combat it. The IHRA working definition of antisemitism was created not by the State of Israel nor by Jews, but by those who understand the ever-mutating ability of this lethal hate that latches onto guiding social constructs of each time period, including this pernicious strain of antiZionism or the denial of Israel's very right to exist. AntiZionism turns the Zionist into a racist. That then enables the resurgence of all strains of antisemitism in those eleven examples included in the definition, from the Jews killing Jesus to the Jews controlling the world, to the individual Jew responsible for the actions of the State of Israel − which is demonized, illegitimized, and subject to double standards − whether that Jew (or Zionist) happens to be in Sydney, Australia, or Montreal, Canada, or in Amsterdam. The understanding that anti-Zionism has created this new strain of antisemitism means that this mutated lethal strain affects a significantly broader range of targets. You need not be a Jew to be the target of this lethal hate. My friend, Congressman Ritchie Torres in the United States, is not a Jew, and yet is as much a target of this strain of anti-Zionism because he simply believes in Israel's right to exist even though he does not live in Israel. In this analysis, which identifies the 1975 blood libel number one that “Zionism is racism” and blood libel number two from the 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism that “Israel is an apartheid state,” we witness the most Orwellian inversion of fact and law in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 massacre. The State of Israel defends itself from the openly declared intent to perpetrate
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=