8 No. 74 JUSTICE We cannot think for a moment that this is just about the State of Israel, that this is just about Jews and Zionists around the world, and that it is not about the dangerous collapse of the infrastructure post-World War II, written in the ashes of the Holocaust and the promise of “Never Again.” Even as we witness this axis of evil of which Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are proxies of just one member, the Islamic Republic of Iran, we can, of course, add Russia and China. China is a great example because the utilitarian antisemitism of China came into play just weeks after October 7. I do not know how familiar you are with Bin Laden's “Letter to America,” which was disseminated on TikTok weeks after October 7. You might ask, “what's the connection?” Well, the connection was very clear with Gen Zers, who suddenly understood that Bin Laden was right, just as Hamas is right in this war of barbarism on our shared civilization. And so, if we encapsulate the understanding that we have as lawyers, it is that it began at the Liebermann Villa in which the Wannsee Conference took place. Though I know what it is that enabled the creation of the Final Solution, seeing on paper the clarity with which the number of Jews in each and every country is listed, I note that nine of the fifteen men in that room were lawyers. More than half held doctorates. The understanding that it is the hijacking and weaponization of the law that enables the systematic demonization, delegitimization, and double standards, as I called it, “that mechanism” that is integral to the IHRA working definition of antisemitism as opposed to all the other definitions that have been suggested. Only the IHRA is the result of a long democratic process, and only the IHRA working definition is internationally recognized, adopted by more than 40 countries, and more than 1,200 entities. That understanding becomes a personal issue for any one of us who understands the danger of enabling the co-opting and weaponization of the law, which can then justify, legitimize, and enable the worst atrocities that have occurred throughout history. The hope that I have is the understanding that for thousands of years our people had no ability to fight back; no ability to rise from the dock of the accused. We know J’accuse and Émile Zola and so on, but now we have the ability and the responsibility. Only now that we have about 45% of us in that nation state to which we returned after thousands of years of exile and persecution, in the State of Israel, 45% of us are in North America and 10% of us are in the rest of the world in relative safety and security. Although it is very unpleasant, we have the responsibility to face this as a people, recognizing that we are the front lines of this raging existential war on our shared humanity, freedom, and the dignity of difference, to which the late Rabbi Sacks made very clear − that antisemitism is the most reliable sign of a major threat. That understanding not only gives me this sense of urgency, but also a sense of hope. I quote the late Rabbi Sacks again, who says hope, as contrasted with optimism, “is the belief that together we can make something okay.” Hope is a very active virtue that takes courage. I have witnessed three of my children serve as soldiers, as well as all our friends’ children, and all of our children’s friends. I have witnessed a generation of action and courage. And it is the role and responsibility of our generation: to be able to not only witness what they are doing and have done, rising to the challenge and running towards the fire, if you will, on October 7. The responsibility for all of us, each in our world and in this case in our legal world, is to act with courage in the way that IJL does and in many contexts. Each participating individual − wherever you may be from − provides the sense of hope that I believe enables us to renew not just the covenant of fate, but also the sense of being a prototypical indigenous people. This is not just a religion (we have a religion), not just a culture (we have a culture), not just a state (now that we have a state), but a prototypical indigenous people. The covenant of destiny, not just fate in which antisemitism, hate from the outside, defines for us or reminds us of who we are as a people, but the covenant of destiny in which we opt in, we lean on, we choose proactively to not just fight back, but to remember who we are. We need to reclaim our identity as Zionists, which is integral to the identity of the majority of Jews and not something that we can shed when convenient. We need to reclaim the foundational and human rights principles that have been hijacked and appropriated, and in many ways renew that covenant of destiny to be able to realize not just our role and responsibility as individuals, as collectives, as communities, but as the nation state of the Jewish People. Q&A Session with Michal Cotler-Wunsh Q: Please clarify the idea of defining and appropriating a legal definition or legal violation for a purpose other than the law intended? A: When you equate Zionism with racism, you not only do an injustice to Zionism, the progressive national
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