5 Fall 2026 Aryan and sub-human. When the zeitgeist in the 1970s became human rights — as “the new secular religion of our times” — Israel became the meta human rights violator — emerging as the enemy of all that is good, and the embodiment of all that is evil. In other words, Israel became the new geopolitical Antichrist of our time. In an era of human rights and revolutionary developments in international law, as we mark the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – the embodiment of the International Bill of Rights – we mark also three tipping points of this new antisemitism. The first tipping point occurred in 1974 when Israel was held out as: the enemy of labor, with a resolution of the International Labor Organization condemning alleged Israeli suppression of Palestinian trade unionism; the enemy of health, with a resolution of the World Health Organization condemning alleged Israeli poisonings of Palestinians in the West Bank; the enemy of culture, with a UNESCO resolution condemning alleged Israeli desecration of Palestinian holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank; the enemy of women, with a resolution of the UN Commission on the Status of Women condemning Israel for its alleged suppression of Palestinian women’s rights; the enemy of peace, with a resolution of the UN General Assembly condemning Israel as a non-peace-loving nation. Finally, Israel was held out as the enemy of human rights, with a resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights — the predecessor of the UN Human Rights Council — condemning alleged Israeli suppression of human rights. So it was that Israel, as the enemy of labor, health, culture, women, peace, and human rights, became the enemy of all that is good and the embodiment of all that is evil — culminating in the 1975 UN General Assembly “Zionism is Racism” resolution — which the late U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan said “gave the abomination of antisemitism the appearance of international legal sanction.” The resolution began the long process of the laundering of antisemitism under the protective cover of the UN, the authority of international law, the culture of human rights, and the very struggle against racism itself — a process which proceeded sometimes imperceptibly, often indulgently, but inexorably over the next 50 years. The second tipping point occurred at the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. When it was announced in the late 1990s that this World Conference was to be held in South Africa, I greeted this with excitement and anticipation. This was to be the first international human rights conference of the 21st century; it was to be the first international conference in which anti-racism was to be the organizing theme; and it was going to be held in Durban, South Africa, the birthplace of South African apartheid. As someone who had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement for years, I was delighted to be part of the Canadian Government’s delegation to the conference, while participating also in both the NGO and student forums. What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian. A World Conference Against Racism and Hate was turned into a conference of racism and hate against Israel and the Jewish People. A world conference on human rights singled out one state — Israel, and one people — the Jewish People, for selective opprobrium and indictment. A world conference that was to commemorate the dismantling of South Africa as an apartheid state became a conference calling for the dismantling of Israel as an apartheid state. I can still see the marches and demonstrations, the thousands of students, NGOs, and others marching; I can still hear the chants that kept repeating themselves, “that the struggle against racism in the 20th century required the dismantling of South Africa as an apartheid state, and the struggle against racism in the 21st century requires the dismantling of Israel as an apartheid state.” I can still see the placards and posters – not only about Israel and apartheid, but Israel as a genocidal, Nazi state. I can still see the stereotypical posters and placards of Jews with hooked noses and fangs dripping in blood. I can still see the images of a group of Jewish students being assaulted right outside of the NGO forum, being told “you don't belong to the human race.” Those of us who were at Durban have been forever transformed. Durban has indelibly implanted not only on our memory, but on our being. I flew back from Durban to Montreal on September 10. I awoke the next morning, on September 11, to 9/11. I remember receiving a call later that day from one of my South African colleagues who had been at the Durban conference. She said to me something that I never forgot — she said that if 9/11 was the Kristallnacht of terror, then Durban was the Mein Kampf. Durban became the second tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism under the protective cover of human rights and international law, and for the weaponizing of international law for the singling out of the Jewish State and the Jewish People for selective opprobrium and indictment.
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