THE GLOBAL RISE OF ANTI-SEMITISM – OLGA DEUTSCH

Olga Deutsch is the vice president of NGO Monitors, a globally recognised research institute promoting democratic values and good governance that works to ensure that decision makers and civil society operate in accordance with the principles of accountability, transparency, and universal human rights. Over the past 12 years Olga Deutsch has held senior positions in the private sector in Europe and Israel. During a visit to Australia sponsored by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Olga Deutsch addressed The Sydney Institute on Thursday 31 March 2022 to discuss the work of NGO Monitors in combatting a rise in antisemitism among NGOs world wide. The paper which follows has been taken from an edited transcript.

THE GLOBAL RISE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

OLGA DEUTSCH

I’d like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to The Sydney Institute, as well as to AIJAC who have allowed me to be your guest here tonight. It is an honour and a pleasure to be in Sydney. This is my first visit to Australia, so the excitement is even greater. I will talk about the rise in anti-semitism globally and ongoing endeavours to understand what it actually means, how we can monitor it, as well as once we understand it, what is it we could possibly do to try to remedy it, on a policy level. The focus on Europe will be lessons learned, and the steps that Europe has undertaken so far, and hopefully bringing it into the Australian context so that you might get a few shortcuts and you don’t have to do the longer way as Europe had to.

It is no surprise that we have all been witnessing a dire rise in anti-semitism over the last several years. It became horrifying in 2018 and 2019, with the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the Halle synagogue shooting in Germany, because those, all of a sudden, jumped us from verbal antisemitic attacks and monitoring, into the things we see in Europe, which is fatalities and shootings in our synagogues. Last year, however, saw an even greater rise in anti-semitism. The Anti-Defamation League, in its annual report on anti-semitism reported that 60 per cent of American Jews experienced some type of anti-semitism attack, verbal or other, in 2021. In New York alone, 38 per cent of hate crimes were anti-semitic, in 2021. In France, UK and Germany, respectively, last year saw an increase by 75 per cent, 34 per cent and 30 per cent. Here in Australia, you recorded an increase of 35 per cent. Why was last year special? What was different?

Most of the people debating this will say that it was the May 2021 Gaza conflict. Which brings us to the heart of what I would like to dedicate most of my talk tonight on, and that is understanding contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, and Israel. Colin Rubenstein and I were in Canberra this morning, and in our conversations with the members of Parliament, I quoted the late Chief Rabbi of the UK, Rabbi Sacks and he used to compare anti-semitism to a mutating virus. He said it keeps evolving throughout the ages. In the medieval times, Jews were prosecuted as a religion, and the way to normalise that in broader society was through church and religious theological explanations. In the nineteenth and twentieth century, Jews were prosecuted for their race. We saw quasi scientific attempts to explain that to the broader public and normalise it; the last and the most fatal and catastrophic manifestation of that being the theory of race in Nazi Germany.

In modern times, Jews are being persecuted for all these things, but also for their nation state, the state of Israel. The only Jewish democracy. The way to normalise that in the broader discourse, and in the public, is through human rights. The late Rabbi Sacks used to say that when you hear someone questioning the right of Jews for self determination and the right of the state of Israel to exist in the context of human rights – meaning that Israel is violating human rights or Israel is an apartheid state and so on – you are probably looking into the eyes of an anti-semite, just in a modern wardrobe.

Interestingly, the American Jewish committee conducted a study together with a French local think tank, that was released only about a month ago, on what constituted anti-semitism. They polled French citizens on what constituted anti-semitism in 2021 in France. Interestingly, those who identified as Jews, 62 per cent of them said that rejection and hatred of Israel was the source of antisemitism. But when they pulled those identifying as culturally or religiously Muslim and Catholic, the percentages were similar. Those that identified as Muslim were 46 per cent, and Catholic’s were 53 per cent. Meaning that, across denominations, rejecting and hating Israel was identified as one of the main sources of contemporary anti-semitism. A month and a half ago, we saw Amnesty International’s report of over a hundred pages, claiming, or trying to make a legal argument, that Israel is an apartheid state.

Basically, the report said that Israel from its creation in 1948 is a systematic endeavour to impose Jewish supremacy over another race. Systematic on a governmental level throughout all of its policies and institutions. If you pause for a second and think about it – in 2022, is there a graver, more serious allegation than to call one racist? To accuse a Jewish democracy – the only Jewish state – that was created in the ashes of the Holocaust, a racist endeavour is twice as grave as in any other case. This is what I would like to talk about. I serve as the Vice President of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem based research organisation created and presided over by Professor Gerald Steinberg. We focus on a seemingly niche issue, which is the activities of the human rights and the humanitarian non-governmental organisations, NGOs, such as Amnesty International, which focus and operate in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But our research shows, instead of promoting human rights and humanitarian issues, they tend to promote anti-semitism, different types of delegitimisation of the state of Israel, and as we have seen in the last couple of years, in certain cases have clear affiliation and links to terror organisations. I’ll give you a few examples of how they do, and how it manifests itself into practice. Then, in the later part of my presentation, I’d like to share with you some of the policy, best practices with a focus on Europe. I mentioned Amnesty’s report, but the Amnesty report making an allegation that Israel is apartheid, is not standalone; it is the third of its kind only in the last year and a half.

The first one was issued by Human Rights Watch (HWR), another global so-called human rights organisation, followed by another one, making exactly the same claim, by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation. Interestingly, Amnesty’s report, if you analyse it, most of the sources and footnotes lead to the same few NGOs, including HRW, and B’Tselem, and on the other hand, a series of terror linked organisations. Let me enlighten you as to what that means. In August 2019, there was a terror attack. It took place near Jerusalem. A girl, Rina Shnerb, who was 16, took a stroll with her father and brother, and an explosive was detonated which killed her on the spot. Three months later in December 2019, Israeli media reported that Israeli security authorities arrested 50 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terror group designated as such by the European Union, United States, Canada and Israel.

Shockingly, at least five of these 50 were senior employees – executive director, financial director and so on – of Palestinian human rights and humanitarian groups. One of the groups focusing on agricultural projects, seemingly helping Palestinian peasants to work their land, have easier access to agricultural infrastructure and so on. The other one was focusing on healthcare. The third one on women issues. So, on its own, it seemed like a line of important civil society representatives. This sparked an incredible wave of shocking reactions around Europe, because in the moment of their arrest as well as of the terror attack, all these groups were enjoying generous grants through the official corporation and development programs of the EU and other European, mainly Western European countries. The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and so on.

We have identified 13 NGOs in the PFLP terror network that almost operate a third leg of the organisation. PLFP is first and foremost a political party, just like Hamas, but it also has a terror wing, a military. But this one, in a brilliant twist, they have a third wing, which is the NGO network. The funding that they enjoy from the European governments who believe that they are helping them develop democratic values, sustainable societies, promoting human rights and so on – the funding is not even the most problematic aspect of the relationship. It is the platform and the legitimacy that working with these governments or putting an EU logo on one of your brochures or activities that these governments are lending to these groups. It is the same groups, like Al Haq, DCIP (Defense for Children Palestine) and UAWC Union of Agricultural Work Committees) that are lobbying against Israel. Calling it an apartheid state at the UN and other international forums.

In the last year alone, the United Nations created two special committees that will be investigating Israel, and the allegation that Israel is committing apartheid crimes. The commission of inquiry on Israel, which is supposed to meet in June, is a permanent one. All the other commissions of inquiry on other countries, including one on Ukraine that was created, are ad hoc and one-off commissions. That on its own is quite telling. We expect that this year alone, the United Nations will issue at least five reports trying to prove that Israel is an apartheid state. There is one purpose to that. All this will be used as information and proof that will be sent to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Haigh, trying to prompt them to expedite the case and continue with the investigation. The other side of the NGO angle is that a lot of the same groups promote blatant anti-semitic narratives and tropes. Some of them evoking medieval, old school, neo-Nazi antisemitic tropes, such as Oxfam in the UK, just last summer, selling Mein Kampf in their online store.

When we sent them an official letter asking how this could be possible in 2020, we got an official response saying that they had taken and it down, and it was an oversight by a junior employee. No matter how young you are – and this is where the challenge for our societies actually comes into the picture – one should know that seeing Hitler’s image, a swastika, and seeing the words “Mein Kampf” is not content that should be sold anywhere online. Let alone in the online store of an esteemed global human rights church-based organisation. In a country like the UK, that traditionally does not have a serious challenge with anti-semitism unlike some other countries in Europe, you have a line of Palestinian organisations. One such is BADIL (Resource Center for Palestinian Residency) that runs an annual poster contest. The winner receives a monetary prize, and every year we see a series of posters with anti-semitic and Israel focused motives as winners.

I can take you back to 2010, when there was a poster of an Hasidic looking Jew, with visibly identifiable elements to it, standing on a box covered with Stars of David on a pile of dead Palestinian bodies, holding keys in his hand. Keys are a symbol that Palestinians use as the keys to their land that was taken away from them in 1948. The analogy is clear. On another poster that won another year, the map of Israel was torn in the middle, and it split in pieces making a clear analogy. In one of their annual bulletins, Palestinian Medical Relief Services, which is supposed to provide medical services and assist Palestinian people in offering complimentary medical services, ran, a series of caricatures by a well-known anti-Israel, antisemitic caricaturist, Latuff. One of them featured then prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, stamping Palestinian babies on their way to the oven – a clear reference to the Holocaust. Another one showed a pile of Palestinian bodies in striped uniforms – again a clear reference to the Holocaust. The third one showed an old Palestinian woman covering her head with a Palestinian flag, with “1948” tattooed on her hand that was bleeding – again a clear analogy to the Holocaust.

What we see here is a merging of old-fashioned anti-semitism in the context of Israel, as the Jewish democracy. We see these reports as sources of information on discussions, in panels, in the United Nations, in the parliaments in different countries. Once they are featured there, we see them trickle down into policy suggestions. Bills that are being proposed and put to the vote. That is the dangerous part. It is not just the mere antisemitism, but these groups are also financially and legitimately supported by the European governments, sometimes knowingly and sometimes not. At the same time, they’re being brought in as experts on what is going on, on the ground. Each time, in the context of Jews and Israel committing dire violations of human rights. So again, anti-semitism today is brought to us in the context of human rights.

So, how are we dealing with this, and what has happened on all these issues in the last two years alone? On the issue of terror affiliated organisations, in the aftermath of the terror attack and the involvement of NGOs, we have seen the EU, the Netherlands and Belgium open official investigations into potential diversions of public funds – taxpayer money – to NGOs. If you pause for a second and just listen to that sentence, there is a change of paradigm. Ten to 15 years ago, no one would have entertained a discussion that a human rights NGO could do any wrong. Today at least, we see that, willingly or not, there are investigations. Governments are looking into that. In November 2021, a dramatic thing happened that pushed this even further. The state of Israel designated six of these Palestinian NGOs as terror fronts.

I want to focus on the language used in the designations, because this was relevant in the policy discussion. Israel did not accuse them of funding terror; they did not even accuse them of being terrorists. They accused them of recruiting activists for a designated terror organisation – that means giving them lucrative jobs so that when the network is needed, the network is in place. Israel also accused them of serving as fronts to grant legitimacy and promote the insightful and hateful narratives of the designated group. This language is pivotal in trying to understand the challenge that we are facing. If in the past, for example, the EU had said that EU funds or the EU would not support entities that appear on the EU list of restrictive measures – which is basically the EU terror list – that was just simply not enough. Unlike ISIS or Al Qaeda, that also have individuals attached to the names of the organisations on the EU terror lists, no Palestinian organisation that is listed as a terror group has any individual name listed.

So, how do you counter that? In 2017, a PLFP activist that hijacked a plane in the 1960s, appeared in a packed European parliament. There was no legal ground not to allow her to enter the parliament.

In the last two years, we have seen a tightening of that language, and the language that is now used says we will not tolerate any entity or third party, or even a workshop hosted that has any affiliation to a terror group that appears on our terror list. That is a significant policy shift. The EU and the Netherlands immediately froze their funding, and so did Germany. The German Foreign Minister announced during her visit last month to Israel that they will not engage with the six designated NGOs.

On the front of anti-semitism itself, we have an extremely important guiding tool – the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) which is an international alliance of governments and other international bodies, including the UN, the EU and the OECD. They have come up with a practical definition of what constitutes anti-semitism, namely:

Anti-semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

This is a simple definition that has 11 examples attached to it. Examples that actually tell you what the situations are in everyday life that would constitute anti-semitism. It stipulates that criticising the state of Israel is not anti-semitic. However, judging Israel on standards you would not apply to any other state is anti-semitic. Blaming the local Jewish community in Sydney for the policies of Israel is anti-semitic. Members of the local Sydney community are not Israeli citizens. Comparing Israel to Nazism is anti-semitic. It combines contemporary Zionism or Israel focused examples, with the old school, neo-Nazi types of anti-semitism, that are easier to identify and which broader society knows how to tell the difference, and that are easier to condemn. Because they also belong to the past, the far right, the neo-Nazis and so on.

So far, this working definition has been adopted by 37 different governments, but in total, 865 different entities; local and federal governments, municipalities, universities, schools, in certain cases the Ministry of Education – although the parliament itself hasn’t adopted it. It is an incredibly important tool, it is a legally non-binding definition, which makes it policy wise a much easier tool to work with, because it doesn’t have to be legislated and it’s not a law. It’s a guiding tool that is supposed to help in practical terms to identify the situations and navigate the sometimes complex waters of distinguishing what is ant-isemitism and what is not, today. Adopting it at a parliamentary level is a very important first step because it sets the tone. It sends a clear message from the elected officials of any one government that we will not tolerate anti-semitism, and this is the tool that we want to use to address it.

But it is not enough, because that is the declarative step. If it stays on that level, then the government and its institutions and executive bodies will not know how to implement it in practice. For example, there was a case in 2009, in a small city in Germany, of attempted arson in setting a synagogue on fire. Three individuals were arrested – they turned out to be Palestinian – and in a court case, the judge eventually decided that this was not a hate crime. It was not anti-semitic. It was merely “an expression of political frustration over the events in the Middle East”. That would not happen in Germany today, because the German government has adopted the IHRA working definition and has appointed the Federal Coordinator for Combating Antisemitism, as well as on a local and regional level. They have all been working together in translating this and applying it on different policy levels.

The police officers need to be trained and offered tools to know when he or she is making an arrest, whether this is a hate crime, an anti-semitic crime, or a crime. Judges need guidance too. If we in the Jewish community cannot always easily define what constitutes anti-semitism today, we cannot expect that our fellow non-Jewish citizens will know better than us. The IHRA working definition is that much more important in training and offering guidance. The same goes for campuses and universities. Whether is it a professor that makes a problematic statement in their book or a lecture, and a student feels offended and violated, there should be less of a debate of what is anti-semitic. The IHRA working definition can help us there, and to understand whether it was or not.

The European Union, several years after adopting the IHRA working definition on a parliamentary level, in January 2021, issued a handbook on practical implementation of the working definition. It’s very short and to the point, and covers five policy areas, with clear guidelines on how to apply the working definition, as well as best practices from different member states. It covers the judicial system, law enforcement, educational systems, funding and international funding with regard to development and corporation aids, or basically funding, that goes to NGOs around the world, as well as civil society. Interestingly, the IHRA working definition is used both to promote and support those that use it as a tool to combat antisemitism, as well as to sanction those that promote anti-semitism, because that is the way to benchmark and check whether someone is promoting anti-semitic content or not.

There is an ongoing debate in Australia. Parliaments and institutions in Australia have adopted the IHRA working definition. I believe that the lessons learned from Europe are extremely important because they can shorten the distance between the declarative political statement, made by parliaments and different institutions, and the practical application that will make a difference on the ground. That goes to the media, social media and the traditional media. The European Commission – the executive body of the European Union – is investing a lot of effort and resources into working with social media companies and trying to somehow regulate the cyberspace without shrinking the freedom of speech and narrowing the space online. The terror linked guidelines and the IHRA working definition are the two best policy tools that we can apply. That does not mean that we want to restrict or control NGOs, or the civil society.

Civil society is one of the most important, pivotal backbones of any thriving democracy. No one knows better than someone like me, coming from Europe, that in the aftermath of the Second World War, civil societies were almost supposed to serve as the conscience of elected officials. It’s a complementary force. But at the same time, we need to demand the same transparency and accountability from the civil society as we do from our elected officials in the public sector and our businessmen in the private sector. In the first two, the rules are clear. The expectations are clearly defined and in case of a violation between market laws, legislations and a vote of trust or no trust in the case of our elected officials, the sanction is clear.

But when it comes to the third sector, the NGOs, there are no rules. There are no demands of transparency or accountability. There are no vetting procedures of who is and who is not an expert on any one issue. Who should be brought into a discussion on this topic, and used as a source that will eventually influence the way we discuss the topic and what kind of policies we offer as a remedy.