Antisemitism: The Power of Myth - Confronting Antisemitism

• ‹ previous
• 3 of 8
• next ›

What responsibilities does a society have to protect everyone in the community or nation? To what extent is a crime against one group in a community a crime against the community as a whole? In the foreword to a report on antisemitism in Europe published by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Executive Director Michael Posner reflected on those questions:

A year ago the United Nations convened the third World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. The conference was intended to highlight particularly serious patterns of racism and racial discrimination around the world and to shape appropriate global responses. The meeting succeeded in raising public attention with respect to some particularly egregious situations-not the least the plight of 250 million victims of caste discrimination (among them the Dalits of India-the so-called "broken people," or "untouchables.")

Further, the conference provided a long overdue acknowledgment of the criminal nature of slavery ("that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been") and recommendations for the repair of its lasting consequences for people of African descent around the globe.

The conference also made clear that racism and racial discrimination need to be placed more squarely on the international human rights agenda. But what was positive in the conference process was seriously undermined when the World Conference itself became the setting for a series of antisemitic attacks. Directed primarily against representatives of Jewish groups, these attacks were fueled by the heated debates at the meeting concerning Israeli practices in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But the racist anti-Jewish animus displayed represented considerably more than criticism of Israeli policies and practices.

Most of the offensive behavior occurred during meetings of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individual participants in a forum that paralleled the intergovernmental conference. Throughout the five-day NGO forum, antisemitic cartoons and materials were distributed widely and on display, tolerated by the forum's nongovernmental organizers. Representatives from Jewish organizations were denied access to some meetings-either physically excluded or shouted down and attacked when they were present and tried to speak. Efforts to put antisemitism on the nongovernmental agenda were roundly defeated by an assembly of representatives and individual participants in procedures that were neither democratic nor principled.

Rather than serving as a forum for correcting racial and religious intolerance and hate, the public meetings and exhibition halls of the Durban conference became a place where pernicious racism was practiced and tolerated. Important recommendations adopted by the conference despite this environment, with a real potential to advance the fight against antisemitism-and other forms of racism-have as a consequence received inadequate attention....

The outbursts at Durban reflect a growing trend toward antisemitic expression and violence in many parts of the world. ...There is an alarming rise in antisemitic violence in Europe: but it is on the rise in other parts of the world as well. Unfortunately, with the notable exception of Jewish organizations and a number of other human rights and antiracist groups and institutions, the world community-governments, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations alike-has not responded adequately to this growing problem. Antisemitism is racism. Antisemitic acts need to be confronted more forcefully and treated as serious violations of international human rights. ...

We define antisemitism as hatred or hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. Governments and intergovernmental organizations need to routinely incorporate facts about antisemitic assaults, arson, vandalism, desecration of cemeteries, and the proliferation of antisemitic materials on the Internet into a wide range of existing human rights reporting mechanisms. Though some Jewish organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, are doing excellent reporting on these issues, their involvement does not relieve governments, the United Nations and its regional organizations, or private human rights groups of their obligations to address antisemitism as an integral part of their work.

...Too often European leaders have downplayed antisemitic acts as inevitable side effects of the current crisis in the Middle East. We reject this reasoning as an abdication of responsibility. Criticism of Israeli policies is not inherently antisemitic. But when such criticisms and related actions take the form of broadside attacks against "Jews" or the "Jewish State," they become racist.¹

Connections

Michael Posner argues that "governments, the United Nations and its regional organizations, and private human rights groups" have an obligation to speak out against antisemitism. In the early 1900s, Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, took a similar position. He maintained that no society can survive unless its members are willing to make sacrifices for one another and their community. He argued that altruism is not a "sort of agreeable ornament to social life" but the basis of society. What are the two suggesting about the obligations we as individuals and as members of groups have to one another? What do they suggest are the consequences of our silence?

What message do national leaders send when they respond aggressively to antisemitism and other forms of racism? What effect do you think a strong response would have on the victims? The perpetrators? Bystanders? What message do leaders send when they fail to acknowledge antisemitism or other forms of bigotry? What does a government's response to acts of racism reveal about the way the nation as a whole defines its universe of obligation?

Over 70 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from mainly Central and Eastern Europe protested "the blatantly intolerant anti-Semitic spirit" at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban. Among those groups was the European Roma Rights Center, which is based in Budapest, Hungary. Although the group was pleased that the conference drew attention to discrimination against the "Gypsies," who call themselves the Roma, the organization was disturbed by the treatment of Jews. Director Veronika Leila Szente Goldston said in an interview, "Although it is correct that our activities focus on Roma, we are also a human rights organization. As such we can not stand at the sideline when we see another vulnerable group suffering under what can only be described as discrimination and racism."²

In 1933, Martin Niemoller, a minister in Germany, supported the Nazi party. By 1938, he was in a concentration camp. After the war, he is believed to have said:

In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.

How does Niemoller's statement explain why the Roma spoke out? What is Niemoller suggesting about the role of the bystander in a community? About the importance of the way a community defines its universe of obligation? Would Posner agree? See also "The Hangman," which is reprinted on pages 204-206 of Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior. It is also available on video.

How does Posner define antisemitism? How does he distinguish between "criticism of Israeli policies" and antisemitic acts? What does his definition add to your working definition?

¹ "Foreword" by Michael Posner. Fire and Broken Glass: The Rise of Antisemitism in Europe. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 2002, pp. ii-iii. The full report is available at www.lchr.org.

² "NGO's Protest Anti-Semitism at World Conference" by Stefan J. Bos. ASSIST News Service, September 6, 2001. www.asssistnews.net. How do she and her organization define their "universe of obligation"?

• ‹ previous
• 3 of 8
• next ›