Not always has the State of Israel seen the struggle against antisemitism around the world as its fight. For the first 25 years of Israel's existence, the unspoken attitude in Jerusalem was that "if Jews abroad have a problem with anti-Semites they can always migrate to Israel," and "Antisemitism is a Diaspora problem for Diaspora Jews and their host countries; it is not Israel's problem."
But as raw anti-Semitism around the world has risen and morphed into virulent anti-Israel sentiment – making the two phenomena almost indistinguishable – the State of Israel has moved from indifference to active involvement in the struggle against such hate.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
The campaign of political delegitimization against Israel launched by Arab countries after the Yom Kippur War involved an avalanche of propaganda that blended antisemitism with anti-Zionism, and led to the infamous 1975 "Zionism is Racism" resolution at the UN.
After the 1980 Rue Copernic synagogue bombing in Paris and other terror attacks, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin took the decision to have Israeli intelligence officials begin advising Jewish communities abroad on security measures. Response to antisemitism thus found a concrete place on Israel's national agenda.
In 1988, then-cabinet secretary Elyakim Rubinstein established an "Inter-Ministerial Forum for Monitoring Anti-Semitism," and expanded it to include Diaspora Jewish representatives and academic experts. The Forum compiled reports on antisemitism around the world and eventually won a place on the Israeli cabinet's agenda, reporting once a year.
Nevertheless, back then some American Jewish leaders felt that global antisemitism wasn't Israel's fight; that the struggle to educate and legislate against antisemitism should be left to them. They resisted Israeli attempts to lead or coordinate anti-antisemitism activity.
The watershed moment that changed this – that clarified how antisemitism had become a strategic threat to Israel and to Jews everywhere, requiring global coordination – was the 2001 World Conference against Racism (under UN auspices), known as Durban I. That conference turned into one of the greatest displays of organized anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate ever, with the two maladies becoming a blended noxious potion.
Shortly afterwards, in 2003, then-Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, Natan Sharansky, founded the Global Forum against Antisemitism. This brought together Jewish leaders and intellectuals from the Diaspora with all relevant Israeli agencies.
Sharansky's intellectual leadership brought discipline and focus to global Jewish community activity against antisemitism. His Global Forum drew attention to the mass production of violently antisemitic and genocidal propaganda in the Arab and Islamic worlds, with Egypt and Iran at the center of the spreading poison. The Forum also highlighted the dangers of cyberhate.
Most importantly, Sharansky innovated a critically important effort to expose antisemitism that was cloaked as "mere opposition" to Israel and Zionism. He showed how anti-Zionism often employs the same tactics of demonization, discrimination and double standards against Israel that antisemites historically (and still today) use against Jews; and with the same aim – to strip Jews and/or Israel of rights or power.
He then introduced a benchmark – the "3D test" – for distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism, by scrutinizing criticism of Israel for demonization, double standards and delegitimization. Use of these tactics mark the devolution of commentary about Israel into the dark zone of antisemitic expression and intent, Sharansky argued.
In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a working definition of antisemitism based on Sharansky's work. The IHRA definition explicitly recognizes that anti-Zionism – the delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state – is a clear and unequivocal expression of antisemitism.
Almost all Israeli leaders today believe that the Jewish state must play a role in highlighting and trying to combat both the "old" antisemitism and the "new" toxic new blend of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The convening this week in Jerusalem of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is part of this effort.
Israel expects world leaders coming to the conference not only to memorialize Holocaust victims. Israel expects world leaders to commit themselves to concretely fighting antisemitic expression and activity in their own countries – in consonance with the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and in a way that protects Israel's place in the world at a time when the very legitimacy of a Jewish state is under assault.