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<\/a><\/p>\nAmichai Chikli Israel\u2019s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, at the outset, rejected the idea that the problem can be managed with softer language and broader disclaimers. \u201cFor decades, the fight against antisemitism has been driven by good intentions and by false illusions,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was the belief that if we choose the right words, avoid offense, and wrap everything in political correctness, antisemitism will gradually fade away.\u201d Then he drew his line in the sand: \u201cPolitical correctness and the fight against antisemitism cannot coexist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chikli\u2019s point was not abstract. He listed recent violent cases as proof that the \u201cit\u2019s just discourse\u201d framing has collapsed. \u201cIn the past year alone,\u201d he said, \u201cJews were murdered in Bondi Beach, Sydney, in Manchester, DC, Colorado, and here in Israel, for one reason only: because they were Jews.\u201d He insisted the response requires a willingness to say what many governments avoid saying: \u201cYou do not defeat antisemitism by pretending it has no clear source or ideology behind it. And if we are serious about fighting antisemitism, we must name it, define it, confront it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
One reason the gathering drew so much attention within the diplomatic community was the presence of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama\u2014the only sitting foreign head of government to attend in person and the most prominent active leader on the roster. His speech avoided the cautious choreography common in international forums. \u201cAntisemitism is not merely hatred against Jews,\u201d Rama said. \u201cIt is an assault on the moral architecture of humanity itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rama anchored his message in Albania\u2019s record during WWII and in the ethical and cultural code of besa\u2014often translated as \u201ca solemn oath\u201d\u2014which refers to an obligation to protect a guest. Recounting the Nazi demand for lists of Jews and their gold, he offered what he described as Albania\u2019s response: \u201cYou can take their gold.\u201d Then followed the sentence that drew a sharp reaction in the room: \u201cYou cannot take our Jews.\u201d Rama framed that choice as an insistence that societies prove, in concrete terms, that they are willing to protect Jews when it becomes costly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Israeli President Isaac Herzog. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n Israeli President Isaac Herzog steered the conversation toward the moral consequences of historical collapse and the speed at which distortion spreads. \u201cThe gates of Auschwitz opened, and the world gazed into the darkness of pure evil,\u201d Herzog said, and then pivoted to the present: \u201cGathering to remember and to bear witness is not a passive act.\u201d His argument was that remembrance cannot be treated as ritual while public life absorbs narratives that relativize the Holocaust or repurpose its language for political convenience.\u00a0<\/p>\n The conference\u2019s public programming was only one layer of a broader sequence. It followed a special session at the Knesset, and preceded a gala evening where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the international delegation, framing antisemitism as part of a wider assault on Israel\u2019s legitimacy and on the idea that truth can still win in public arenas. \u201cThe people who burn Jewish flags, the people who shout, \u2018Death to Israel,\u2019 they don\u2019t want a Palestinian state,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want a Jewish-less state.\u201d<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s speech connected the rhetorical ecosystem to real-world violence, citing the Washington attack in blunt terms: \u201cJust recently, two Israeli diplomats were brutally murdered in Washington, DC.\u201d He warned that the line between incitement and action is thinner than many policymakers want to admit: \u201cIt starts with words. It can end with bullets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n That linkage\u2014words to violence\u2014surfaced repeatedly in the panels, including one titled The Right\u2019s Crossroads: Antisemitism and the Far Right. The session wasn\u2019t a generic debate about ideology. It became a practical argument about persuasion; how to confront antisemitic narratives without using messaging that alienates the very audiences you\u2019re trying to reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n Political commentator Karys Rhea delivered the sharpest on-stage challenge of the day, directing it at Chikli\u2014supportive in tone, but openly critical about strategy. \u201cMinister Chikli, I love you from the bottom of my heart,\u201d she began, \u201cbut if you are talking to a group of America First conservatives, do not bring up Germany as an example with their banning of Holocaust denial and arresting people for hate speech.\u201d She argued that persuasion requires cultural translation, not a one-size-fits-all script. \u201cIf we want to address antisemitic tropes and we\u2019re talking to populist right-wingers,\u201d Rhea said, \u201cwe need to get people to understand that Israel is having more babies than any other developed country in the world, that Israel still has strong national pride, that masculinity and the warrior mentality are still valued.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Her point was to sharpen the fight and to stop treating antisemitism as if it speaks one dialect. \u201cWe need to be doing twice as much work now,\u201d she said, calling for fluency on right-wing conspiracy claims as well as progressive anti-Israel narratives. She warned that the spread is accelerating. \u201cThis fever,\u201d she said, borrowing a phrase she credited to Reverend Johnny Moore, \u201cspreads like wildfire, and we can\u2019t confront it in the same way that we have been used to doing when we confront it on the left.\u201d<\/p>\n Rev. Johnny Moore. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaking onstage, used the language of social breakdown rather than foreign policy. After describing the Bondi Beach attack\u2014\u201cwhen two extreme Islamist terrorists, a father and his son, opened fire on a joyous and innocent gathering of Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah\u201d\u2014he argued that the consequences go beyond the Jewish community. He cited Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks\u2019s warning that \u201cthe hate that begins with the Jews does not end with the Jews,\u201d and turned it into a diagnosis of national fragility. \u201cAustralians must confront not only the security and intelligence failures exposed by these attacks, but the fragility of our own society that was shredded by the antisemitism that was unleashed in Australia after October 7, long before these murders were committed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Morrison described the cultural lead-up as plainly as he described the violence. \u201cWithin 48 hours of October 7,\u201d he said, \u201cpro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House chanting violent antisemitic slogans.\u201d He portrayed the public sphere as permissive long before it became shocked.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former Australian PM Scott Morrison. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n That same fear\u2014late reaction, early warning\u2014was a recurring theme in conversations about major Western cities. Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, speaking with The Media Line, described antisemitism as something that metastasizes when leaders treat it as a niche problem. \u201cThis is not just a Jewish issue,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an issue of hate.\u201d Adams argued that normalization is what makes escalation possible. \u201cIf I allow this to exist in my city, it\u2019s going to grow,\u201d he warned. \u201cAnd it\u2019s going to turn into something else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The New York context was raised repeatedly during the conference because of the city\u2019s symbolic weight\u2014and the politics surrounding anti-BDS policies. In interviews and on stage, speakers treated BDS not as a fringe campus tactic but as a pipeline between activism, municipal policy, and institutional legitimacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alan Clemmons, a South Carolina Circuit Court judge and founder of American Patriots for Israel, focused on the legal tools states have used to push back against BDS, in particular, anti-BDS frameworks tied to government contracting. Speaking with The Media Line, Clemmons pointed to \u201cthe state laws that prohibit BDS for any business that wants to do business with state government or any subdivision of the state,\u201d adding that legal clarity matters because \u201cin order to push back on antisemitism, you\u2019ve got to be able to define antisemitism.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Natasha Hausdorff. (Gabriel Colodro\/The Media Line)<\/p>\n Clemmons highlighted the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition as a practical enforcement tool, not a slogan: \u201cThat gives us the ability to call it out when we see it and then to have repercussions for the antisemitism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Natasha Hausdorff, legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel, also centered her argument on the narrative vacuum and institutional drift. She told The Media Line that one reason \u201cfalse narratives and false accusations and, frankly, blood libels have been able to infect the public consciousness,\u201d is that Israel and its allies often left the field open\u2014mistaking silence for strength.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n She described an \u201cexponential increase\u201d in antisemitic targeting in the UK and said much of her work now involves students and campus intimidation, but also professions far from the headline protests. \u201cIncreasingly, we\u2019re also very involved in the medical profession, in different unions,\u201d she said, arguing that the problem has become embedded across sectors rather than confined to street demonstrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n The situation in Latin America was framed as a live political front\u2014one where antisemitism, anti-Israel positioning, and institutional legitimacy collide. Argentine Justice Minister Mariano C\u00faneo Libarona, speaking onstage, described a courtroom issue that becomes a public order problem when governments blur the lines. \u201cThere is no ideology that can justify attacks against civilians,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no cause that deserves the massacre of innocent lives.\u201d His message was that democratic systems collapse when they tolerate violence as a political dialect.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brazil\u2019s delegation carried a different kind of political weight\u2014future-facing rather than retrospective. Senator Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro highlighted that point immediately. \u201cI speak today as a senator and as a candidate for president of Brazil,\u201d he told the audience, placing his remarks in the context of Brazil\u2019s upcoming election cycle. His brother, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, speaking with The Media Line, framed the information battle as inseparable from policy outcomes. \u201cCensorship is never the answer,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause when you start censoring what I think is wrong, someone else will start censoring what you think is right.\u201d He described a broader drift in many democracies: institutions that once promised neutrality now taking sides\u2014often without admitting it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n