Don't turn a blind eye to antisemitism abroad - opinion

As Israel fights against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and prepares to fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Jewish people living abroad are also suffering. The year 2023 saw a massive 235% spike in antisemitic incidents recorded globally compared to the year before, according to a report published by the Diaspora Ministry, the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency. Of these, 46% of these violent antisemitic incidents took place in the US, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, and then other countries.

It was recently reported that antisemitic attacks in France nearly quadrupled in 2023 compared with 2022, since Operation Iron Swords was declared following the October 7 massacre. France 24 reported that the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said there were 1,676 antisemitic acts last year compared to 436 during the previous year. They claimed that nearly 60% of those acts were attacks involving physical violence, threatening words or menacing gestures. Worryingly, nearly 13% of antisemitic acts last year took place in schools, most of them in junior high schools.

France is not alone in this. Speaking to the US Bar Association, Aaron Keyak, the State Department’s deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, warned of the growth of antisemitism in China following Hamas’s massacre of Israelis October 7. “There’s been an increase in the People’s Republic of China’s state media and online discourse of antisemitic tropes that Jews control the United States through deep US-Israel ties, as well as control over banks, the media and influence over government leaders,” Keyak said.

According to the BBC, The Community Security Trust recorded 89 “anti-Jewish hate” incidents from the 7th to the 10th of October. That marked a more than four-fold rise over the 21 antisemitic incidents recorded in the same period last year. Sadly, the plight of Jews in Germany is not much better than it is in France and England. The Simon Wiesenthal Center expresses its outrage over the recently held Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Berlin reported by German daily Der Tagesspiegel. This event, shockingly, served as a platform for legitimizing violence against Jews and Israeli women and for expressing support for Hamas under the guise of free speech. Not only did it fail to unequivocally condemn Hamas’s acts of terrorism, but it also legitimized the terrorist group as essential for ‘socialist class consciousness.’

Sadly, the situation is not much better in the Golden Medina, the land of the free and home of the brave. In the three months since the October 7th massacre in Israel, US antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed, reaching a total of 3,291 incidents between October 7th and January 7th according to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) preliminary data. This represents a 361% increase compared to the same period the year before which saw 712 incidents.

Blood libel is back in full force

In the wake of these statistics, the blood libel accusation is back in full force across the world. The ADL recently reported: “Since the October 7th massacre perpetrated by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza, some anti-Israel voices in the Middle East, Europe, Australia and the United States have been using cartoons and social media posts to accuse Israel of stealing organs from Palestinians killed in Gaza, and to claim that “child murder” was a preferred “ritual” for Israel, with babies being a “favorite target.” Several posts depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as consuming Palestinian blood, while others used imagery of bleeding babies to play up charges of blood libel.”

AS ALL of this is going on, a group of young Armenians marched through the city of Yerevan. It was reported that they paid homage to a monument built in honor of Gargin Nzhdeh – a collaborator of the German Hitlerite regime, who recruited ethnic Armenians to serve in Nazi special services during the Second World War. Their website claims: “We should storm the streets with the slogan ‘Armenia for Armenians’ and show the world that the masters of Armenia can only be pure Armenians.”

This occurred after the only synagogue in Armenia fell victim to three separate arson attacks. ASALA, an Armenian terror group closely linked to the Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an affiliate of Fatah, stood behind the last two arson attacks and threatened to attack rabbis and Israelis throughout the world, praising Hamas and Hezbollah following the October 7th massacre.

The Armenian local authorities did nothing to protect the local synagogue and even claimed ASALA does not exist anymore. Last November, a former adviser to the Armenian Armed Forces filmed himself claiming that he would assist Hamas and Hezbollah in killing Jews: “I will scream to the whole world about the just killing of the Jews.”

Another known Armenian political scientist Vladimir Poghosyan claimed that Jews have no right to exist: “You jackals must be exterminated completely. I say this as someone who has been involved in intelligence all his life, performed operations at the level of your Mossad and even higher.” He added that Israel is lucky that he has not assisted Hamas or Hezbollah: “If only my intellect worked for Hamas or Hezbollah, not only 1,000 of your people would have been killed. I will consider the destruction of all your people as the highest act of justice.”

As Israelis, we cannot turn a blind eye to the antisemitism that is happening abroad while we are at war at home. We should not abandon the Jews in the Diaspora and should apply political pressure on the United States, France, the UK, Armenia, and other countries with high rates of antisemitism that the local authorities do something in order to protect the local Jewish communities.

There should be a political price to pay for failing to act against acts of antisemitic violence and the Israeli government should make this clear, especially at such a critical juncture in our history. We should also express our admiration and respect for countries that don’t have a history of antisemitism, such as Japan, Azerbaijan and Micronesia.

The writer is a prominent Middle East scholar and commentator.