By Harry Storm
Invitation to “far-right” European politicians prompts last-minute cancellations
Several high-profile liberal Jews recently declined to attend a conference on antisemitism organized by the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs Avitai Chikli, because “far right” individuals had also been invited to participate. The two-day conference, which took place on March 26-27, went ahead despite the cancellations.
With Israel and Jewish communities worldwide facing unprecedented levels of hatred, one might think that allies ought to be welcomed regardless of their political affiliation.
After all, the far right individuals and the parties they represent clearly no longer tolerate antisemitism. It stands to reason that an individual who attends a conference on antisemitism is friendly toward the Jewish people – assuming he or she doesn’t intend to disrupt it, of course.
And to a person, the individuals who were invited all oppose the two greatest threats to Israel and Jewish life in general, namely, Islamic extremism and anti-zionist leftism.
No matter. The fact that the invitees were deemed to belong to far-right parties was enough to prompt several high-profile attendees, including some keynote speakers, to stay away from the two-day conference.
Still, given the military and political threats Israel faces, and the regular outbursts of antisemitism now regularly occurring in the West since Oct. 7, 2023, it’s reasonable to ask why important potential allies are deemed beyond the pale and rejected so blithely.
One explanation could be that what now calls itself liberalism (but isn’t) has become a religion of sorts. And in that religion, consorting with people deemed to be of the far right, even those who strenuously oppose antisemitism, simply isn’t kosher.
On a recent episode of the Megyn Kelly Show, conservative author and podcaster Walter Kirn, interpreted this phenomenon in a different (but ultimately related) context; namely, why the left in the U.S., including the Democratic party and most of the media, haven’t internalized why they lost the presidency in November.
“The reason they can’t adapt on the left is that they have an orthodox religion that won’t allow them to get over certain catechisms [i.e. things one’s religion says you must – or must not – do or say], like “Nixon” and “Jim Crow,” which have nothing to do with life in America in 2025. Though Kirn didn’t mention “far-right”, surely it belongs on his list (as do other no-no’s, such as “MAGA,” “Trump,” and “Elon Musk.”)
How else to explain, for example, the decision of chief rabbi of the U.K., Ephraim Mirvish, to withdraw from the conference? After all, in the past he’s happily attended “interfaith” conferences with Muslim clerics, including one he considered a friend, who told him that “British Jews are OK because they aren’t like Israeli Jews.”
Mirvish now says he “should have taken him up on it,” and that since Oct. 7, “he would not let that pass,” urging Jews to be courageous and not avoid defending Israel.
Pity that the chief rabbi didn’t find the courage to attend a conference that includes people on the “far-right,” even when they clearly and loudly support Israel and the Jewish people.
In addition to Rabbi Mirvish, other invitees who withdrew from the conference included University of London Professor David Hirsh, and former Labour MP John Mann. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi and French historian and essayist Marc Knobel also stayed away, as did the executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt.
In each case, they cited the invitations that had been extended to the following individuals associated with the “far-right” in Europe: Jordan Bardella, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) and president of the French National Rally; MEP Marion Maréchal, granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French National Front, National Rally’s antisemitic predecessor; MEP Hermann Tertsch of Spain’s Vox party; Charlie Weimers, a member of the Swedish Democrats; and Kinga Gál of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.
Significantly, nobody from the German AfD or Austrian Freedom party were invited, though that didn’t stop Felix Klein, Germany’s antisemitism czar, and Volker Beck, the head of the Israel-Friendship Association, from boycotting the conference.
Yet of all of the disputed far right attendees, the only scheduled speaker at the conference was Jordan Bardella. (The others participated in round-table discussions along with other conference attendees.) In his speech, Bardella condemned antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and mentioned visits in recent days to the sites of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacres, as well as to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum. He cited “a time of relentless war in the face of barbarism, which is also our fight.”
“We should suffer no ambiguity to fight against antisemitism,” Bardella said. “In the face of the disturbing resurgence of anti-Jewish hatred throughout Europe and the world, and in the face of terrorism that intends to destroy our lives and our values, we French believe more than ever in the imperative need for our nations to unite their voices and join forces in this fight.”
Apparently this level of support for Israel and for combatting antisemitism wasn’t enough for boycotter French Marc Knobel, who said he didn’t “need to hear whatever lesson Bardella wants to give us on the subject.”
As far as Knobel is concerned, the decision to host far-right figures at the conference reflected a growing disconnect between the Israeli government and European Jews who are increasingly nervous about rising domestic support for the continent’s far right, even as French Jews flee France for Israel not because of the far right, but because of threats of physical violence from radicalized French Muslims.
Similarly, philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who has in the past said that he has “always found it simultaneously very enigmatic, very beautiful and very shocking for the soul to go speak to an enemy whom you know does not want to speak to you. There’s a desire for redemption [there] from the other. It is a theme in Jewish history that I am very passionate about.”
Unless the “enemy” is from the far right, it would appear.
The animosity toward the FN can be taken to absurd heights. For example, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the FN who kicked her father out of the party because of his antisemitism, has come under attack for publicly stating her remorse about having done so after he died. Is it really so difficult, even for the FN’s most vociferous detractors, to understand that a daughter might not want to dwell on her late father’s character defects after his death?
The prohibition against any co-operation with far right groups, even if they moderate their policies, combat antisemitism and support Israel, resembles the reaction of some leaders in the American Jewish community to initiatives by President Donald Trump to combat rampant antisemitism on U.S. college campuses.
In an April 11 article, the editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, Jonathan Tobin, takes to task American Jewish liberals in positions of influence, whom, he says, “view partisan loyalties as having a higher priority than standing up for their people at a time of an unprecedented surge in antisemitism in America, coupled with the war being waged by Iran and its terrorist proxies on the existence of the State of Israel.”
In addition to the aforementioned ADL, Tobin points to several high-profile Jews and Jewish organizations who insist they oppose campus antisemitism but who have also joined the resistance against efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to rid higher education of woke anti-Semitic ideologies.
Among these are the American Jewish Committee, former Biden administration antisemitism special envoy and historian Deborah Lipstadt, former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, Wesleyan University president Michael Roth and Hillel CEO Adam Lehman.
Their “liberalism” – is there really anything liberal about tolerating bigotry? – always takes precedence, even if it means Jewish students are harassed at their places of study and Israel’s very existence is routinely and viciously denounced.
According to British author Melanie Phillips, even calling out pro-Palestinianism as the motivation behind the recent firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence (after a Passover seder, no less) “awakens [liberals’] deepest fear – that it would turn them into the thing they dread more than anything else – to become ‘right-wing,’ which, in their minds, is synonymous with evil.”
In other words, whether it manifests as opposition to the pro-Israel far right or to pro-Israel Trump (often conflated to be the same thing), the virulent antisemitism currently faced by Jewish communities worldwide, and vicious attacks on Israel, are of a lower priority for many leaders in the Jewish community than the long-established prohibition not to consort with the far right.”
Hard to believe, but that’s where we are.
