The Right idea, the Wrong execution: Chikli’s antisemitism conference controversy
The Jerusalem Post 30 March 2025

Extracts:

• Chikli's response

The campaign of pressure was led by the newspaper Haaretz according to Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who continued to lambast Haaretz as an
anti-Israel “beacon of lies” that doesn’t represent the Jewish people

Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Gadi Taub also slammed the newspaper during the panel entitled “progressivism fell captive to antisemitism” declaring it to be “antisemitic”

Chikli’s message was reiterated by Israeli-Canadian businessman and philanthropist Sylvan Adams

The World Jewish Congress Israel Region president in his speech advised,
Adams said, in reference to the controversy over the attendance of far-right European politicians,

The Right idea, the Wrong execution: Chikli’s antisemitism conference controversy
The Jerusalem Post 30 March 2025

Extracts:

• notably right-leaning list of attendees

Also notable was the list of people who pulled out of associating with the conference – including the United Kingdpm’s apolitical Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, along with organizations who make combating antisemitism their bread and butter, such as the Anti-Defamation League

In an attempt to stem the tide of officials boycotting the conference, Israeli President Isaac Herzog offered a compromise: a private meeting with world Jewish leaders at his home the night before the main event, without those controversial figures (which the Post attended) — Stop! catering to the radicals

Politicians from across Europe attended Chikli’s gathering

But one who was supposed to – Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina – was disinvited after an international arrest warrant was issued just hours before he was scheduled to speak

The Right idea, the Wrong execution: Chikli’s antisemitism conference controversy
The Jerusalem Post 30 March 2025

Extracts:

• defeating antisemitism

France’s National Rally leader, Jordan Bardella, told those gathered that the best option to defend French Jews against Islamism and radical leftism was his party, committing France to fight antisemitism as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition

*Marine Le Pen is currently on trial for alleged fake jobs scam and embezzlement of funds from the European parliament

If the far-right is the Jews' best hope of defeating antisemitism, we must work harder to find solutions to this problem

The government of Israel is more than right to hold a conference on antisemitism

The Diaspora Ministry is right to try its best to tackle an issue that has raised its head in ways unseen and unimaginable since the Holocaust
However the government need not to bring any more controversy to itself The conference should have been all-encompassing

The Right idea, the Wrong execution: Chikli’s antisemitism conference controversy
The Jerusalem Post 30 March 2025

Extracts:

• Chikli’s antisemitism conference controversy

Since October 7 Jews across the entire religious and political spectrum have been targeted because they are Jews

The criminals who have emerged since the Hamas terror attacks have never cared about what type of Jew they are attacking.

And Chikli’s conference should have done the same
It should have been all-inclusive to bring in Left and Right, religious and non-religious and Jewish and non-Jewish to speak about what can be done
The overshadowing of the conference was unfortunate for both Israel and its government However it was a step in the right direction

Maybe next time, the government can ensure an inclusive, all-embracing get-together that can include everyone affected by antisemitism