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Irwin Cotler
January 16, 2002
The Jerusalem Post
"If we needed one line to summarize it, it would be the discrimination against or denial of Jewish particularity or peoplehood whenever that particularity or peoplehood is Jewish. In other words, the singling out of Israel and the Jewish people for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena.
Traditional anti-Semitism was the denial of the right of individual Jews to live as equal members in a society. The new anti-Jewishness is the denial of the right of Jewish people to live as equal members in the family of nations. All that is intrinsic or relevant to each of these forms of anti-Jewishness is, in fact, discrimination. All that has happened is that we've moved from discrimination against the Jews as individuals to the discrimination against the Jews as a people.
Let me just summarize and conclude with the fact that the problem is that we have indices for measurements of traditional anti-Semitism - for discrimination against Jews in housing, education, employment, etc. The new targets of that kind of discrimination are aboriginal peoples, visible minorities, and the like.
Individual Jews are not today the ones who are being singled out for discrimination, but it is the Jewish people in its collective sense - where Israel has become the Jew among the nations in which this new anti-Jewishness finds its expression.
Let me summarize by identifying for you the new indicators or expressions of anti-Jewishness:
1) First is what I would call political anti-Semitism. Political anti-Semitism has two dimensions to it. First the singling out of Israel for differential, discriminatory treatment in the form of the demonization of Israel and the Jewish people in the international arena, including in a body such as the United Nations. And secondly, the attribution to Israel of all the evils of the world. In other words, classical anti-Semitism was the notion of the Jew as the poisoner of international wells, the new anti-Jewishness is the notion that Israel is the poisoner of the international wells. So you've got the resolution in the international arena condemning Israel with respect to its assault on women, on labor, on health, on peace, on human rights, and what not. Israel is the enemy of each of these things. Israel is the enemy of humankind.
2) The second thing - and I hate to use this word - is what we're witnessing also is what I would call an existential or genocidal anti-Semitism. By that I mean, the public advocacy of the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. This finds expression, for example, in the charter of terrorist organizations like Hamas and while we talk about a counter-terrorism law and policy, we have yet to address the public call for genocide which finds expression in charters of terrorist organizations.
Second, we have the fatwas, the religious execution, writs, of radical fundamentalist clerics, in other words, just as you had a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, which alarmed the world so you have fatwas against the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Where Israel is accounted - if I can use this term - the Salman Rushdie of the nations.
Third thing is state sanctioned advocacy to genocide which appears on the broadcasting media of some of the Arab states, even the Palestinian Authority and the like.
3) A third example of this new anti-Jewishness is what I call ideological anti-Semitism. We know this in terms of the Zionism is racism resolution - that this resolution while it may have been repealed by the United Nations has long legs and still finds expression today. I can give you many examples.
In the year 2002, in the African Charter of Peoples Rights and Freedoms, reference is made to Zionism as racism. And so it is still on the international agenda and for reasons of time I won't go more into it.
4) The fourth is the denial of equality before the law in the international arena. I'm referring here, for example, of the singling out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment in United Nations sanctions, conferences, and the like. Some examples: the United Nations Human Rights Commission which as a law professor we regard as the repository of international human rights law - 30 percent of all its indictments - I repeat thirty percent of all its indictments have been against one member state of the international community - Israel. In March and April of this year - 2002 when the UN Human Rights Commission will meet again in Geneva, there is one country-specific item devoted just for Israel. In other words Israeli human rights violation in the occupied territories. The rest of the world has an item for human rights violations in the rest of the world. So one member state of the international community is singled out in advance of the meeting for differential and discriminatory treatment on the agenda at the UN Human Rights Commission.
In Geneva - at the beginning of December -- the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict was adopted in 1949 as many of you know. For 52 years nobody was ever brought before the Geneva Convention - not for the genocide in Cambodia, not for the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, not for the genocide in Rwanda, not for the killing fields in Sudan. The first time that an indictment was registered against any country took place in December 2001 when for the first time they convened with regard to an indictment against Israel. And I can go on.
5) Fifth point - The denial of international due process. I'm talking about the exclusion of Israel from even participating in international bodies which end up indicting Israel. For example, the exclusion of Israel from any regional configuration in the United Nations means that Israel can never be elected to or be represented on major UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Commission - while the real human rights violators (like Sudan which was recently elected) enjoy exculpatory immunity. I'll just close by listing - since time does not permit - the other forms of new anti-Jewishness.
6) Economic anti-Semitism in the form of the revival of the Arab boycott.
7) Holocaust denial.
8) Racist terror in terms of the singling out of Israel and Jews not for differential and discriminatory treatment but for actually targeting of terrorist acts.
9) The teaching of contempt and the demonizing in the international arena to which Rabbi M. [sp?] has referred and finally
10) what I've called legalized anti-Semitism which has moved classical anti-Semitism, to the notion that Zionism is racism, to anti-Jewishness being carried out under the cover of human rights and under the cover of international agencies which are themselves bound by the principle of non-discrimination, yet this principle of discrimination is carried out against a member state.
I just want to conclude with two sentences in this regard. Nothing I'm saying here is intended to suggest - I have to emphasize this because I know sometimes I read the reports afterwards and it's something other than what I 've said - nothing I'm saying is intended to suggest that Israel is somehow not accountable for any violations of international or human rights law or international humanitarian law like any other state.
That is the point. Like any other state. In other words, no one would suggest that Israel should be above the law. But Israel is being systematically denied equality before the law in the international arena and the systematic singling out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment. It's not that human rights standards should be applied to Israel, they must be, but they must be applied equally to all other countries. It is not that Israel must respect human rights, which she must, but that the rights of Israel deserve equal respect. So what I'm talking about here (the new anti-Jewishness) I'm talking about the singling out of the Jewish people for differential and discriminatory treatment and the discrimination against and denial of the rights of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations."
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