The first International Conference on Anti-Semitism "Protecting Future", organized with the assistance of the Euro-Asian Jewish congress (EAJC), has ended in Moscow. We publish the speech of the EAJC President Julius MEINL at the opening of the Conference.

“The recent Select Committee Report on anti-Semitism is to be welcomed, but it would have been more useful if it had investigated the causes of anti-Semitism too. It is difficult to believe that a 75% increase in anti-Semitism it reports, have been committed by people who simply hate Jewish people for no reason. It is surely the case that these incidents are reflecting the disgust amongst the general public of the way the government of Israel treats Palestinians and manipulates the USA and ourselves to take no action against that country.”
Those words were written by a member of the House of Lords, not an anonymous commentator on a radical website. It was a letter to a major newspaper, a letter that thankfully wasn’t published.
Baroness Jenny Tonge believes increasing anti-Semitism is the fault of none other than the Jews themselves. It can’t be that people “simply hate Jewish people for no reason”. The reason is the Jews, in this case the Jewish state of Israel. Perhaps she is unaware of antisemitism before the creation of Israel – the Holocaust, the pogroms, the expulsion of Jews from Spain, the blood libels.
She resigned from her party last week and said: “I am at last free of being told what I must and must not say on the issue of Palestine, lest it offends the Israel Lobby here, who like to control us, as they do in the USA.”
You would struggle to find a better illustration of modern antisemitism than this. Anti-Semitism is unique in its durability and its adaptability. Like the disease that it is, it morphs and transforms to ensure its survival from generation to generation.
While most racism is predicated on the inferiority of the victim; portraying them as less intelligent, less capable, less human. Anti-Semitism uniquely portrays the Jews as supremely powerful, as controlling, as pulling the strings behind global capitalism or global communism, as being behind either a left wing or right wing media bias – always dependent on the accusers own politics.
And that is where anti-Semitism is exactly like all forms of racism, in its total irrationality.
We stand here in 2016, still discussing this most ancient of hatreds and we cannot fail to be aware of the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Not since the end of the Second World War have Jews felt less safe in Europe and the reports from the United States are no less troubling.
It should be unacceptable to any democratic government that in 2016 there are Jews who wonder if they should have a suitcase packed in case they need to flee once more.
The source of anti-Semitism varies – from the far right to the far left to radical Islam. It is thinly disguised as criticism of Israel or sickeningly conveyed through centuries old conspiracy theories. Jewish journalists are targeted online with their faces superimposed on to those of Holocaust victims. Jewish politicians are subjected to vile abuse and death threats. Jewish schools are guarded by the police and even the military. Synagogues require volunteer security guards just to operate and in too many places Jews feel the need to hide their identity.
I want to thank the organizers of this conference and I look forward to taking part in the rest of the discussions. Jews have faced waves of antisemitism like this before. We need to face these attacks head on, we need to be clear eyes about the dangers and we need to stand with our friends from every faith, from every country.
I began with a quote from one member of the House of Lords and I’d like to end with one from a different member of that same House.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, formerly Chief Rabbi, spoke recently in the European parliament and reminded us all that: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Antisemitism is only secondarily about Jews. Primarily it is about the failure of groups to accept responsibility for their own failures, and to build their own future by their own endeavors. No society that has fostered antisemitism has ever sustained liberty or human rights or religious freedom. Every society driven by hate begins by seeking to destroy its enemies, but ends by destroying itself.”
As we stand together to fight Anti-Semitism, we should remember that we are fighting not only for the Jewish community but for the rest of society as well. Fighting antisemitism is fighting for human rights, it is fighting for religious liberty, it is fighting for tolerance and it is fighting for democracy."