Antisemitism Conference Sparks Boycotts as Israel Invites Far-Right Figures

On 15 March 2025, The Times of Israel report­ed that sev­er­al Euro­pean fig­ures have can­celed their par­tic­i­pa­tion in an Israeli gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence on anti­semitism after learn­ing far-right politi­cians were invit­ed. The arti­cle begins:

French philoso­pher Bernard-Hen­ri Levy and two Ger­man offi­cials have can­celed their par­tic­i­pa­tion in an Israeli gov­ern­ment-orga­nized con­fer­ence on com­bat­ing anti­semitism at the end of the month after learn­ing that far-right Euro­pean fig­ures have been invit­ed. The March 26–27 con­fer­ence is being orga­nized by Dias­po­ra Min­is­ter Amichai Chik­li, who has worked to strength­en Israel’s rela­tion­ship with Europe’s far-right par­ties, which Israel had long boy­cotted due to their ties to anti­semitism and Nazism. Promi­nent far-right fig­ures on the Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Com­bat­ing Anti­semitism’s guest list include Jor­dan Bardel­la, pres­i­dent of the far-right French Nation­al Ral­ly par­ty; Mar­i­on Marechal, a far-right French Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment; and Her­mann Tertsch, a far-right Span­ish Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. Levy, one of France’s most promi­nent pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als and a staunch defend­er of Israel, was sched­uled to be a keynote speak­er at the event. But he told the French dai­ly Le Monde that he informed Pres­i­dent Isaac Her­zog that he would not attend because of the far-right guests.

Read more

Key Points:

• This marks the first offi­cial Israeli gov­ern­ment event to which mem­bers of Europe’s rad­i­cal right have been for­mal­ly invited.
• Ger­man anti­semitism czar Felix Klein with­drew after dis­cov­er­ing the guest list, stat­ing he was ini­tial­ly unaware who would attend.
• Offi­cials at Israel’s Pres­i­den­t’s Res­i­dence expressed sur­prise about the invi­tees, sug­gest­ing poten­tial inter­nal dis­agree­ment over the guest list.
• Chik­li’s out­reach to far-right Euro­pean fig­ures has pre­vi­ous­ly sparked diplo­mat­ic ten­sions with coun­tries includ­ing France and Romania.

The arti­cle goes on to iden­ti­fy var­i­ous oth­er invi­tees who gen­er­al­ly could be described as rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive Euro­pean polit­i­cal parties:

Chik­li, who has pre­vi­ous­ly fos­tered rela­tion­ships between Israel and his Likud par­ty with some con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures, has invit­ed indi­vid­u­als such as Jor­dan Bardel­la, pres­i­dent of the French Nation­al Ral­ly (RN) par­ty; Mar­i­on Marechal, a French Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for­mer­ly asso­ci­at­ed with RN and Recon­quête!; Char­lie Weimers, a Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment from the Swe­den Democ­rats par­ty; Milo­rad Dodik, pres­i­dent of the Repub­li­ka Srp­s­ka in Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina; and Her­mann Tertsch, a Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment from the Span­ish right-wing Vox party.

Dis­claimer: This post was gen­er­at­ed using AI, with added con­text where pos­si­ble. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion before using. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are meant to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned but should not be under­stood as “real word” photography.