Networking Conference: Never again?

Transkript

• Transkript

  Wolfgang Sobotka: I think we can start now – all those arriving by bus should have passed the security check as well. 

  Dear Speakers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen! It is a great honour and pleasure for me to welcome you to the Austrian Parliament and to officially open the Networking conference "Never again? Democracy cannot tolerate antisemitism”. It is encouraging that so many people are here today to engage with the topics of the three panels: MPs, representatives of the Jewish communities, rabbis, experts and, above all, our keynote speakers. On behalf of all of us, I would like to welcome the Speakers of the parliaments: the President of the Israeli Knesset, Amir Ohana – welcome here to the plenary hall! –, the Speaker of the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament, Gregory Fergus – welcome here to the plenary hall! – and the President of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Peter De Roover, as well as the President of the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, and the President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. 

  In many places we see liberal democracies being under severe pressure. One of the mental attitudes that exerts pressure is antisemitism, which, as research has shown, is inherently anti-democratic. Therefore, I consider it a necessity for every democrat to fight it at all levels. It is our democratic duty. 

  In three panels with contributions from the keynote speakers, impulse statements, and contributions from all other speakers, we will analyse, discuss, and illuminate these current challenges from a wide variety of viewpoints. I do not want to duplicate my keynote address I gave yesterday at the evening reception. In order to allow today’s speakers to take the lead and present their views, I took the liberty of presenting it in written form. You will find a copy of it in your conference files. My duty today will be to look at the meeting order and to keep an eye on the time. In this capacity, I would like to briefly inform you about some organizational aspects.

  To register your requests for the floor, please use the request cards which you find at your seat. Please hand them to the Parliamentary Administration staff next to me. Requests for the floor are also possible during the debate. In principle, delegates will be given the floor in the order in which their requests to speak were submitted. The number of requests for the floor per delegation is limited to three, one for each session of the conference. Please note that conference participants will speak from the seating rows, using their microphone units. 

  All relevant documents were distributed before the conference and are also available online. I am very pleased that after our written procedure and final compromise amendments, which have been sent out to you yesterday evening, we managed to agree on a joint statement. You will find a clean version of this statement in your conference folder. It will be adopted by acclamation and made public at the end of our conference. It is nice to see what unites us. Should you have any questions on the document, please refer to the staff of the Parliamentary Administration on my left-hand side. 

  Photos will be taken by our photographers throughout the conference and will be made available to you as soon as possible via download link. The conference will be recorded. A live stream is not provided for security reasons. A video will also be made available after the conference. At the lunchtime reception there will be another opportunity to visit the book exhibition "Coming Home Soon”. 

  I now have the honour to invite Mr. Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Knesset of the State of Israel, to make an introductory statement. Speaker Ohana has served as Speaker of the Knesset since 2022. He previously held the positions of Minister of Justice and Minister of Public Security. – Mr. Speaker, the floor is yours. 

  Statement

  Amir Ohana (Speaker of the Knesset): Thank you, President of the Austrian National Council, our host and my dear, dear friend, Wolfgang Sobotka! Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons Greg Fergus, President of the Belgian Federal Chamber of Representatives Peter De Roover, Members of the Knesset, Katz and Kallner, representing the opposition and the coalition, and fellow parliamentarians of 18 different countries, rabbis and leaders of Jewish communities across Europe, distinguished guests, shalom! It is not by chance that we have come together on September 11th to grapple with the aftermath of October 7th – both atrocities committed by those who claimed to act in the name of Islam, targeting the free world. These dates, forever seared into our memories, are inherently connected: September 11th was an attack unprecedented in scale, October 7th an assault unmatched in savagery. In such fateful times it is especially meaningful to be here in the Parliament of Austria at a summit meant to mobilize the freedom-loving world to confront antisemitism and terrorism. We will never forget those who stood by our side in our darkest days since the Holocaust. 

  When the Nazis murdered one and a half million Jewish children, many hoped that antisemitism had run its course, that six million unmarked Jewish graves might themselves mark the end of Jew-haters in history, that "never forget” ensured "never again”. But October 7th proved that demonic dreams of Jewish extinction survived Hitler’s demise. The world witnessed Hamas’s modern-day Einsatzgruppen murdering, decapitating, mutilating, and burning 1,200 innocent men, women, and children amid a frenzy and unimaginable sexual violence. They dragged 251 hostages into Gaza, where 101 still remain. Just weeks ago, six were barbarically executed with a bullet to the back of the head. 

  October 7th marked the launch of a two-fold existential conflict for the Jewish people: on the one hand, a seven-front war of annihilation against Israel led by the head of the snake, the Ayatollah regime of Iran; on the other hand, a parallel battle to crush Jewish life worldwide. While terrorists menace Israel with rockets and rifles, antisemites torment Jews with intimidation and assault. While terrorists try to drive Jews underground into graves and tunnels, antisemites seek to force Jews under cover, confined to lives of shame and indignity. According to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, today nearly four out of five European Jews cover their kippot, tuck in their Stars of David, and bury any signs of Jewishness. This is what Jews must do to avoid abuse and discrimination on campus, at work, online, and in the streets. Jews suddenly find themselves thrown back into a world we hoped we left behind, locked in the all-too-familiar chains of persecution, pogroms, and fanatical mass murder. 

  And yet, even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, as King David insists, lo ira ra – I shall not fear evil. Jews are victims once again of hatred and violence, yes, but we are gathered here to proclaim with thundering conviction that today, things will be different. Today, we fight. Today, we have the heroes of the Israeli Defence Forces, and we have you, my friends, warriors for freedom worldwide. And we will wage war unwaveringly until we bring every hostage home, eradicate Hamas and the threat from Gaza, secure northern Israel from the spectre of Hezbollah, and make sure Jews everywhere live safely and securely. 

  With parliamentarians in the room, it’s important to point out that antisemitism is not a problem we can legislate away. When all you have is a hammer, every problem may look like a nail. You can and should legislate against hate crimes, but you cannot legislate against hate. Beyond behaviour, we need to change hearts and minds. We need to tackle antisemitism from the ground up to stop the indoctrination of hate and end the incitement to violence.

  We need to shelve hateful schoolbooks and confront foreign propaganda press. We must expose the antisemites on both sides of the aisle and unmask the anti-Zionists disguising their hatred as a political protest. Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. In the international arena, we must call on all nations to crack down on skyrocketing antisemitism and designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. My counterparts representing Canada and Austria have done so already. In the vital interest of the free world, those who have not should do so without delay. 

  Beyond doing, we should be feeling: feeling pride, feeling confidence, and a bit of the classic Jewish chutzpah, the boldness embodied by our ancestors who were willing to give up their lives, but never their identity. We didn’t see antisemitism disappear after the Holocaust, but we did see a strong and unified free world rise from the chaos of the Second World War. Today, more people than ever know hatred threatens civilizations and paves a path to tyranny. 

  Eighty years ago, Austria was the scene of some of the worst Holocaust atrocities, including mass enslavement, deportation, and the murder of tens of thousands of Austrian Jews. No more: Today, Austria stands by Israel. Today, Austria’s government, parliament and people are leading the battle against antisemitism, engaging in numerous cross-party initiatives to tackle the age-old hatred head-on. When President Sobotka joined me to witness the devastation of October 7th in Kfar Aza, in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, we visited the home of Sivan Elkabetz, where she and her partner Naor Hasidim, both just 23 years of age, were brutally murdered. Hanging on the wall is a snapshot of her last messages with her father, Shimon, ending with his final cries: Sivani, Sivani!, to which there was no reply. We shared a very special moment in which President Sobotka, moved to tears, told me that his grandfather had been a member of the Nazi SA.

  And yet today, we stand assembled in Vienna at President Sobotka’s gracious invitation to combat prejudice and terror, and to ensure Jews enjoy the fundamental doctrines of democracy, freedom of expression, association, and faith. For Austria and the Jewish people, the shadows of the past loom large, but the promise of our age, proven by our presence here today, hands us hope and assurance that we will win. The Austrian composer Franz Schubert, the first to write a Hebrew musical setting for a synagogue, reimagined the Exodus from Egypt in Miriam’s Victory Song: The enemy, burning with murder, pursued the Jews, and then the tower of water all around collapses. – As the splitting of the sea, we can dispel the dangers of our day and shift quickly into victory. On the first anniversary of September 11th since October 7th, let us resolve that these dates be remembered not only for what we have lost, but for the better world we came together to create. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker, for being here with us and for your extraordinary opening speech. 

  Dear colleagues, the first session of our meeting is dedicated to the topic "Antisemitism and the threat to democracy posed by hostility towards Jews”. It is a pleasure for me to welcome now Ms. Monika Schwarz-Friesel, who has agreed to give a keynote speech in this session. Professor Schwarz-Friesel is a cognitive scientist and antisemitism researcher. She holds the chair of Cognitive Media Linguistics at the Technical University of Berlin. Her research focuses on historical and contemporary manifestations of Jew-hatred, online antisemitism, and on the emotional basis of antisemitism. 

  Dear Professor Schwarz-Friesel, the floor is yours.

  Session 1: Antisemitism and the threat to democracy posed by hostility towards Jews

  Monika Schwarz-Friesel (Antisemitism researcher and professor at the Technical University of Berlin): Ladies and gentlemen, good morning! As the previous speakers already have pointed out, the current situation is very serious and very oppressive. So let me just state that after the pogrom of 10/7, the official dam against antisemitism really burst; and ever since, antisemitism is exploding, it seems to be omnipresent, not only on the internet and the social media, not only on the streets, but also at the academies, at art festivals, in universities. The most significant result of a long-time research is that classical Jew-hatred and modern Israel-related antisemitism do form an inseparable symbiosis. 

  Have a look at the first example, it is an email sent to the Central Council of Jews in Germany: "First you murdered Jesus, now you butcher the Palestinians.” – This is typical of contemporary antisemitism. 

  Now, the phenomenon is not new, neither the eruptions nor the symbiosis. Already in February, the "Economist” asked in its headline: How safe are Europe’s Jews? – Why? Why this question? – Because the ground had been laid many, many years before. Already, during the Gaza crisis in 2014, we heard on the streets of Europe utterances you see on the slide: "Hamas, Jews to the gas!”, "Fuck the Jews!” Zionist regime – "cancer state”! Israel – "menace to mankind”! "Stop the Jewish terror!” – So everything was known, but nothing was done. 

  It is very important to combat antisemitism effectively, to have a therapy. And for a good therapy, you need the right diagnosis. But this has not always been the case. In antisemitism research, we have no problem whatsoever to define what exactly antisemitism is and what it is not.

  It is indeed a cultural category that is based on the de-realized conceptualization of Jews and Judaism. But although de-realized, it functions as an epistemic truth, meaning that antisemites strongly believe in it without any doubt. Jews in this conceptualization are the incarnation of the evil in the world. This is since the creation of this myth in early Christianity by the writings of Adversus Judaeos. Hence, we are not just confronted with some kind of prejudice, but with a manichaeistic worldview, opposing Jews to the rest of the world. And this worldview is transmitted ever since as a Judeophobic tradition. 

  Hence, we have to oppose false definitions, sadly distributed until this very day. Indeed, antisemitism is no interchangeable prejudice among others. It is not merely some discriminatory othering. It is not primarily a fringe group phenomenon of extremists, and it is not necessarily, hence, connected to either racism or to xenophobia. Antisemitism, in the end, is a unique resentment deeply engraved in Western culture. 

  Let’s have a look at the influences of the past, of historical Jew-hatred. Those super-spreaders came from the educated middle of society, and they transmitted the core concept of the Jews as being evil. It started with Paul, who called Jews the enemy of mankind, a phrase frequently taken up today, especially at anti-Israel rallies. We have them called devils, harmful, evil. Luther called them a pestilence, the great enlightener Voltaire the most despicable people on earth. Young Hegel said they exist only in the middle of excrement. Two German professors in the 19th century called them a human disease and rotten and degenerated people – all very educated people! –, Theodor Fontane horrible people. And, very important, two liberal authors, not necessarily convinced antisemites, in their well-read novels coded topoi with antisemitic content, thereby, of course, shaping collective consciousness of millions of readers.

  So antisemitism, in the end, is a chameleon. It moves along the ages for centuries, but never at the edges. Anti-Jewish thinking and feeling is at the very foundation of Western culture, and it has been reactivated, alive and kept alive for 2,000 years by now. It is unshaken by the Holocaust, and if we want to understand antisemitism in the 21st century, we see that it’s really the age-old hatred – sure, with some opportune adaptations, because it’s a chameleon, but essentially it has remained the same at its conceptual core. 

  I distinguish four phases of contemporary antisemitism – not three, but four –: left-wing, right-wing, Muslim-Islamic, and, most important, the centrist, educated antisemitism that publishes in the feuilletons and at the universities. And despite all their grave ideological divergences, all four forms exhibit synergies, and they form alliances, as we have seen in the last years especially between left-wing radicals and Muslim groups. They do have in common: first, attacking the remembrance culture, second, questioning the singularity of the Shoah, and third, demonizing Israel. This is their mutual point. If we look at the text of those four forms, we do see an overwhelming uniformity – Semper idem, the repetition of the repetition of the repetition for 2,000 years. Two examples: A right-wing extremist writes to the Central Council of Jews in Germany: Jews are the evil of mankind and threaten world peace. – A left-wing peace activist writes: Israel is an evil state and threatens world peace. – So, lexis and syntax are the same. There is hardly any difference between the four forms, since they evoke the same age-old stereotypes – like land robbers, child murderers, perpetrators – and they produce the same argumentation patterns, as I will show. 

  If we look at the modern influencers of today, we see that their intellectual writings feed the margins, influence the edges of society, and not the other way around. They pose as anti-antisemites and they appear very strongly in the garb of moral integrity. They position, however, both Israel and Zionism as a symbol of everything that good people must oppose. They are highly influential because they publish in mainstream media, they move in academic circles, and they are persuasive. They are the most persuasive form at all, because their sophisticated rhetoric, especially in post-colonial studies, has contaminated mainstream society and politics for many years now. 

  How very much the communicative memory influences still contemporary antisemitism, I want to demonstrate with three significant examples. On X 2024 – there are millions of such texts –: Israelis, they are bloodthirsty murdering dogs and they chop up children. – 500 years ago, Luther: Jews are bloodthirsty dogs and murderers and they chop up children.

  2024: Israelis, enemy of mankind – the old phrase from Paul –, the enemies of all other people. – Voltaire in 1764: Jews, enemies of all nations and enemy to all mankind. 

  And the third example: Al-Manar: Israel has no right to exist in the league of modern nations. Israel is a mistake in world history. – And the famous philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1888: Judaism has no right to exist in modern life of the nations. It is a mistake in world history. – So it’s always the same, just the projection to Israel.

  The main argument that has been used over centuries and centuries, stemming mainly from the Middle Ages, is: The Jews are to blame, the Jews are responsible for everything. – And we do find this argument today after the pogrom of the 7th of October in so-called contextualizations: Israel’s conduct led to the massacre of the 7th of October. – Many times read and heard, and very similar to the argument in 1945, when certain circles claimed that the Jews provoked the Holocaust. And we do find this argument also at the level of the United Nations, when Francesca Albanese wrote to the French President Macron: "The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression.” – The same argument, just some new words.

  We hardly ever have legal or social consequences for antisemitic hate speech of this kind. If a right-wing party in EU elections has a poster, a public poster, which states: "Israel is our misfortune!”, that is a direct reference to the Nazi-"Stürmer” slogan "The Jews are our misfortune!”, it is freedom of speech. If students project the blood libel fantasy to Israel – on-campus antisemitism –, it’s academic freedom. And if on the Documenta fifteen, Jewish Israelis are depicted as evil, ugly pigs, it is freedom of art. And then we see European politicians smiling at hate-speech posters "Fuck Israel. Fuck Nato”. By the way, the guy smiling here is the foreign minister of Norway.

  If we want to understand contemporary Jew-hatred, we also have to understand the denial of Jew-hatred, because both go hand in hand. Of course it’s always: I’m not an antisemite!, and it’s always out of a good cause or responsibility, self-legitimization. You have the causal justification, you always have the reframing – it’s never antisemitism, but freedom of something –, you have a self-proclaimed victimization – evoking some kind of taboo, which does not exist, actually –, and in the last years, we very strongly conceive the discrediting of scientific work or the discrediting of the very useful IHRA definition. Interestingly, we do see a dissociation in our corpus studies, because only in antisemitic discourse, such camouflage strategies are used, especially in BDS discourse. Never does someone who produces legitimate criticism use such camouflage strategies, because it’s not necessary. 

  If we want to understand contemporary antisemitism and its fierceness, we have to understand what I call the Israelization of antisemitism, because Israel-related antisemitism is by now the main, the most prominent, and the most hateful form of antisemitism. More than 60 per cent of all antisemitic texts are Israel-related, and its de-realizations follow the age-old pattern of demonizing and defaming Jews. And please note: This is not new, and it is no political criticism, and it is not caused by the conflict. Israel is hated because it exists, and the Middle East conflict simply functions as a trigger.

  I want to show you how very much Israel-related antisemitism is no political indignation. One case study from many: In 2016, there was a nature catastrophe, burning forests in Israel, and the Internet was flooded by millions of tweets and posts like the following: Burn, Israel, burn! Burn, the root of all evil! Let the Jews suffocate! Happy, happy burning! – What we see here is the old "solution plan” projected to Israel, the old salvation ideology of the Nazis reactivated.

  And of course, we have this transfer of the "solution plan” also by now on the streets of Europe. This one is from London: "For world peace Israel must be destroyed.” – It’s always a good cause to destroy Israel, so it’s the argument.

  Now, the Israelization of antisemitism puts Israel as the collective Jew in the world, and we have to distinguish two central dimensions: First, projecting age-old stereotypes to the state of Israel, and second, ascribing collective responsibility, hence the conflation of Jews and Israelis all over the world. Why Israel? – It’s so very simple: because it is the most prominent symbol of Jewish life and Jewish survival, and hence, of course, it is the mental sting in the mind of all antisemites. 

  Antisemitism today moves between a fierce hatred and obsession and an opportune adaptation. Throughout the centuries, Jew-hatred has remained essentially the same. Today’s anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism continues the old hatred. It’s nothing else. Yet, it is denied, it is mostly misunderstood or reframed or trivialized. The most influential mental force to accelerate and to normalize antisemitic manifestations still lies, as in history, in the middle of educated society. And hence, we do have a normalization process when it comes to accepting antisemitism. In certain woke circles, it is chic, it is en vogue to criticize Israel, to bash Israel. And this process is flanked by indifference, ignorance, hypocrisy, arrogance, and a lack of empathy. 

  Never again – to me as a researcher and a scientist, I’m sorry to say, merely, ultimately, empty words. We still experience antisemitism, and again, over and over again, and it’s getting more and more. So, the diagnosis of my research couldn’t be more devastating: I perceive a failure of politics and civil society in combating Jew-hatred effectively, and I perceive a most shameful failure of certain parts of the international community after the massacre, the pogrom of 10/7.

  We are indeed, as Fritz Stern once put it, in a time of "cultural despair”. It is high time to break away from the toxic narrative against Jews and the Jewish state. Antisemitism is, so to speak, the canary in the coal mine. It is an alert system, always hinting at larger problems within democratic societies. Let’s have a look at Germany and the recent success of far-right AfD. Giving in to antisemitism means ultimately giving up all values of reason and of humanity. First, it is lethal to the Jews, but in the end, to democracy. So, it is high time to take a clear, a very clear moral stand and maybe, for once, stand on the right side of history. – Thank you that you listened to me.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much, professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel.

  I would now like to give the floor to Ms. Assita Kanko, Member of the European Parliament. Ms. Kanko’s life journey is marked by her relentless dedication to advancing women’s rights and social justice. Her powerful rhetoric and straightforward approach have made her a prominent voice in European politics, also regarding the Middle East conflict and the fight against antisemitism.

  Ms. Kanko, you have the floor.

  Assita Kanko (Member of the European Parliament): Good morning! Thank you very much for having me here. I would also like to thank all the staff that liaise with our offices to organize this opportunity for us to have this conversation. And I would like to remind you as well, as we all know in this room, that today is not just any other day. It is also a date that we all remember. It is September 11. We are still actually facing the same struggle nowadays.

  I will start with sharing a very short story with you: I showed a picture of friends of mine who were having dinner with me to someone that I thought was a friend. And he said, are your friends Jewish? It never occurred to me that this was a valid question. Just like if anyone was having dinner with black people, would you expect someone to ask: Are your friends black? Perhaps you didn’t even notice. Because, in fact, we are all human beings, aren’t we? Such questions disturb me. Perhaps it’s not very flagrant but it carries something in it that is very disturbing. Because it’s because we’re asking these kinds of questions that we forget that we are all humans to start with – regardless of our religion, regardless of how we grow up, regardless of where we come from. The most important thing is that our blood is red and that we all stand here to share the same humanity. This is what is being denied to Jewish people today in Europe. And this is what we’re accepting too much every day. In circumstances where the word Jew was replaced by any other word, the world would be very, very upset.

  You notice every day certain attitudes in Brussels, in the European Parliament as well. I saw recently, in the summer, that one member was present in Jordan, participated in a manifestation where there were very aggressive slogans against Jews, where there were even slogans supporting the Hamas. A politician who calls Hamas a movement of resistance is not only showing stupidity, it’s also showing a lack of commitment to European values. The list of terror attacks, the list of aggressions is becoming longer and longer. The blood that is being shed is actually feeling close to us, fresh in our memories. And yet we still live in denial.

  We see what is happening in our universities. We see who needs to hide in our cities. We see who does not need to hide hating others. And yet we continue to believe that there is no problem or we accept that there is a problem but we don’t act. I think it’s very important to have this conversation today. I think it’s not enough to have it, we need to have the courage to say that nowadays we really have a serious issue in Europe.

  We are the first ones to let our European values down when faced with the infiltration of our political institutions by radical Islam, when faced by the banalization of Jewish hatred in our institutions, in our political organizations, in our media. The silence that we too often keep is just making the situation worse. I shared this story before with people who already met me. It’s about this little girl that I will never forget, that is younger than ten years old. You can see, for those among you who have children, that age passes too fast. You see your kids losing certain teeth and before you know teeth grow and before you know they have their own lives. This girl was still growing up. She was still waiting for two or three of her teeth to grow again, so that she could enter another phase of her life. But she already was worried not about what kind of music she was going to listen to, not about which friends she would invite over for her party. She didn’t even have her bar mitzvah yet. She was too young.

  She didn’t speak about which kind of toy she would use to play. She didn’t speak about where she would hang out with her parents. She was speaking about how to survive the hatred that she was facing. That was the question she asked me after I spoke in her school. She asked me: What should I do when people hate me because I’m Jewish? To be honest, I still don’t have a proper answer for her until now. The only answer I have is to give love – because that’s all we have – and to fight every day for the integrity of our European values, to fight every day to protect them, to defend them.

  I was born as a Muslim and I grew up secular thanks to the education I received from my parents. I saw people who grew up differently, who hated Jews even before meeting a Jew, who hated Israel without even being able to locate it on the world map, who didn’t know why they even hated anyone. But this is what we call fanaticism, this is indoctrination. It continues with European taxpayers’ money: Why is our taxpayers’ money being used to finance what UNRWA is doing? Our democracy is not only threatened because there are politicians who are not respecting our European values. It’s threatened because we are paying those who want to destroy it. But our taxpayers need their money for their own life. So we are also actually wasting the result of their work.

  As a member of the European Parliament, I commit to always defend European values because a Europe that is proud of its values, that is resilient, that protects itself against radical Islam, against antisemitism, against everything that we actually should have learned from history is the Europe where I want my daughter to grow up in, is the Europe where I want your children and grandchildren to grow up in. When in 100 years they speak about us, they will remember what we were fighting for. Just like today, we honour those who fought for us. What are we going to give to the next generation? – Thank you again for having this conversation.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much for your impulse statement.

  I’ll leave the floor to Marc Neugröschel for another impulse statement. Dr. Marc Neugröschel is a research fellow in critical contemporary antisemitism studies, discrimination and human rights at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Woolf Institute. Additionally, he has worked as a journalist for German and Israeli newspapers.

  The floor is yours, please.

  Marc Neugröschel (Antisemitism researcher): Dear Mr. President of the National Council! Yoshev rosh ha-Knesset nichbad! Distinguished members of this forum! Members of Parliament! Excellencies! Dear colleagues! In 1879, German historian Heinrich von Treitschke published the essay or perspective that popularized the infamous expression: "The Jews are our misfortune”. Monika Schwarz-Friesel mentioned it before in her speech. The same essay contains another, a lesser known quote: Whoever dared to criticize the undeniable weakness of the Jewish character was denounced by almost all of the press as a barbarian and as a discriminator of a religious group. – Heinrich von Treitschke, 1879.

  What he does here, in this quote, he dresses what in fact is antisemitic defamation as criticism, and denounces the critical response to his anti-Jewish defamation as discrimination. This reversal of critique and defamation always has been characteristic of antisemitism, and it remains so today. By turning upside down the principles that facilitate open debate, this inversion poses a threat to democratic culture.

  Today, antisemitic lies about Jews, Israel, and Zionism are often portrayed as a democratic struggle against injustice and discrimination. The slander of Israel and Zionism is framed as a struggle against fascism, imperialism, racism, indeed against Nazism. One of the major threats that antisemitism poses to a democracy emanates precisely from the fact that it obscures its anti-democratic nature.

  Antisemitism is a form of discrimination in disguise. It not only lies about Jews, Zionism, and Israel, it lies about itself by presenting itself as an emancipatory struggle. It undermines democratic discourse by falsely claiming to be part of it. If we look at these images, all of which are from very recent anti-Israel rallies, there is apparently no crime against humanity that Zionism is not being accused of. The sweeping scope of the different accusations relating to Zionism – literally every known violation of human rights – is telling. Zionism originally stands for the Jewish national movement that hoped to overcome antisemitic persecution by restoring the home of the Jewish people. But the term has been hijacked and reframed into a symbol of evil, a function attributed to Jews by traditional antisemitic rhetoric.

  In his remarks yesterday evening, President Sobotka strikingly contrasted the sweeping demonization with legitimate criticism of acts of a country’s government. And certainly legitimate critique can aim not only at acts of a government, it can act with certain social processes. However, the signs and the banners that we can see here, they do not criticize cases of racism that certainly do exist in Israel, as they exist everywhere else. They do not criticize fascist voices that certainly do exist in Israel, as they do exist here in Austria – and very unfortunately, they gain so much disturbing popularity in so many democratic countries these days. These signs that we see there and the voices that they represent, say Zionism is racism, Zionism is fascism. They essentialize Israel and its founding ethos as being tantamount with racism, fascism, imperialism, and even Nazism. They reframe Israel and Zionism as a symbol of evil per se.

  The antisemitic core belief that all evil is Jewish has been transformed into the doctrine that all evil is Zionist. Indeed, today it is Zionism and Israel that like Judaism traditionally is framed as a devil and a manifestation of pure evil. The sign on the second picture from the right has been displayed on a recent anti-Israel rally in London last June. If you look at the sign, what’s like further down, it invokes 1948, the founding year of the Jewish state. It does not refer to particular acts of the Israeli government. It does not refer to particular acts that maybe have been or maybe actions of the Israeli army in context to the response to the October 7 attacks, rather, the formation of the Jewish state. Its very existence is essentialized as an incarnation, that’s what the sign says, of pure evil.

  This image from another pro-Palestine rally in London shows how the traditional antisemitic myth of an evil Jewish conspiracy that oppresses humanity while wreaking havoc on the world is projected onto Zionism. That is not only a defamation of the Jewish national ethos. The claim that government and media are illicitly manipulated – and that’s what it says: our media and our government is manipulated by Zionists – is an attack on the legitimacy of democratic institutions.

  The demonization of Jews as evil, and as Israel of the cause of injustice in the world also characterizes this mural at the 2022 Documenta Modern Art Fair in Kassel, Germany. You can see it seems like the mural actually says people’s justice and apparently Israel and Jews are the ones who are challenging that. Criticism of antisemitic views prior to the opening of the exhibition were often rejected as attacks on free speech, freedom of art, and even yes, racist discrimination of artists from the global south.

  This, ladies and gentlemen, brings us back to Treitschke, who also framed the criticism of his antisemitism as an act of discrimination. Treitschke, in the previously quoted essay, smears the Jews by popularizing a phrase – the Jews are our misfortune – that about half a century later becomes one of the most dominant anti-Jewish mantras in Nazi-Germany. That was facilitated by a rhetoric that legitimized anti-Jewish slander as a struggle for liberation. And this is what is also happening today, and what allows antisemitism to gain respectability among the mainstream. And this is something Professor Schwarz-Friesel says over and over again, and we very often talk about the extreme right and the extreme left, right, but Professor Schwarz-Friesel always points out antisemitism is a problem of the mainstream.

  This respectability of antisemitism among the mainstream is closely related to the fact that it gains respectability as a struggle for liberation, as a part and parcel of democratic discourse. And I think that really points to one of the major challenges in the struggle against antisemitism. We have to challenge the self-presentation as a struggle for emancipation. We have to protect the idea of democracy from being hijacked in the name of antisemitism.

  This is a way how we have to challenge that antisemitism can gain even more respectability among the mainstream and among all walks of society. And I think that’s also your assignment as leaders, as lawmakers, as parliamentarians, as excellencies. Professor Schwarz-Friesel is very often pessimistic. If I look at this forum, I see people who are coming from a variety of backgrounds, who really want to challenge this issue. So usually when I have an argument, Professor Schwarz-Friesel is right and I’m wrong. But maybe you can prove me in this one point – that you take on the struggle against antisemitism and to challenge the respectability of antisemitism among the mainstream as a democratic or liberation point of view that it’s not – right and Monika Schwarz-Friesel wrong. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much, Dr. Neugröschel, for your statement.

  We will now move on to the debate. I would like to ask you to speak from your seat. There are six requests to speak, so each speaker will have 3 to 4 minutes. 

  The first person is the President of the Chamber of Representatives from Belgium Peter De Roover. – The floor is yours. No? 

  Okay, then we’ll come to Greg Fergus. – Please.

  Greg Fergus (Speaker of the House of Commons, Canada): Honourable colleagues! Dear friends! President Sobotka! I was honoured to receive your gracious invitation to invite me to this event and I’m humbled by the opportunity to address you, but I will be honest when I say that my role today really is to listen, to witness and to learn.

  I was born 24 years after the Shoah, born into a neighbourhood that was predominantly a Jewish neighbourhood. Never, as I was growing up, did I think that beyond the 20th century, we would still be dealing with the scourge of antisemitism. Canada is not immune to antisemitism, and Canadian parliamentarians are committed to preventing it and to stopping it wherever it’s found. And there is no question that antisemitism is a threat to democracy. Throughout history, you’ve seen that antisemitism, as terrible, destructive and immoral as it is, has been the first tremor of a greater destructive force of hate that sweeps away decency, kindness and freedom. It shakes democracy to its core.

  This meeting is timely, as the events of the last year remind us that our duty as parliamentarians is to protect Jewish citizens for the sake of our societies, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of our societies, for our pluralistic world order. And like most Canadians, I’m proud to think of my country as a place where everyone of every colour, background, religion and gender can contribute to our country and to achieve their dreams. But I must admit that statistics paint a different picture.

  We know that despite representing less than 1 per cent of Canada’s total population, Jews are the religious group in Canada most likely to be targeted of hate crimes. In 2023, Canadians reported more than 5 000 incidents of antisemitism, an increase of more than 100 percent from the previous year of measurement. Now, time doesn’t permit me to tell you about the numerous initiatives undertaken in Canada to address antisemitism, important steps which I believe can help fight antisemitism, but know that our parliament and our governments recognize that this is a problem and one that must be taken very seriously with definitive action.

  We have built a strong legal framework that protects individuals from discrimination and defends freedom of religion and belief. And yet, as I said at the outset, we know that antisemitism remains a sad and terrifying reality in Canada, just as it unfortunately does elsewhere in this world. We all must work together to challenge this scourge.

  I have to thank all of you for being present here today, and especially President Sobotka for having the initiative of inviting each of us to do our parts to making sure that we create a better world and that we fight antisemitism as well as all forms of hate. – Thank you very much, danke schön.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much, Greg.

  The next person is the speaker is Sara Kelany, she is a member of the Italian Parliament. 

  Sara Kelany (Member of Parliament, Italy) (simultaneous interpretation): Dear colleagues! Representatives of the institutions and associations representing the Jewish communities! I’m here representing the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Italy. I wish first of all to thank you all for the opportunity that we have on this relevant occasion to discuss an issue than today more than ever is before our eyes and part of our political duties.

  This working session actually constitutes one of the central points of the issue: how hostile behaviour towards Jews represents a threat to democracy. Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots represent an essential value base. They have contributed to shaping the maturity of our democracies, making them pluralistic and free. In this context, we cannot fail to note the fact that since October 7th 2023, when the bloody Hamas-attack took place on the civilian population of Israel there has been an exponential increase of heinous episodes of antisemitism.

  Only in Italy, from October 7th 2023 to June 30th 2024, the number of antisemitic incidents rose from 98 in the same period of the previous year to 406, this is a 300 per cent increase. It is more than clear that all of this has a negative impact on the security not only of Italian Jews but of the entire nation – threats to security, to our freedoms and therefore threats to our democracies. Since October 7th there have been more than a thousand anti-Zionist demonstrations, organized in most cases by pro pro-Palestinian associations, leftist collectives, antagonist and Marxist-Leninist inspired groups.

  It is through these very same groups which are close to Palestinian associations that anti-Zionism has entered universities, demanding and obtaining the suspension of corporation protocols with Israeli universities. It is to the universities and to the potential to mobilise that some groups of the multifaceted world of the far left have, that we need to pay way more attention. Anti-Zionism often conceals concrete antisemitic attitudes and tends to blame all Jews for the positions expressed by the Israeli government.

  As evidence we have the fact that at the dawn of October 7th, when Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack had not yet even taken place, some groups were already demonstrating in the streets, crying: Intifada! Moreover a group, which is not known to most, the so-called new Communist Party compiled and published prescription list consisting of politicians, journalists, reporters, professors, allegedly guilty of being Zionist spies. We have demanded an account of this in every single forum.

  These episodes clearly undermine the stability of our democracies, unacceptably shrinking our securities, our fundamental freedoms, our rights.

  To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, it must be clear that notwithstanding the respect of anyone’s political positions, attacking Israel and the Jewish people indiscriminately means to irreparably give in to antisemitism once again. The defence of the Jews of Italy, of Europe, of the world is based on the awareness of the right of the Jews of Israel to live in a space of peace and democracy, free from Islamic terrorism. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Many thanks to Sara Kelany.

  The next speaker is Maja Riniker and then János Fónagy follows.

  Maja, the floor is yours. 

  Maja Riniker (Deputy Speaker National Council, Switzerland): Dear colleagues! Ladies and gentlemen! It’s an honour for me to participate in this important conference today on behalf of the Swiss National Council. I’d like to thank the President of the National Council, Wolfgang Sobotka, and organizers for taking the initiative to establish this much needed international parliamentary alliance against antisemitism.

  I’m deeply touched by the analysis of the previous speakers and share their assessment that antisemitism is a poison that threats the very foundations of our democratic societies. Unfortunately, Switzerland is not an exception. We too are witnessing antisemitism that not only endangers the Jewish community, but also the foundation of our democracy. In Switzerland, we are witnessing a varying increase in antisemitic incidents, particularly online, but also in public spaces. These incidents range from verbal attacks to physical assaults against members of the Jewish community. Such developments must be confronted with unwavering determination.

  The Swiss Parliament recognizes that antisemitism is not just a problem for the minorities concerned, but an attack on the values of society as a whole. That is why we have launched cross-party initiatives in Parliament to combat antisemitism. These include promoting education and awareness about the history of the Holocaust and the current situation of Jewish communities in Switzerland. Only through education and awareness can we reduce injustice and increase the understanding. As the speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, already said just before in his opening speech, we have to change hearts and minds.

  We work closely with civil society organizations, educational institutions and the Jewish community to ensure that antisemitism has no place in Switzerland. At the same time, we are committed to ensure that Swiss legislation is consistently enforced and where needed also strengthened to actively combat all forms of hate crimes. The Swiss Parliament has a responsibility not only to combat antisemitism, but also to protect and strengthen the foundation of our democracy. If antisemitism is tolerated, it undermines confidence in all the democratic institutions and the social cohesion.

  Finally, I’d like to emphasize that the fight against antisemitism is a task for society as a whole, which we can only achieve together. It’s our responsibility as parliamentarians to lead by example and take a clear stand against all forms of antisemitism. Let me finish by thanking you once again for hosting this important networking conference and for all your valuable contributions.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much.

  The next speaker is János Fónagy. – Please take the floor.

  János Fónagy (Chairman of the Hungary–Israel Friendship Group) (simultaneous interpretation): Honourable Speakers! Ladies and Gentlemen! Dear Friends! Jonathan Sachs, rabbi, in 2016 in a session of the European Parliament said the following: Hatred started with the Jews never ends with the Jews. We are making a huge mistake if we believe that antisemitism is only a threat to the Jews. It’s a threat to Europe and also our freedoms that we fought for and achieved during centuries.

  These words and the thoughts reflect that Hungary is doing its absolutely best by all means to fight against all types of hate crimes including all forms of antisemitism. In Hungary there is a comprehensive legal background that ensures the protection against hate crime. As a result of this perhaps Hungary is one of the safest places in Europe for Jews. As the police didn’t authorize anti-Israel demonstrations, there are no demonstrations, there is no throwing of stones or burning of flags. It would appear that Budapest and Hungary in general is an island of peace, said the chief rabbi of the Dohány street synagogue last October.

  Indeed, today Hungary is a safe place for the Hungarian Jewry and it fully ensures the existence and acceptance of Judaism in our constitution. According to research of the Zionist Foundation in 2023, in the year of the Israeli–Palestinian war, there were only 128 cases of antisemitism, most of them committed online. The policy of zero tolerance is a main guideline of life in all areas. We have identified three areas of action: prevention, education, communication in public life and firm legal access.

  Accordingly the Hungarian government supports governmental and non-governmental institutions in their efforts to teach historical facts in an objective framework in the broadest possible circle and thus enforcing the fight against antisemitism. In 1999, we founded the Holocaust Memorial Center, and since April 16th 2001 we commemorate the Hungarian victims of the Holocaust on this day. When it comes to public communication we consistently represent the principle of zero tolerance. We have developed a Hungarian national strategy against antisemitism, published in our official papers, and we set the path for definitive action by the government.

  Hungary speaks out in all national and international forums against antisemitism manifestations and anti-Israel manifestations which is not always a popular thing to do. During Hungary’s presidency of the European Council, meaning currently, on September 24 and 25, in the coming weeks, Budapest will be host to the session of a very group dedicated to the implementation of our policies which is focused on the promotion of Jewish life.

  Honourable President, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thank you for letting me say this in front of you. Thank you for your attention.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: The next speaker will be Edurne Uriartre Bengoechea, Member of the Spanish Parliament.

  Edurne Uriarte Bengoechea (Member of Parliament, Spain): I am an MP from the People’s Party in the Spanish Congress, and first of all I wanted to give my thanks to Mr. Sobotka for the invitation and for leading this important conference about an issue which is fundamental in democracies: the fight against antisemitism. In Spain, there has been an increase of attacks against Jews, there has been an increase of antisemitism, as in other countries in Europe, in the world. There has been an increase of hate speech against Jews, basically, of course, in the last year, from October 7.

  We are working against antisemitism in Spain. Of course, the first problem is to recognize the problem, because in Spain there is also a denial of the systems of antisemitism. We are working on that. We from the People’s Party just presented an initiative in Congress to fight antisemitism and to fight the attacks against Jews in Spain. I wanted to say to you that also, precisely today, we are approving in our Congress a commission with different political parties, People’s Party, also with the Socialist Party, to work against hate speech. Our intention, our proposal is to work in this commission against all the hate speech and also against the hate speech against the Jews, against antisemitism.

  Before, Mr. Ohana, the speaker of the Knesset, was saying, it’s not possible to legislate against hate. Well, to a degree I agree, it’s difficult, of course, I agree, we must change the minds, it’s true. But I think, we think that we can do also important work in parliament, in this case, in the Spanish Congress. I think that in this commission we will do good work. Perhaps legislation is limited, but good work also to fight hate speech, to fight antisemitism can be done. I hope to change the minds. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you.

  The last speaker is Chrisis Pantelides, a member of the Parliament of Cyprus.

  Chrisis Pantelides (Member of Parliament, Cyprus): Your Excellency! Dear colleagues! After the terrorist attack of Hamas against Israel on October 7th and the inevitable war in Gaza, the world and mainly Europe have witnessed an alarming increase of antisemitic attacks, harassment and hate speech against Jews. This environment of hatred and fear is affecting not only the Jewish communities, but the European society as a whole. Moreover, I have no doubt that in addition to all the negative aspects of antisemitism for many decades, nowadays antisemitism also serves as fertile ground for violent fanatic Islamist groups and regimes to challenge and threat the values of freedom, liberal democracy, respect for human rights and rule of law.

  Therefore, we all must realize that in these terms, under the current conditions, antisemitism is a direct challenge and threat not only against Jews and the state of Israel, but also against the European Union, against the west, against the free world. That is why European governments, European parliaments and of course the European people must consider the fight against antisemitism as a top priority and must take concrete steps to tackle antisemitic hatred, discrimination and violence in our countries. In conclusion, allow me to highlight the title of this conference: Democracy cannot tolerate antisemitism, and stress that to safeguard and preserve democracy, not tolerating antisemitism is necessary, but not enough. We also need to act, we need to fight antisemitism, we need to eliminate it. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much.

  I would like to thank you all and I would like to thank the debate speakers for their contribution. Now we’ll interrupt the session for a coffee break in the room besides the plenary hall. We’ll start again in 15 minutes with Session 2.

  I hope there will also be discussions between the different parliamentarians and the experts. Many thanks.

  Session 2: Current situation of Jewish communities in Europe

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Please sit down, we will continue. Please come in.

  Please come in, Mr. Stern, a little bit faster. – He’s a young guy. – I know the discussion is so interesting for all of us, but we will have time after the third panel discussion to share our opinions. 

  Dear colleagues, the second session is dedicated to the topic "Current situation of Jewish communities in Europe”. First, I have to really express my gratitude and my thankfulness to Mr. Ariel Muzicant. He invited a lot of Presidents of the Jewish communities in Europe. It is really a great honour for us that especially the two largest communities are represented here in the Austrian Parliament. We will begin this session with a status report on the situation of Jewish communities in Europe.

  The first speaker is Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of the French Jewish institutions. – Mr. President, you have the floor.

  Yonathan Arfi (President of the Representative Council of the French Jewish institutions (CRIF): Mr. President of the National Council, dear Wolfgang Sobotka! Mr. Speaker of the Knesset, dear Amir Ohana! Dear European Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life, dear Katharina von Schnurbein! Dear President of the European Jewish Congress, dear Ariel Muzicant! Dear elected officials and representatives of political organizations, Jewish communities and civil society! Antisemitism is always a sign of a society that is ill, that is suffering, and whose democratic principles and values are being undermined. France is no exception. It’s therefore necessary to identify antisemitism, to name it, and to fight it. 

  France is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, about 600,000 people, a little bit less than 1 per cent of the French population. In France, for more than 20 years, the rise of antisemitism has been fuelled by the hatred of Israel, by radical Islam, by the renewal of conspiracy theories. We have to be clear not only about the antisemitic attacks by themselves, but also about the sources of antisemitism, and that’s why I want to describe what happened in the last months in France. 

  Since the massacres of October 7th, in France as everywhere else in Europe and in the world, most antisemitic attacks have taken place under the cover of solidarity with the Palestinians, using the conflict between Israel and the Hamas as an excuse. In June, a 12-year-old girl was attacked and raped near Paris by several boys because she was Jewish and – I quote – because of her bad words about Palestine. Very recently, in August, an individual wearing a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh tried to set fire to a synagogue in the southeast of France, in La Grande-Motte, a few minutes before the Sabbath service. This attack was not only an additional one since October 7th in France. It was a testifying of an intensification and escalation of the violence because this guy didn’t want only to set fire to a synagogue, to burn a symbolical presence of the Jews, he wanted to kill real Jews. 

  Things have changed dramatically over the last years and months. To give you an idea about figures: Over the last three months of 2023, France has seen an increase of more than 1,000 per cent of antisemitism in the country, and for the first time in 2023 antisemitic attacks and incidents were more than 1,000, it was 1,676 antisemitic incidents for the year 2023. For the first semester of 2024, the Ministry of Interior already claimed more than 800 antisemitic acts. 

  But beyond these numbers, what does it actually mean for Jews in France today? Well, it has been said: It means removing the mezuzah from your front door, changing your first and last name on apps for taxi or meal delivery. It also means looking behind you when you go to the synagogue, to the kosher supermarket, and experiencing sometimes harassment in universities, in schools, and having the feeling to be assigned systematically to your Jewish identity. 

  This outbreak of antisemitism is also happening online, on social networks, where we are witnessing a worrying rise in extremely violent antisemitic messages which carry an imagery directly fed from reality and which is reproduced without limit. 

  What we are witnessing today in France is an antisemitism of atmosphere, which does not always necessarily translate into actions, into attacks, but which manifests itself in a palpable unease which gradually makes the air unbreathable for French Jews. This climate has been further polluted by enemies of the democracy in our own country who have jumped on the fears around October 7th, and I want to underscore the responsibility of the extreme left on this issue.

  Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise, has continuously placed hatred of Israel behind the facade of solidarity with Gaza at the centre of the public debate and political debate in France over the last months, during the European elections campaign and then during the parliamentary elections. It was also the case in the streets, in universities. In a tragic accusatory inversion, the term genocide misused has become a political and ideological battlefield. This false accusation against Israel has become a slogan against the Jews in France.

  Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a few other leaders have enabled the return of antisemitism not in power, but in the streets of France. They do have a responsibility for the surge of antisemitism in our country. They also have a responsibility for the rise of the far-right party Rassemblement National, which is taking advantage of the excesses of the far left to move forward in its so-called normalization. Marine Le Pen now claims to present herself as a bulwark, as a dam against antisemitism. But we know, however, that history shows that populism has never protected the Jews. 

  France is, I believe, an excellent witness to the very special relationship that exists between the Jews and democracies. There is a community of destiny, a community of fate between the Jewish people and democracy. Jews in France and the Republic have been closely linked since 1791, the date of the emancipation of the Jews in France. The Republic has always had the fate of French Jews at heart, and the Jews have always had the Republic somewhere in their hearts. 

  Our democracies are never safe, but it’s always possible to resist, because if the time might be right for compromise, it is never the time to compromise yourself. – Thank you very much. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much for giving us a view of the situation in France. 

  And now I will give the floor to Josef Schuster, the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. He arrived in the morning. – Many thanks to you for joining us! I give the floor to you, President Schuster. 

  Josef Schuster (President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany): Mr. President of the Austrian Parliament! Mr. Speaker of the Knesset! Your Excellencies! Ladies and gentlemen! It’s a privilege to speak to you all today. As the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the phrase "Never again!” always rings especially urgent to me. Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah has been a success story: about 150,000 Jews today living in Germany. Berlin has become many young Israelis’ home. There are over 100 communities around the country. Many of these exist today because of the Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in post-Cold-War Eastern Europe during the 1990s. Germany’s Jews have rebuilt their lives and their identity after the horror of the Shoah. Some people call Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust a gift. It’s a nice sentiment, but in fact it was very, very hard work. This work has been under serious threat since October 7th 2023, when Israel was brutally attacked by terrorists. The consequences were felt in Germany too. Earlier this year, we conducted a survey which showed that nearly 70 per cent of Jewish communities noticed fewer visitors and increased uncertainty among members. Almost half had to cancel public events due to security concerns. This affected especially the elderly families and young people. The attacks in Israel also showed a rift between the streets where they saw some clearly antisemitic demonstrations taking place soon after the attacks and the government’s reaction. 96 per cent of the Jewish communities were satisfied with the cooperation with police and local law enforcement, and over 70 per cent were happy with the support they received from local government and public officials. I’m pleased to say that the response by both federal and local government in Germany to the events in the streets that affected the Jewish communities has been very encouraging. 

  But the political landscape in Germany is changing, and it is changing to the worse. At the beginning of September, two German states held elections to state parliaments. Both, Thuringia and Saxony, are states that used to be part of Eastern Germany. In both states, the far-right fascist party, the AfD, won a very significant number of votes. This is truly devastating. It shows that the ratcatchers are once again making political gains by selling hate and division. They pretend to be on the side of the Jews because these parties agitate against Muslims and immigrants. 

  Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake! If it is politically expedient, they would agitate against Jews, just as we heard from the French side a few minutes before. They are not our friends or allies. They are the enemies of Jewish life and the enemies of democracy. I often get asked whether I see the biggest threat to Jews in Germany coming from the radical Islamic side or from far-right political parties. The answer is not or, the answer is and. It is true that violent Islamist terrorists threaten the physical safety of Jewish and non-Jewish lives and property. Not even one week ago, a young Austrian man attacked the Israeli Consulate General in Munich. It was only thanks to the efforts of the German police that no one was hurt. These cowardly acts of terrorism are a danger for our citizens. But the normalization of far-right political positions into our political mainstream is a danger to the foundations of democracy itself. Both threaten our way of life, both need to be challenged. History teaches us that if those who undermine democracy ever come to power, they will soon target minorities in order to justify their own failures – and Jews are a minority in every country but one. 

  Islamists’ attacks against synagogues or crimes that injure or kill people grab our immediate attention. However, just as we are outraged by these senseless attacks, we equally must not let our guard down against those who try to tell us that fascism is a solution to any of our problems. Fascism has led Europe to war. And fascism is gaining strength in Europe once again.

  It was fascism that opened the gates to Auschwitz and Dachau and Mauthausen. Just last month, German courts sentenced a former secretary from a concentration camp for her complicity in the Holocaust. She was no more than 19 years old, but murder has no statute of limitation. If left unchallenged, the fascist ideology will reach for power once again. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi said: "If it happened once, it can happen again.” – But it must not happen again, never again! – Thank you for your attention.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much. 

  And now Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt has the floor for an Impulse Statement. Rabbi Goldschmidt has been President of the Conference of European Rabbis since 2011 and has shifted the organization’s focus from its post-World War II mission of rebuilding Jewish communities to a forward-looking approach seeking to inspire Jewish continuity. And under his presidency, the Conference of European Rabbis strongly engaged in interfaith dialogue. 

  You have the floor. 

  Pinchas Goldschmidt (President of the Conference of European Rabbis): Thank you, President of the National Council Wolfgang Sobotka, for inviting me, for organizing this event. Yoshev Rosh-ha-Knesset Amir Ohana! President of the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Greg Fergus, and former President of the Senate of Belgiumof Belgium, Ms. Stephanie D’Hose! Parliamentarians, rabbis, presidents of communities! I’m going to try not to repeat what was said, I will just make three suggestions. 

  When I came in here, being invited, I was shocked. I saw the title of this conference "Never again?”. I was not shocked by seeing the two words of Never again, I was shocked by seeing the question mark – here in Vienna. On the 7th of October, the world, Israel, and the Jews were reminded what can happen and what will happen if the state of Israel does not exist. When for a few hours the state did not function, the army did not function, the intelligence services did not function, we would return 120 years to Kishinev, to the Pogrom of Kishinev. And with the 7th of October, we saw the biggest onslaught of antisemitism here in Europe since the Shoah. And what is more important, antisemitism became politically correct again in the mainstream political discourse. 

  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, it has been said, said that antisemitism is a sign of sickness of society. Antisemitism is destabilizing society. And the question we have to ask ourselves: Who is interested in destabilizing our society, our way of life, our democracy, and our liberties? 

  We are witnessing two wars right now: in Europe, the war of Russia against Ukraine, and to a large extent against Europe. And we have the war of radical Islam led by Iran not only against Israel, against Jews all over the world, and also against our way of life. Russia is using antisemitism in Europe to destabilize Europe. Why? – Because the more the centre parties are being destabilized, the less support there is for Ukraine. A few weeks ago, Russian Telegram channels had a fake statement by the Chief Rabbi of England, Mirvis, calling for all the mosques in England to be closed. And then there was a similar statement about the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, also criticizing Zelenskyy Antisemitism is being used to divide our society, to strengthen the radical right and the radical left, and to destroy the European project. 

  But Russia is not alone, it’s together with Iran. Iran is at war not only with Israel, it has instigated some successful, some less successful terror attacks against Jewish objects in Germany, in Bochum. Secret agents have been hired to attack the Jewish community centres in Athens. It is time for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be put on the list of terrorist organizations by the EU. The time has come. I know Germany has supported it, but it has not been done yet. Europe has to recognize that radical Islam is not any less a threat than Russia. In the same way Europe has been spending billions of dollars to protect Europe from Russian onslaught, more has to be spent to protect Europe from radical Islam. 

  There is also another issue: the radicalization of our youth. We have seen lately in Switzerland, in Solingen in North Rhine-Westphalia that the ones who attack peaceful citizens, not necessarily Jews, are younger and younger people. There has been much cooperation lately in Europe among security services; however, there is no European registry of walking time bombs, of people who have been radicalized.

  And therefore, when this Austrian young man came and did this terrible murder in Solingen, the German authorities had no idea who this person was and where this person came from. And since Schengen is making Europe into one supercountry, there has to be more cooperation. And Professor Neumann, who is the one big expert on terrorism, said it’s about time to do it. – This is our second suggestion. 

  And number three: Besides the two wars being waged, there’s another war going on, not with weapons, but between countries and the platforms of social media. The question is: Who is responsible to control the platforms? Who is responsible for the call for terrorism, for the radicalization happening on social media? I would like to revert to the proposal of my friend, the Foreign Minister of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, who said: It’s about time that the algorithms within social media, which are radicalizing a large part of our society, should be put under the control of the governments, because this is one of the biggest threats to our society. 

  I would like to close just with one final thought: We are in Europe. Europe is recognizing the problem. I would like to commend the European Community and the Commission for combating and fighting antisemitism. We have here Katharina von Schnurbein. However, at the election speech of the new President, the new old President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, she failed to mention any word, said not even one word, about antisemitism. I don’t think it’s because she didn’t care. I don’t think it’s because she didn’t think it was important. I think she just thought this is not going to gather any more votes. It is only thanks to people like you, President Wolfgang Sobotka, and others, that we can change things in the European Union: where public elected officials will not be afraid to speak up against antisemitism and to keep our way of life, our democracy and freedom in Europe. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you, Mr. President, for your statement. 

  Ms. Emma Hallali now will have the floor for another impulse statement. Emma Hallali is the President of the European Union of Jewish Students and also an elected member of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. She is a co-founder of the Ahlan Europe Initiative, a collective created to promote more visibility and inclusivity for Jewish students in Europe. 

  The floor is yours, madam. 

  Emma Hallali (European Union of Jewish Students): Thank you very much. Dear President of the National Council Mr. Sobotka! Dear Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana! Dear Excellencies! Dear Presidents of national parliaments! I would like to start by sincerely thanking the Austrian Parliament for the immense privilege of addressing you all today. We are gathered here under the solemn banner of Never again, a term that is meant to invoke a moral commitment, a promise to protect Jewish communities across Europe. 

  Yet, when we look at the current state of affairs on European campuses, we see troubling signs that this promise is not being fulfilled. In the past years, universities, historically known as being strong bastions of free thought and dialogue, have become breeding grounds for rising antisemitism and hatred. The wave of protests sweeping across campuses, called the Student Intifada, has brought with it an alarming escalation of exclusionary and violent rhetoric, along with direct physical attacks on Jewish students. This toxic atmosphere is not only morally unacceptable, but also represents a deep failure of the academic institutions that are supposed to safeguard both the physical and the psychological well-being of all students. For months, Jewish students organizations have sounded the alarm to non-Jewish organizations that are present on campuses as well as to university administrations, but all calls for support and protection have long been ignored and neglected.

  It is crucial to remember that antisemitism on campuses did not start with the appalling terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, as some might believe. What we see happening now on European campuses – students being excluded from engaging in public discourse, threatened, and assaulted, simply for being Jewish – was tragically predictable. October 7th has only amplified those trends, leaving Jewish students across Europe feeling even more vulnerable, abandoned, and unsafe in the very same places that should foster their growth and their development. The rhetoric we are hearing and the violence we are witnessing mirror a broader societal failure: the inability to distinguish between legitimate political protests and outright hate speech. When Jewish students are attacked for speaking Hebrew, or when Hamas is praised as a resistance group, while Jewish students are told they should get back to their own countries, this shows that the problem that we are dealing with is much more serious than we originally thought it to be. How can this be possible with the democratic values that our universities and our society as a whole claim to uphold? Universities, by their very own nature, are supposed to be places of critical thinking, dialogue, and mutual respect. And yet, Jewish students are experiencing the opposite. The physical and psychological safety of Jewish students is under attack, and the very same institutions that promised to protect them are massively failing their responsibilities. 

  But let me be clear about something: It’s not just universities that are failing us, it’s the European society as a whole. Europe must confront the undeniable reality that by turning a blind eye to this surge in antisemitism, we are dangerously opening the doors to political violence and hatred to take over the public discourse. In the wake of these developments, Jewish students across Europe have been asking themselves a painful question: Is there still a future for Jewish life on European campuses? Is there still a future for Jewish life in Europe? – The consequences of inaction are severe. If we want Jewish life to flourish in Europe, we can no longer wait until more Jewish students are physically harmed, or until Jewish life on our campuses is pushed to the margins, or worse, erased entirely. 

  As we look ahead to the new academic year, we remain hopeful that the situation will improve. But we must also remain vigilant. While we know that the encampments may start again and then some radical student organizations, such as the BDS movement, are already planning to celebrate the events of October 7th on their respective college campuses, we say loud and clear that we refuse to allow this culture of hatred to become the norm. This is a time for leadership, and it is vital that universities, along with national governments and the civil society as a whole, all rise to the challenge that we have lying ahead of us. We must reject the empty promises of Never again that have characterized the response so far and demand far more concrete action. 

  We need a strong implementation of effective measures to combat antisemitism and hatred on our campuses, including mandatory educational programmes on antisemitism, the adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, clear policies to address hate speech and violence, and protection for all students that are being targeted. We also need all of you to engage with your national Jewish student unions, whether it is in Austria, in the Czech Republic, in France, in Cyprus. They are on the ground, and they need your political support. We need university administrations to actively foster an environment of dialogue, respect, and inclusivity. Jewish students deserve to have the same rights as any other collective to feel safe and respected on their campuses. 

  We enter this new academic year with both caution and hope, as I just said: hope that universities can once again become places of learning, critical thinking, and growth for all students, no matter their ethnic or religious background, hope that this year the tide will turn and Jewish students will feel safer, heard, and supported. But hope alone is not enough: We need actions, because the legacy of our universities and indeed our broader democratic values are at stake. 

  We are not just fighting for Jewish students. We are fighting for the very soul of our democratic society. If we believe as we say we do in a Europe where Jewish life can flourish, then we do not have any time to waste. Remember this: Jewish students across all continents are asking themselves if there is still a future for Jewish life on campuses, and if there is still a Jewish future in Europe. All of us are responsible for these answers. And we must all come together to act now before it’s too late because: Never again!, is right now. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much. We’ll now move on to the debate. There are seven requests to speak. The speaker will generally have 3 minutes maximum so that we can hold our schedule. 

  The first speaker will be Benedetto Della Vedova, member of the Italian Parliament. – Please take the floor. 

  Benedetto Della Vedova (Member of Parliament, Italy): Let me start quoting Professor Monika Schwarz: Antisemitism is for democracy what a canary is in the coal mine: It is an alert and an alarm for the health of our democracy. Surveys and findings show that concerns about their safety and hiding their Jewish identity has been a reality for many Jewish people in Europe well before the Hamas attacks in October 2023 and the war in Gaza. This is important for me. We can have different judgements about the reaction of the current Israeli government to the massacre of October 7th – my judgement so far is not that positive, for instance –, but we can’t hide behind it. 

  In strongly emotionally charged times like these, our task as lawmakers is not simply to limit ourselves to expressions of solidarity, but to devise or refine new courses of action to combat antisemitism, ensure security of Jewish communities and individuals, and foster Jewish life. The issue here is that despite a clear legal framework in place at the national and the EU-level, what tends to be missing is effective implementation. 

  Parliaments should press governments to provide for impact assessment mechanisms in their national action plans, applying proper human rights indicators and reliable survey methodologies as well as adequately resourcing the office responsible for combating antisemitism. 

  An improved level of recording, combined with more reliable data, would greatly increase the ability of policy and lawmakers to formulate more efficient and targeted measures to counter antisemitism. This is an objective we should all work for. – Thank you, Mr. President.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much. 

  The next speaker is Ron Katz, member of the Israeli Knesset. – Please take the floor. 

  Ron Katz (Member of Parliament, Israel): Ladies and gentlemen! President Sobotka! It is with a heavy heart that I stand before you today. Hearing the impact of the statement about the rise of antisemitism in Europe has been deeply saddening. The severity of the situation has reminded me of my own family history. My father was born in Hungary and in 1973 made the difficult decision to leave his home, his friends, and make Aliyah to Israel. 

  When I was growing up, he would often tell me about the antisemitism he experienced in his own youth in Hungary and how he came to realize that Israel was the only place where Jews could live freely without giving up their identity. 

  It’s painful to see history is making a comeback today in Europe. I don’t believe the war against Hamas is the root cause of the negative shift in attitude toward the Jewish people. I believe the war is simply an excuse for deeply rooted antisemitism to become transparent. The rise of antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere around the world reminds us – it’s a tough reminder – that the safety of Jews outside of Israel can never be guaranteed. 

  I believe, despite the shocking October 7 massacre and the war that Israel was dragged into, the only thing that Israel can control is Israel, its border, and the safety of the people within this border. While Israel is doing all it can diplomatically in Europe to help our community, we have very limited power in shaping the policy and social landscape of other nations. What we can do is stand by the Jewish community, offering them our support and promise, Israel will win the war against terror, and Jews in Europe will always have a home in Israel, no matter what. 

  I want to thank you all for standing with Israel. I want to thank you, President Sobotka, for being a good friend, an ally, and a brother to Israel. I want to thank everyone that sits on this seat: We appreciate it, and I think, I hope, that we’re not going to have a conference like this ever again, and we’re going to fight the war against terrorists and the war against antisemitism. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much, Ron. 

  The next speaker is the First Deputy Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Márta Mátrai. – Please take the floor.

  Márta Mátrai (First Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary) (simultaneous interpretation): Honourable Speakers and Deputy Speakers! Ladies and Gentlemen! honourable Members of Parliament! First and foremost I’d like to express my gratitude also on behalf of Speaker László Kövér to Mr. Wolfgang Sobotka, President of the Austrian National Council, who is deeply committed to taking decisive action against antisemitism, and for whom this issue has not only become a priority following recent events, but has been a priority throughout his term as Speaker, just like for the government of Hungary, thanks to which Jewish communities in Hungary can live in safety and enjoy their culture, religion and Jewish identity openly. 

  According to the World Jewish Congress, our country has the largest Jewish community in Central and Eastern Europe, with between 75,000 and 100,000 members. Together with them, we are working to not only curb antisemitic views, but also to eradicate them altogether, setting an example to all nations. 

  In addition to the fight against antisemitism, which my colleague MP Fónagy has already spoken about in the previous panel, we are also placing great emphasis on the revitalization of Jewish culture, for which the Hungarian Government provides significant financial support. Just to mention a few examples: Hungary’s four main Jewish organizations have received more than 90 million euros in total in state subsidies provided from budgets earmarked for religious communities’ church funding since 2010, with the annual grant doubling from 3.9 million euros in 2010 to 8.2 million euros in 2022. We support the renovation and upgrading of synagogues, the renewal of community spaces and the construction of new ones, both in Hungary and abroad, with 21 million euros provided for such purposes since 2015.

  With the help of state subsidies, two new synagogues and community spaces have been built, 22 synagogues and four synagogues used for non-religious activities have been renovated. Grants for synagogues beyond our national borders amounted to 2.1 million euros.

  The state also provides annual grants to Jewish NGOs. The grants awarded in 2024 amount to nearly 6.3 million euros. And the state has also provided 2.5 million euros to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust. 

  Dear MPs! Dear peers! It is the duty of the state to protect its own citizens, while at the same time by preserving traditions, especially those linked to religious life, we are also protecting our own European way of life rooted in Judeo-Christian culture. Hungary is doing everything possible to protect the Jewish communities living on its territory, which are free to enjoy their culture and practice their religion. 

  Hungary is therefore an excellent example of how different ethnic groups, religious denominations and cultures can live together freely and peacefully as long as they respect each other’s rights and traditions and the laws of the land. 

  Thank you for your kind attention. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you, Madam Speaker. 

  The next speaker is Alexandra Anstrell, member of the Swedish Parliament.

  Alexandra Anstrell (Member of Parliament, Sweden): Thank you, Austria, and thank you, President Mr. Sobotka, for hosting a conference on such an important issue. – Vielen Dank. 

  We are unfortunately here to discuss something that shouldn’t even exist. The Swedish Parliament opened yesterday. That’s why I couldn’t be here yesterday and why the Speaker could not attend. But our Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was very clear in his government declaration yesterday: Sweden must be an open and tolerant society, that everyone should be able to live safely, regardless of religion or personal beliefs. 

  Earlier this year, the investigation A Strong Jewish Life for Future Generations was presented to the government. Now there are meetings with different organizations and, for example, Jewish schools and so on, to work this further on. The purpose is that this will result in a bill to the Swedish Parliament. We are trying to do several things, but still it’s not safe around Jewish institutions in Sweden. 

  Next year is the 250th anniversary of Jewish life in Sweden. Strengthening the conditions for Jewish life in Sweden is a priority issue for our government and a long-term strategy will be drawn up. There is no place for antisemitism and that’s why this conference is so important. So we can work together against antisemitism. 

  The Austrians are a good example and the Austrian government, of course, and I think we all have to do a little bit more. Step by step, together I think we can work against antisemitism. Thank you very much for hosting us and thank you. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you, also for holding the time schedule. 

  The next speaker is, Diederik van Dijk, member of the Parliament of the Netherlands. 

  Diederik van Dijk (Member of Parliament, Netherlands): Thank you, Mr. Sobotka, also for your great effort for this day and this conference.

  As you all may know, the whole world will disappear within a week into the water – totally into the water. The Christian says: We must pray so this won’t happen! The Buddhist says: We must meditate! The Jew says: Come on, we have one week to learn how to survive under water! – That’s the Jewish spirit and they will never beat it, not the radical Islam, not the far right, not the far left, never. God bless the Jewish people. God bless you all. – Thank you. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much. 

  The next speaker is Giedrius Surplys, member of the Lithuanian parliament. – Please.

  Giedrius Surplys (Member of Parliament, Lithuania): Mr. Speaker! Dear colleagues! It’s a good feeling to be with you today and a sad feeling at the same time. It’s really stressful to hear the stories from France and other countries about what’s been happening after the sad events of October 7. And I was just thinking to myself, it’s over 80 years we have been remembering or trying not to forget the Holocaust, but it seems that we are not far away from there. 

  Just a few remarks from Lithuania: In Lithuania, we try to remember, we try to acknowledge, we try to educate, because we feel that education has really the most important mission here, especially hearing what you, dear Emma, were telling from your experience from the campuses. 

  So just to remind you: In 1995, our president Algirdas Brazauskas apologized to the Jewish people in the Knesset for the Holocaust that has happened in Lithuania. Then, Mr. President of the Knesset, for your information, we have passed a resolution in the Seimas of Lithuania right after the sad events of October 7, naming Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations. 

  And yes, we have this important feeling with the Litvak community of Lithuania. We try to acknowledge, to all that we can, the huge impact and valuable input that the Litvak community had to the history of Lithuania, the culture, the economy, the business. We are marking all sites where Jewish people lived. We are marking all the sites where the mass killings happened.

  And I’m sure you know that the largest-to-be museum of the Litva community, the so-called Lost Shtetl, is being built in Shadova in Lithuania. Once it will be completed, I will invite all of you to come and visit. We are paying goodwill money compensations to the Jewish communities for the properties that they lost during the Holocaust and surely it will never be enough, but this is a goodwill compensation that we are providing. 

  But as I mentioned in the beginning, the most important thing for us is education, so the Holocaust lessons are compulsory in Lithuania. All the schoolchildren have yearly commemoration events where they are involved with the emotional aspects of the history of Holocaust. We strongly believe that this is the way to ultimately say goodbye to this sad part of the history of humankind. – Thank you. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much. 

  The next speaker is Charles Flanagan, member of the Irish Parliament. – Please take the floor. 

  Charles Flanagan (Member of Parliament, Ireland): Let me say that I bear the warmest of greetings from the Speaker of the Irish Parliament, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, both to you, Mr. President, and to everybody at this important gathering. 

  Ireland is deeply concerned at the rise of incidents of antisemitic behaviour and sentiment and intolerance across our communities. I acknowledge deep and immense impact that these incidents are having on Jewish communities worldwide. 

  I was struck last night by the very moving contribution from Dov Forman and Jessica Winkelbauer taking time out to share with us their experience as young people in Europe. I’m not sure if they’re with us still this morning, but if they are, let me convey my deep sense of appreciation for their contribution. 

  In Ireland, there’s a small Jewish community, less than 2,500 people, but Ireland is not immune from recent international and unacceptable trends.

  Among the 1,200 victims of October 7 massacre was an innocent, music-loving teenage girl, Kim Damti, the daughter of a constituent of mine in the Midlands of Ireland, whose family are personally well known to me. I recently spoke to a Jewish restaurateur in Dublin who told me that his business is down over 50 percent. He fears he may have to close, which will deprive him and his family of vital income. Jews in Ireland tell me they have been shaken to the core. They are concerned for their personal safety and that of their family. 

  Indeed, many Jews, Mr. President, have resorted to keeping their heads down. Of course, we are all greatly disturbed by the atrocities committed by the Hamas terrorists. We’re appalled at what’s happening in Gaza. But let me say that pro-Palestinian support in Ireland must not be interpreted as an alienation of Jews. Jews around the world should not be held to account for the actions of the current or any Israeli government. 

  Ireland engages in a wide variety of initiatives to combat antisemitism, including at the European Union and UN level. Ireland is an active and committed member of the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. 

  Mr. President, let me say that I very much welcome this initiative by you. This is a vital conversation, the content of which we must take home to our national parliaments and our civil society because we, as parliamentarians, must redouble our efforts to combat and rebut the insidious and dangerous rhetoric of the far right and the far left. As public representatives elected by the people, we have a clear duty to protect all of our citizens and all of our people. So thank you once again for arranging this, and thank you for inviting me as a representative of the Irish parliament. I’m pleased to be here, and I’ll take home a strong message. Thank you, everybody, for that. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much. 

  The next speaker is Marlene Schönberger from the German Bundestag.

  Marlene Schönberger (Member of Parliament, Germany) (simultaneous interpretation): President of the National Council Mr. Sobotka! Representatives of the Jewish community! Dear colleagues! Jewish communities in Europe are under threat, although we have been repeating: Never again!, so many times. In Germany, we know that this threat is not just coming from one side. We have had far right and far left threats in recent years. Even the left tried to excuse antisemitic behaviour. 

  I would like to thank you, President Sobotka and also Madame Hallali, for showing the perspective of Jewish students. Also in Germany, Jewish students have been raising their voice, have been requesting politics to take action. I would like to thank you again for your contribution. And if I may add a request: We would very much like to have an exchange with Austrian students as well. 

  But let us get back to the ever-present threat by antisemitism. It’s very important to talk about antisemites today. They are joining their forces all over the world. In Germany, we have known since the attacks in Halle that there’s also a massive threat against Jews by the extremists right and left. There’s an antisemitic ideology that is the root of many terrorist actions. Just think of Christchurch, for example. 

  Let’s be honest, let’s say that antisemitic violence is also possible because there has been a kind of normalization of antisemitism in society. Right-wing terror against Jews is possible also because at an international scale we have had a normalization of the political centre with regard to the extremist right-wing parties who share many of their views with Islamists. 

  And I want us to be very clear in our statements. Let us not be fooled by these right- and left-wing parties who pretend that they want to fight against antisemitism. Mr. Arfi mentioned this. Right-wing extremists are trying to network and gain support by the Russian regime. The Russian regime has its links to the Iranian regime. That’s what we have to talk about if we want to protect Jewish citizens.

  I know that we have to find allies in our fight against antisemitism. That’s good and important. But let us be wise in our choices because those who actually have antisemitic positions themselves are undermining our fight. 

  We have been talking about the margins. Let us also talk about the centre. Ms. Schwarz-Friesel mentioned this. Antisemitism is deeply rooted in the Western cultures, also in the midst of our societies. And the centre of our societies has a crucial role and responsibility. It has to decide on which side it stands, whether it stands with those who fight for democracy and pluralism, or whether it wants to stand with those who have an authoritarian ideology. 

  Global networking of antisemites can only be fought if we stand on the right side. Thank you very much. 

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you for respecting the time given.

  President of the Jewish Congress Ariel Muzicant, you have the floor, please. 

  Ariel Muzicant: Mr. President, with all respect and with all the thanks for what has been said, may I still raise my voice for some critical remarks.

  Just this morning, we got the message that Iran is delivering ballistic missiles to Russia, which are going to be used to attack civilians in Ukraine. What are the European Parliament, the European Council, and all the member states of the European Union going to do about that? This is a classic example of what is going on; we are all looking away.

  The second example is the situation which was described by my colleagues Josef Schuster, Yonathan Arfi, and Emma. It’s only the tip of the iceberg. I represent 42 communities. When you speak to the people, what you hear is despair, fear, and uncertainty. 57 to 65 per cent of the European Jews are asking today: Do we have a future in Europe? – This is a completely impossible situation.

  I really appreciate Wolfgang Sobotka’s – our President’s – initiative, again and again and again, but we need actions. We need clear activities, for example against Hamas and its funding in Europe. Some countries have taken those steps, some others have not. Many funds of Hamas and the terrorists come from Europe. UNRWA has just fired many – I don’t know how many – of their workers because they were part of the attacks on Israel on 7th October. Why is European funding UNRWA without demanding a complete stop of any kind of aid to Hamas?

  The IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard: Some countries have decided to put them on a terrorist list; some others are opposing this; some say we have to talk to them. What for? They are the root of all this evil, and it’s going to come to Europe. They are planning attacks against Jewish synagogues, schools and community centres in Europe. This is nothing I’m just telling you: I have concrete evidence that, in several countries, they are trying to find soft targets of Jewish people to attack them.

  Only this year, we have commemorated the – I think – 30th anniversary of the attack against Amia in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, committed by the IRGC and Iranians. All the evidence is on the table, but I still don’t see action of Europe to stop this.

  I’ve heard a lot about what is being done. Let me tell you: It’s in Hungary; it’s in Austria; it’s in Germany. The Jews are feeling like being laid down. When six or seven European countries call what Israel is doing right now a genocide, this is using the definition of genocide, which was established after the Shoah, to blame Israel.

  We are called apartheid people and all these other things. I don’t see or hear the clear difference between criticizing mistakes Israel is making – Israel is making mistakes; we are criticizing them for that – and the trial in which the Jews worldwide are put in a pot and attacked with words like genocide and apartheid.

  Outside, on the streets, they are now putting up some signs which accuse everybody here of supporting war crimes. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve just received the message that there are blankets outside this parliament, blaming us for supporting war crimes.

  Then we have a party that will run for Austrian Parliament in three weeks, calling "Völkermord”, genocide, to prevent genocide. Nothing can be done against that.

  So, with all respect for all these beautiful things which have been said and for the fantastic will to do something, I have to repeat my words and say: Please, enough has been spoken, we need action! If nothing happens soon, the Jews of Europe will leave Europe. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Therefore, I will give the floor to Katharina von Schnurbein for her closing remarks: "Addressing antisemitism under the current circumstances: necessary next steps”.

  Katharina von Schnurbein was appointed as the first European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life in 2015. Her mandate includes working closely together with the Jewish communities, the member states, EU institutions, and international organizations. For her work in the fight against antisemitism, Ms. von Schnurbein has received several awards from European and American Jewish organizations. – The floor is yours.

  Katharina von Schnurbein (European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life): Thank you very much. President of the National Council, Speaker of the Knesset, Presidents of the Parliaments of Canada, Belgium deputies, members of the Jewish communities, ladies and gentlemen! Let me join in with the praises for President Sobotka’s action with regards to the fight against antisemitism over the past years: I think he has, like few others, used his position as the President of this house to address the issue of antisemitism, to inspire others, and, thereby, also to defend democracy and ensure the security of Europe.

  Now, it’s my honour to present you here with a short outlook and concrete suggestions for actions. This is what I was asked to do. Usually I start my presentations with a description of the situation. We have heard it; we have heard its gravity. The horrific Hamas attacks of 7th October on Israeli civilians were the most lethal attacks on Jewish communities since the Shoah and have led to the highest level of antisemitism since the founding of the European Union. We are in the biggest crisis ever; I think we have to act upon it. We are in a situation in which Jews are hiding their identity and thinking about leaving Europe. In the past, when Jews have thought about leaving Europe or have left Europe, it was never good for Europe. Something like this will never be good for any of the countries, of the people represented here. We have to be aware of that.

  Around Holocaust Remembrance Day this year, I had a conversation with a hidden child that survived in Belgium, Baroness Sluszny. She said to me: I don’t want to be hiding anymore. – We are at this point. I think it means that we have to be honest. With regards to my conversations with Jewish communities, I often feel a certain realism: that antisemitism is not going to go away quickly. We are aware of that, but what makes all the difference – and this concerns everybody in this room – is the question of how states react; how the authorities react; how those in power of certain institutions –of course including state institutions – react when something happens.

  The incidents we have seen over the past months remind us of the darkest chapter of Europe. Yet, I want to be clear: It is possibly for the first time in Europe that countries across the EU side with the Jewish communities. They do not only fight antisemitism but also have this positive agenda of fostering Jewish life. We have to call them out for that.

  All MPs sitting here, from European countries: All countries have pledged to have national strategies. At the moment, 21 countries of the 27 have appointed strategies. A few representatives of countries that have not adopted strategies are here. Please, ask your governments where these strategies are! They pledged to have them by 2022. The same goes for the appointment of special envoys: This was also a commitment on the European level, following the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, which we adopted in 2021. At the current stage, we have 19 special envoys. We need to have these structures in place, in order to know where we are going and in order to have a person in place who coordinates it all.

  Thirdly, the IHRA definition: It was mentioned here several times. It’s a useful tool and needs to be used. Adoption is not enough. No adoption is not an option, but we need to use it in training. We need to train police forces and educators. We need to make sure that this instrument, which is the best tool we have, is used. It’s not perfect, but the examples give an overview of the different forms of antisemitism that currently exist in contemporary life. We need to recognize those examples. They include, in particular, also Israel-related antisemitism and anti-Zionism. That’s why the IHRA definition is disputed.

  In my personal opinion, it is also disputed because it works; because it gives an instrument to those who felt in the past that something was antisemitic but could not point their finger at it. Now they have a reference point. That’s another important aspect when it comes to using this definition.

  Finally, to those who think that it limits freedom of speech, I can tell you this: It’s simply not true. First, the definition itself says that criticizing Israel, like any other country, cannot be considered antisemitic. It’s there. One has to use it and apply it like that. Secondly, it says that antisemitic incidents are illegal when they are so defined by law. So, per definition, they cannot infringe on freedom of speech because the law on freedom of speech is not being changed. Thirdly, context matters. So, it is a very important definition that gives us a good framework to act.

  Finally, we have also adopted – you have these new guidelines on countering antisemitism in your documents – a global document, which was adopted by 42 countries by now on the occasion of commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Amia bombing, as a global guideline. If you want to have a strategy, look at this two-page document. It’s all there what needs to happen.

  One of the important aspects is to point out antisemitism. This is the prior responsibility of every MP, of everybody. Most importantly, what we usually see in the political debate is that one points out antisemitism in the other party. So, the left points to the right, and the right points to the Islamists. It’s correct, they see the antisemitism in the other, but what is even more important and more difficult is to point out the antisemitism in their own environment. This is the challenge. I would really ask all of you to do it and see the antisemitism there. By the way, it is the same responsibility for every private person: to make sure that we point out antisemitism when we see and hear it in our student unions, in school reunions with parents, in our families. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.

  I would like to make another very important remark. Often, we get the impression from certain parties that we can point out antisemitism on the back of the Muslims. We will not succeed in this way. I think we need to be aware of our true allies because the conflict line is not between Jews and Muslims. The conflict line is between extremists and democrats. That’s what we need to see: to point out the extremists and side with all those who share our democratic values and contribute to a positive living together in our society.

  The next point is about addressing antisemitism online. I know that there are also representatives from countries outside the EU, but in the European context, with the Digital Services Act, we have created a legal framework as the first region of the world, which sets clear standards for platforms to act in Europe. This includes transparency of algorithms towards the European Commission to be analysed. The platforms now have to analyse their threats to democracy and state how they want to mitigate them. In the end, if they do not completely comply with the legislation, they can be fined up to 6 per cent of their annual revenue.

  We have already started infringement procedures, in fact immediately after the 7th of October, against X, subsequently also against Meta, Aliexpress and a few others, because after the 7th of October, we saw what did not comply with this legislation.

  Hate speech is not free speech. The celebrations we saw on European streets after the horrific killing of Jews by Hamas, at a time when Israel was still getting terrorists off their territory, the demonstrations we heard subsequently, calling for caliphate on European streets, display a level of radicalization and extremism that endangers European security. Antisemitism can create instability and – very important – reduce trust in state authorities to actually protect us. I think it can reduce the trust by the Jews with regards to protection, but it can also reduce trust among the general public. So, addressing extremism and prevention of terrorism is another very important aspect. I believe there is also room for improvement with regards to what Ariel Muzicant has just said.

  Finally, what needs to happen on a larger scale? Many governments have strategies in place. They are implementing them. I think we don’t know what would have happened if we did not have this awareness about antisemitism already developed before the 7th of October. We will not know, but I believe that this has gone in a good direction. Yet now the next step has to be a whole-in-society approach. The whole of society needs to understand that antisemitism is a threat to the Jews, above all, and that would be sufficient to fight it, but in particular, that it is also a threat to democracy and to their own well-being and security.

  So what we need is that every sports club, every university, every school, every political party, religious organization, every business has a protocol in place and develops a protocol. And for these guidelines can be very useful that we distribute it as to what happens when an antisemitic incident happens in your institution. Who needs to be informed? Who takes decisions? Who takes care of the victims? Just like in case of a fire. And I think this is what needs to be the next step for all the institutions and the civil society organizations that we have. And by the way, such protocols also work for other forms of hatred and intolerance. We will only roll back antisemitism if we manage as a consequence then also to roll back all other forms of hatred.

  To come to a close, just a very personal note: Coming back to the situation in Israel and the trigger for the current alarming increase of antisemitism that we see, we were given a little picture of Ori Danino, who was one of the six hostages that were murdered recently after having been more than eleven months in captivity. We put it on our fridge after Chanukah, when we got it. And it was with real emotion. And I think this is one aspect that we really need to envisage: the empathy and the emotion that is needed to put ourselves in the shoes of what is going on there. We need to see what is going on with our Jewish compatriots in Europe in order to have the willingness to address this. Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much, Katharina von Schnurbein, for your closing remarks.

  Now I would like to thank all the speakers. I’ll interrupt the session for a coffee break and I would ask everybody to be back at 12.30 for the last session.

  Session 3: Developments in the Middle East and their impact on our society

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Please come in and take your seats. I’ll ring my bell. – I normally only do this when I start the session or when it’s too loud.

  Dear colleagues, today’s third session is dedicated to the topic "Developments in the Middle East and their impact on our society”. It was mentioned in all the sessions before that the 7th of October had a huge impact on our politics, on our societies, and on the public space. 

  I would like to hand over to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, for his keynote address. Hillel Neuer is an international lawyer, writer and activist and he is executive director of UN Watch, a human rights organization in Geneva. His speeches at the United Nations have been seen by millions around the world. – Dear Mr. Neuer, you have the floor. 

  Hillel Neuer (Executive Director of UN Watch): Mr. President! Honourable speakers of Parliament from Belgium, Canada, and Israel! Members of Parliament from many different countries! Distinguished rabbis! Delegates! Today is the darkest hour for Jews since the Holocaust. In Europe, where I live, Jews are afraid to show their names if they’re taking a taxi and they’re going to a synagogue or a Jewish centre. They give a different address so the driver won’t know that they’re going to a Jewish institution. They consider removing the mezuzah from their door posts. Terrorist attacks have been attempted against synagogues and other institutions in France, Germany and other countries in Europe, and in the country where I grew up in, in Canada, considered by many to be perhaps the most peaceful country in the world, including for Jews, the synagogue where I grew up in Montreal was shot at. The Jewish school my brothers attended, a few blocks from my home, was shot at in the middle of the night. I’m talking about just the past several months. A week later, the shooters came back and shot again at the same Jewish school. Numerous, dozens of other attacks against synagogues, Jewish community centres happened across Canada. And this is the reality that we’re facing.

  The leading world institution that we should be looking to when it comes to confronting racism and violations of human rights is the United Nations, which was founded in the wake of the Nazi atrocities. Indeed, we just marked the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations as listed in the preamble in response to barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.

  On October 7th, Hamas sent an army of thousands of terrorists to invade Israel to massacre Jews. They broke into more than a dozen residential communities, slaughtering entire families, committing horrific and sadistic acts. They slaughtered hundreds of young people at a music festival. In total, Hamas, on that day, murdered well over a thousand Jews. As President Biden said immediately, there are moments in life when pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend, he said. This was an act of sheer evil.

  Indeed, Mr. President, as in 1948, today, too, one would expect the United Nations to denounce barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind. Yet this is not what is happening. Instead, despite some occasional cursory condemnations of Hamas, the vast majority of statements issuing from United Nations bodies and officials has been pointing the finger instead at Israel. Often, this is done by misrepresenting basic facts such as by falsely accusing Israel of attacking a hospital when, in fact, the culprit was the Islamic jihad.

  The UN Charter guarantees the equal right of all nations large and small. Yet nowhere is this principle more violated than when it comes to the UN’s treatment of Israel. At the United Nations General Assembly, which is about to open days from now, last year, there was one resolution on the Islamic regime in Iran, one resolution on Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, one resolution on North Korea, and 15 resolutions against Israel.

  No other country in the world comes even close to be condemned that many times. Meanwhile, there were zero resolutions adopted on China, which is oppressing one-fifth of the world’s population, 1.5 billion people, zero resolutions on Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and 180 other countries, many of them gross violators – zero.

  At the United Nations General Assembly, Hamas has never been condemned once. They cannot even mention its name. And I’m sad to say that the High Commissioner for Human Rights who comes from Austria, Mr. Volker Türk, as was mentioned yesterday evening here, someone who himself, a year ago, in September 2023, spoke about having grown up in Austria, being aware of the anti-Jewish attacks and murder that occurred here during the Holocaust – he said fighting antisemitism is very personal to him –, his office helps promote some of the most demonizing language against the Jewish state, which is used as a pretext to target and attack Jews around the world.

  Just a week ago, his office issued a statement calling Israel not Israel but apartheid Israel. His office issued a statement issued by another rapporteur, not put in quotes, apartheid Israel. No other country would ever be demonized by this at the United Nations, which is very careful to be diplomatic. And a few days ago, when six hostages were shot in cold blood by Hamas, Mr. Türk’s office did put out a statement condemning the actions, but couldn’t even mention the word Hamas. He spoke about armed groups. They’re afraid to even mention the word Hamas.

  In Geneva, where I’m based at the World Health Organization, since the Hamas massacre, the vast majority of statements issued by the WHO and its director, Dr. Tedros, have targeted Israel. Hamas is seldom, if ever, mentioned. Tedros has posted numerous statements falsely implying that Israel targets hospitals. He fails to say that, in truth, it is Hamas who has a strategy to embed itself inside hospitals, homes, and schools. They’ve had terrorist headquarters in hospitals, including Al-Shifa, in order to use Gaza civilians as human shields. When Israel enters the hospitals, it’s to remove the terrorists or to search for hostages who were kept in those hospitals. None of this is ever mentioned.

  At the UN’s highest human rights body, the Human Rights Council, where I’ll be speaking in two days, most of the world’s serial abusers get a free pass. Many sit on the council, including communist China, communist police state Cuba, Eritrea, Algeria, and Qatar, which is the sponsor of the Taliban and Hamas, and they’re running for re-election next month. None of these countries has ever been censured once. In November, when the UN Human Rights Council opened its social forum, the chair was the Islamic regime of Iran, the same regime that beats, blinds, tortures, and rapes women for the crime of demanding their basic freedoms.

  Now, while dictators are honoured democracies, the one democracy in the Middle East, Israel, is scapegoated. The only country in the world with a standing agenda item is not China nor Iran, but actually Israel. In this session, we’re going to have one agenda item, number four, on the whole world, and one agenda item on Israel alone. No other country in the world is targeted in that way. From the council’s creation in 2006 until today, it has adopted more resolutions on Israel, 108, than on any other country in the world. In fact, it’s more than on Iran, Syria, and North Korea put together.

  One of the speakers here today, Assita Kanko, a great member of parliament from the European Parliament, mentioned UNRWA. This is the organization that educates Palestinians. You know that a few months ago, in March, I was in a debate with the former legal advisor of UNRWA in Gaza, Mr. Johann Soufi, and he mentioned that 90 percent of the Gazans are educated in UNRWA schools. 90 percent of Gazans are educated in UNRWA schools. What do they learn in those schools? – Under the slogan, peace starts here, that’s the slogan, UNRWA tells donor states, which is most of the countries represented here, that they educate Palestinians about human rights and peace, and that they promote stability. And on that basis, last year they received 400 million Dollars in US funding from the United States, from Germany, 212 million, from the EU, 120 million, from France, 62 million, from Sweden, 49 million, from Norway, 45 million, from Japan, 48 million, from the Netherlands, 40 million, from Canada, 36 million, from the UK, 37 million.

  Yet our reports for the past nine years have documented in detail how UNRWA teachers, school principals, and other staff regularly call to murder Jews. They create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite antisemitism. You know, as soon as news of the slaughter broke after October 7th, UNRWA staff immediately celebrated on social media. We’ll give you just a few examples from a report we published in October. UNRWA Gaza teacher Osama Ahmed wrote, "Allah is Great, Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams” in response to the massacre as it’s taking place on October 7th. UNRWA school principal Iman Hassan said the massacre was "restoring rights” and "redressing grievances”.

  Sadly, I need to mention the UN Secretary General, who just yesterday attacked Israel in a very harsh way. When he condemned Hamas back in November, he said: I condemn Hamas!, but he said: these attacks did not happen in a vacuum! He then went on to list the grievances, the same grievances mentioned by this UNRWA school principal. He enumerated one after another supposed grievances. In effect, the UN Secretary General was justifying the massacre. Rawia Helles, director of UNRWA’s Chan Yunis Training Center featured in an UNRWA video, glorified one of the terrorists as a hero and a prince. UNRWA English teacher Asmaa Raffia Kuheil excitedly called to sculpture the date of October 7th, adding a heart emoji. So it’s teachers of UNRWA, which we’re paying for with our taxes, that systematically glorified terrorism, and some even took part in the massacre.

  Now, when I bring this information to the donor states, as I did recently to the director general of a foreign ministry in Europe, his response was: Yeah, but it’s a few bad apples! There’s 30,000 employees, it’s just a few bad apples! – Really, a few bad apples? Let me give you three examples: A year or two ago, we published a report mentioning UNRWA teacher Riyad Nimr who had celebrated a massacre of Jews in a synagogue some ten years ago. Under pressure from the US, UNRWA suspended this UNRWA teacher. Thousands of UNRWA staff protested in his defence. They shut down one of the refugee camps. Thousands of UNRWA people went to show solidarity with this supporter of massacring Jews.

  A few bad apples: The head of the Gaza UNRWA teachers union for years was Suhail al-Hindi. He’s now retired but collecting a pension that we’re paying for. Suhail al-Hindi is a member of the Hamas politburo, the head of the Gaza teachers union of UNRWA, and sitting on the Hamas politburo together with Yahya Sinwar. Go on the internet, you’ll see pictures of him right next to Yahya Sinwar. When under pressure, he was suspended some ten years ago. All 8,000 Gaza UNRWA teachers protested in his defense. They shut down all UNRWA schools for three months, putting 220,000 Gaza students out of commission. A few bad apples! 

  The current head of the UNRWA teachers union responsible for 39,000 UNRWA students is Fatih al-Sharif. Go on his Facebook page, it’s open to the public. He has for the past decade been celebrating Hamas attacks, celebrating Hamas leaders like Sheikh Hassan Yousef. When he has a family celebration, the people sitting in the front row are the leaders of Hamas including Ali Baraka who was just named one of the six criminals named in the U.S. indictment by the Department of Justice.

  A report was issued by the former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, saying that UNRWA is indispensable. Supposedly it was an independent audit. The truth is that that report was orchestrated from the start. UNRWA’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, and UNRWA’s surrogate, Chris Gunness, said the whole point of the report is to allow donor states to save face, those who had frozen funding, to come back and fund it again. And so indeed the report, as they planned, said that UNRWA is indispensable. It has the best systems of any NGO, of any organization in the world in terms of handling complaints about incitement. And yet, that’s all of which I told you, and I’ll just mention one final thing: This is a report we published in January on UNRWA’s pterogram, this is a chat group on Telegram of 3,000 UNRWA teachers. The same kind of incitement was said on and after October 7th. 3,000 belong to this group. One member wrote: what were these heroes brought up on?, talking about the criminals of October 7th. And the answer was they were brought up by mosques and on strong belief. And the other one says they imbibed jihad and resistance with their mother’s milk. And we should do the same. So this is a group of 3,000. A few bad apples? – No, UNRWA is rotten to the core.

  Regarding best practices, members of parliaments around the world can be named. I want to commend the Swiss Parliament’s National Council which just two days ago voted to immediately suspend all financing for UNRWA, to direct funding for aid to other mechanisms, and to begin to seek a replacement for UNRWA. And I want to thank the Swiss Parliament, including Maja Riniker, who is with us here today, for taking that bold step. I urge other parliaments to do the same.

  Finally, before I conclude, I need to mention the person who is perhaps the most prominent figure on the world stage in citing antisemitism. Her name is Francesca Albanese. It was mentioned by Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel this morning. Just like people said the Jews brought upon the Holocaust, she told President Macron that the Jews, the Israelis brought on the massacre of October 7th. She is someone who before she was appointed two years ago, had written on Facebook that America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby, Europe is subjugated by Holocaust guilt. She told a Hamas conference in November 2022, you have the right to resist, knowing full well that for Hamas resistance means executing Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and other hostages. That is what resistance means, and she knew it. She uses her UN mandate to spread Hamas lies and misinformation. She wrote a few months ago that Israel killed 180,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and is falsely accusing Israel of genocide every day. She mobilizes other UN experts to sign statements. Then they get quoted by the ICJ. So she is laundering antisemitism using her UN mandate.

  To conclude, Mr. President, 75 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, key bodies and officials of the United Nations who we should be looking to, to uphold international law and human rights, are casting Israel as a racist and genocidal state, the manifestation of infinite evil, even as Israel is trying to defend itself from one of the most horrific terrorist attacks of our time. At the moment, the very moment, when the world needs moral clarity and leadership, the United Nations has failed. Its actions only incentivize Hamas to continue their strategy of using Palestinians as human shields. The United Nations will never live up to its founding promise so long as this pathology endures. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much for this extraordinary speech and for bringing the truth to the surface of our society.

  The next speaker is the Arab-Israeli journalist Yoseph Haddad. He now has the floor for an impulse statement. He is the CEO of the association Together – Vouch for Each Other. Mr. Haddad works on bringing the Arab community closer to wider Israeli society and has become a powerful voice since October 7th. – The floor is yours.

  Yoseph Haddad (Arab-Israeli journalist): Dear President of the Austrian National Council! Members of the parliaments from across European nations! Members of the European Parliament! Members of Knesset! All distinguished guests! Shalom, marhaba, hello! My name is Yoseph Haddad, and it is an honour to be here with you today as a proud Israeli citizen, as a proud Arab-Israeli citizen of the state of Israel. I was born in Haifa, the largest mixed city in Israel, and raised in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel. Growing up, I fell in love with playing football. And doing so in the largest mixed city led to my close friendship with children of all backgrounds.

  It was when I turned 18, after seeing all my Jewish and Druze friends drafted into the army, that I chose to follow their footsteps, despite the fact that it wasn’t mandatory for me as an Arab citizen of Israel, even though I have equal rights, I don’t have equal obligations. But I’m an Israeli, and Israel is my country, so I enlisted to protect my country and my society. I served in the Golanic Combat Unit, and later become a commander. Yes, I, the Arab, was an IDF commander over Jewish soldiers. My service ended painfully after I fought in the Second Lebanon War, and was gravely injured after a Hezbollah grenade missile was fired at me and nearly missed. My foot was severed, I had trapped it all over my body, and I was evacuated shortly after the explosion by my fellow soldiers, Jewish soldiers, who risked their life to save me, an Arab. At the hospital, it was Israeli doctors, both Arabs and Jews, who were miraculously able to reattach my foot and save my life. Tragically, in the same war against the barbaric terror group Hezbollah, I lost many friends, soldiers, and three of my commanders.

  The same Hezbollah which fired at me and killed my brothers who fought beside me is attacking Israel without end. But before I get to the current war, we have to have an honest conversation about what life is really like for an Arab citizen of Israel – which some organization with political agendas have falsely claimed that it is an apartheid state. So in the apartheid state of Israel, 30 per cent of the doctors and 50 per cent of the pharmacists are Arabs, when we make up 20 per cent of the population. In the apartheid state of Israel, Arab Israelis serve in the Knesset and are ministers, they are IDF commanders, they are leading journalists and academics. They are professional athletes who represent Israel in the international states. They are popular musicians and even Supreme Court justices, like for instance, Salim Gibran, who put a Jewish president and a Jewish prime minister in jail for crimes they have committed.

  Sadly, Arab Israelis also suffer from the plague of terrorism and yes, even antisemitism. When Hamas fire rockets at Israelis, do you think that their missiles check if the target is an Arab or a Jew? Do you know that nearly half of the civilian casualties in Northern Israel in the Second Lebanon War were Arab Israelis; or that Arab Israelis were murdered in Hamas suicide attacks in the Second Intifada, such as the Maxim restaurant bombing – by the way, the Maxim restaurant is co-owned by Arabs and Jews, the people who go there, who eat there, who work there are Arabs and Jews. The tragic result is 21 Israelis were killed, Arabs and Jews, over 50 were injured, Arabs and Jews. Do you know that the only injury from Iran’s attack on Israel in April was an Arab-Israeli little girl from the south? Or that a Hezbollah rocket murdered twelve Arab children playing soccer in the Druze village of Majdal Shams? Did you know that Arab Israelis were slaughtered in cold blood by Hamas terrorists on October 7th and taken hostage into Gaza, where they are still held even today?

  We are an integral part of our country. And when our country bleeds, we bleed. Many of us are proud to be Arab and proud to be Israeli. We help to shape the country’s future as a democratic and Jewish state, which brings us to the day. Make no mistake, this conflict is not between Arabs and Jews. It’s not even about land. It has everything to do with the obsessive genocidal supremacist ideology, steeped in antisemitism that seeks to eliminate the state of Israel, the United States, and yes, Europe as well. So what is this ideology? What is Hamas really? – Hamas is a terrorist organization ruling the Gaza Strip, funded by Iran and Qatar. It prides itself on armed resistance against Israel and rejects our right to exist in any borders. Even prior to October 7th, Hamas fired tens of thousands of rockets at civilians in southern Israel, each and every one a war crime. They launched a Second Intifada in the early 2000s with a wave of suicide bombings and other terror attacks responsible for the death of hundreds of Israelis, Arabs, and Jews, including children.

  Since then, Israel was forced to enact a joint Egyptian-Israeli blockade for the security of both states and even unilaterally withdrew from Gaza entirely, both military and civilly in 2005, meaning that on October 7, there was not a single Israeli in Gaza, with the exception of the kidnapped hostages that had already been in holding, such as Avera Mengistu from the Ethiopian community and Hisham al-Sayed from the Arab community. There was no war in Gaza on October 7th. There were no IDF airstrikes or raids. No Palestinians were being harmed by Israel. Some of them even had permits to work in Israel. Yet Hamas premeditated for months to carry out a savage terror attack, kidnapping, murdering, or and raping innocent Israelis of all ages, both Arabs and Jews during the Supernova Music Festival and in Gaza border communities. 1,200 were killed, over 200 kidnapped from their homes on a Jewish holiday, no less.

  It was a massacre carried out by Hamas commandos as well as Palestinian civilians, including journalists, teachers, and other UN employees. They filmed it and they then posted themselves across social networks. You can see it because they posted it. You know, throughout this war, Hamas have falsified casualty numbers, excluding combatants in their figures and claiming that children aged 14 to 17, whom they recruited to Hamas, are non-combatants. There is only one description for this behaviour: child abuse. 

  For example, when Islamic Jihad misfired a rocket and hit the Al-Ahli Hospital, Hamas immediately claimed 500 had been killed in an Israeli strike at the hospital. Several hours later, it was revealed that it was a rocket from the Palestinian terrorists that fell short and landed in the parking lot of the hospital. 40 to 50 were killed. But Hamas does more than lie, they cynically exploit their own people, repeatedly fire rockets from their humanitarian zone, shooting and beating Gazans who follow IDF instructions to get to safety, stealing aid and reselling it at an obscene price, and barbarically pursuing any Gazans who criticize Hamas – there is footage of it – and using civilians, especially children, as human shields. For 11 months, they have used innocent human beings, among them Israeli Arabs and Jews, babies and elderly, women and men, as pawns in their terrorism, while manipulating the public about what is really happening on the ground and brutally oppressing their own people.

  One of those hostages is an Austrian citizen himself, Tal Shoham. Three members of his family were killed on October 7, seven kidnapped. Today, six of them were released, but Tal remains in captivity. Hamas kidnapped and is holding European citizens in dungeons underground in an inhumane condition, and instead of a unified demand, pressuring Hamas, we see many European voices criticize Israel instead of having our back, doing diplomatically what Israel can’t do alone, force Hamas to surrender the hostages immediately, and hold Hamas enablers from Turkey to Qatar to Iran accountable. While committing unspeakable crimes against the Palestinian people and Israelis, Hamas has cried victim in the international community, playing on the goodwill of the Western world and spilling disinformation with false justification of heinous crimes they are committing against both sides. This effort to subvert the truth has been alarmingly effective with irresponsible use of language to intentionally smear the just war in Gaza as genocide. It has also directly led to rampant antisemitism globally. The reason for this is that this war isn’t against only Israel. They are waging a war against your values as well. 

  I’m concluding: Despite the reality on the ground in Gaza, the international media continues to echo Hamas statistics and Hamas narrative as it’s factual, irresponsibly adding fuel to the fires of antisemitism that are raging across Europe. Even Hamas has admitted that they are using their own people for human shields and that they are using schools, mosques, and hospitals for terror activities. They have admitted their crimes and documented them themselves. Yet some European nations compare our self-defence with the crimes committed by our attackers. Instead of holding international bodies like UNRWA accountable for their complicity with Hamas, with multiple employees even taking part in October 7 attacks and numerous schools being used by Hamas for terror activities, many EU nations which initially paused fundings to UNRWA over the scandal have now restored fundings. You are funding Hamas when you are funding UNRWA. Do you understand this?

  It is deeply concerning that so many European nations will turn their backs on their own values in the halls of bodies like the UN and condemn Israel’s self-defence while ignoring completely Hamas, at a time when hostages need pressure on Hamas more than anything. Sadly, Europe is failing to focus on the humanity of the hostages, even some of your own citizens, and instead made this a political issue. As lawmakers, as leaders, as human beings, I urge you to take a firmer stand against the rise of terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terror proxies of Iran – not only for the sake of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel but for the sake of the future of the European civilization.

  It is undeniable that European values and ideas have given rise to the advancement and betterment of civilization. The protection of human rights over the course of human history, the revolutionary idea of civil liberty for all coupled with tolerance and the pursuit of equality are rooted in the European tradition. If we care about the ideals of freedom and democracy, if we cherish our way of life rooted in shared Judeo-Christian values, now is the time to make a stand against the attacks on Israel both on and off the battlefield that empower our shared enemies. – Toda, shukran, thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Many thanks. I know there’s so much to say, but we have to pay attention to our schedule.

  The next impulse statement comes from Mr. Christoph David Piorkowski. Mr. Piorkowski is a renowned journalist and author. His work focuses on NS and Holocaust research, antisemitism, racism, right-wing extremism and research on democracy and authoritarianism. – Please.

  Christoph David Piorkowski (German journalist): Thank you for inviting me here and for giving me the opportunity to talk about some consequences of October 7th.

  They did not even remain silent for 24 hours. The bodies of the genocidal massacre perpetrated by Hamas in Israel had yet to be recovered when the guilt-projective outrage machine started up in countless countries of the world. Anticipating the retaliation that Israel would probably carry out in Gaza, the self-righteous among the nations were already fantasizing about genocide against Palestinians before the IDF had even received its marching orders. Even in the face of mass rape, the torture of women and the killing of children in the presence of their parents, the binary pattern of perception in which the Israelis appear as perpetrators and the Palestinians as victims was not revealed to many people for what it is, the product of an antisemitic delusion and ideology in which the Jews are forever cast in the role of evil. Hatred of Jews is always declared to be self-defence and is characterized by the reversal of perpetrator and victim. The will to destroy the supposed subverter of order is projected onto the objects of hatred, so it seems legitimate to destroy them. If they then fight back, the antisemitic mind feels confirmed in its morbid perception that the Jews are the real perpetrators of genocide.

  There is no question the suffering in Gaza is terrible, every dead child is one too many and there’s certainly much to criticize about Israel’s conduct of the war. But the antisemites from the right and left, from the centre and from the Islamist camp are not interested in the children in Gaza, whom Hamas abuses as a shield. They are merely a useful means to an end to disguise hatred as humanity and to pass off antisemitism as respectable. UN bodies, large sections of the global press, art scenes and academic milieus have been staring almost obsessively at Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Nothing else happening on the planet generates such intense outrage.

  The cognitive dissonance that the news of beheaded babies may have caused among some notorious Israel haters was instantly dissolved. The bombs were bombed for the antisemitic soul. At last, the empirical world seemed reconciled with the ideological perspective once again. Good was good again and evil was evil again.

  What impact did the Hamas attack and the Israeli response to it have on societies around the world? Well, 10/7 has sadly confirmed that even the most brutal, unspeakable form of eliminationist antisemitism generates further antisemitism instead of its criticism by mainstream society. The antisemitic excess of extermination that Hamas has openly carried out and which reflects its intention already publicized in its founding charter had not led the vast majority of people around the globe to take a stand against hatred of Jews. Instead, the smouldering resentment is now erupting ever more aggressively and blatantly in various parts of society. One person’s hatred of Jews leads to another’s hatred of Jews. The walls of the post-Nazi taboo of open hostility towards Jews have always been shaky and are now collapsing.

  The climate had already become harsher before 10/7. According to a study by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 80 per cent of European Jews have experienced a significant increase in anti-Jewish hatred in recent years. All relevant surveys show that the situation is now getting even worse. In Europe and the US, we are experiencing a tidal wave of antisemitic violence not seen since 1945. Large demonstrations fuelled by hatred of Jews in cities such as London, Paris, and Berlin where so-called anti-imperialist leftists march side by side with Islamists while post-colonial academia seconds the self-righteous rage of the streets. There is violence against Jewish institutions, there are desecrations of Holocaust memorials, threats and attacks on Jewish students, as well as on journalists and politicians who take a stand against hatred of Jews.

  Markings of houses inhabited by Jews, bullying and hate propaganda on Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, and X. Currently, an entire generation is sent down the rabbit hole of antisemitic conspiracy theories on Tiktok. Surveys from the US show that younger people in particular tend to demonize Israel. Unfortunately, we see little to no large solidarity demonstrations where non-Jewish people name the terror of Hamas and the terror of antisemites in Europe as such and protest against it. Instead, mobs roam the streets everywhere and anti-Jewish symbols and slogans are normalized in many public spaces, not least at numerous universities that are shaping the elite of tomorrow.

  We’ve heard about Jews living in the diaspora who have to reckon with violence every day if they dare to show themselves as Jews. Wearing a kippah on the subway in Berlin, speaking Hebrew on the streets in Vienna – some people will probably think twice about actions that should be taken for granted. Public Jewish life in Europe is forced to take place behind bulletproof glass – how incredibly sad and shameful that is! Yet for many people in our society, antisemitism does not even elicit a shrug of the shoulders. Many people seem to find the accusation of antisemitism worse than the antisemitism itself. Like often in history, violence against Jews is projected into the accusation of antisemitism. What intensifies the pain and grief after October 7th is the lack of solidarity, the drowning silence, and the indifference of large sections of mainstream society. For Jews, 10/7 means a long-term double insecurity. Life has become more dangerous since October 7th in all countries of the diaspora as well as in the supposed haven of Israel. The pressing question is, where else to go when resentment turns to violence, when trouble threatens in every corner of the world, just a dust from every political direction.

  Antisemitism is a Querfront phenomenon, it forms an illustrious community of outrage. Seemingly contradictory groups come together in their hatred of the Jew. For example, the Nazi party NPD supports the BDS movement which claims to be progressive and calls for a boycott of Israel. Post-colonial inspired students, for example at Columbia University, glorify the Qassam Brigades of Hamas and praise the martyrs of their murder battalions. Radical Islamists and ethno-fascists are already united in their hatred of women, democracy, and Jews as the dark principle of modernity. Antisemitism is everywhere – on the right, even if some right-wing politicians, for example in Germany, France, Italy, and Hungary, fake solidarity with Jews and Israel to make their racist agenda more acceptable. So again, it’s everywhere: on the right and left and in the middle of society, at school, at university, in clubs and offices, in churches, mosques, and in the bourgeois feuilleton. 

  The events in Israel and Palestine have created another visible dividing line in our already fractured society, one that intersects with its other fractures. On one side, there are the hardcore antisemites and those with antisemitic tendencies, while on the other side, a group is forming that explicitly calls out antisemitism for what it is. Even if criticism often tilts at windmills, educational work has no alternative. We are few, but we must make an effort for those who do not have a closed worldview. Where we encounter antisemitic narratives, sometimes without people understanding what they are saying, we should object clearly and loudly. And that too is a consequence of the Hamas massacre, perhaps the only one we can make something good out of. People critical of antisemitism know that it is time to revolt, time to network, and raise our voices. Never again!, is now. Am Yisrael Chai!

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Many thanks, Mr. Piorkowski, for your emotional speech. 

  We will now move on to the debate. We have eight requests to speak. I think we should schedule two or three minutes for each speaker.

  We start with the President of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Peter De Roover. – Please take the floor.

  Peter De Roover (President of the Chamber of Representatives, Belgium): Thank you, President Sobotka, and thank you also for organising this excellent conference. The question one should ask is: Should we even have to have such a conference? It’s a sad fact that this conference is taking place, and that it became relevant even. It should have been a conference of historians to study something of the past, but we are studying something of the present, and that is a very sad thing. Nie wieder, "Never Again?” is now written with a question mark – that also is something to think about. Why do we need a question mark? Why can’t we say: Nie wieder!, Never Again!

  In my hometown Antwerp lives an important Jewish community, so we are particularly sensitive to this matter as we experience new forms and a considerable increase of antisemitism. Last week, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we revealed a wall with the names of 23,000 Antwerp victims, a lot of them from the Jewish community. There, Baroness Sluszny – she was mentioned earlier today – gave a very impressive testimony.

  Session 3 gave a broader context, but I think we must always make clear that antisemitism and what is happening in and the problems of the Middle East remain two completely different things. Too easy, the Middle East situation is misused as an argument to express antisemitic slogans.

  I want to refer to the last paragraph. It is recognized that due to their constitutional position or other factors, certain speakers cannot directly associate themselves with substantive political statements.

  I’m not here for me personally, nor for my party, nor for a coalition; I’m here as speaker of the parliament. I’d like to draw your attention to the framework of our parliament, within which we have tough debates. I can assure you they are very lively debates. I have to organize them and I am not to decide the outcome, but I think that the framework must contain at least the following points. First, the fight against antisemitism can’t have nuances. It must be clear, firm and a major prominent issue. We must never forget the terrible terrorist attack of Hamas on the 7th of October and the fate of the hostages to the present day. Our thoughts have to be with all the innocent victims on all sides; we must of course strive for the immediate release of the hostages without any condition. There’s an urgent need for peace for everyone and for the end of the violence in the Middle East, in Israel, in Palestine. We need to find a way – and that’s surely within the framework of the discussion in our parliaments – to work towards a two-state solution which includes of course, even if it’s not a two-state solution, Israel’s undeniable right to exist.

  To conclude, I also want to emphasize the very important element of the freedom of speech including of course the freedom to criticize the policy of a government, whichever government that might be. Let us never give the impression that the only way to cope with antisemitism should be in one way or another diminishing that freedom of speech. As my colleague Fergus said earlier, what we are talking about today is making our world better, for Jews of course, but, as it was said by another speaker, fighting antisemitism is something that concerns everyone. Jews and non-Jews are and should remain allies on this question. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much.

  The next person to speak is Ariel Kallner, member of the Knesset. – Please take the floor.

  Ariel Kallner (Member of Parliament, Israel): President Sobotka! Honourable members! Distinguished guests! It is a great honour to be here at this important event addressing the fight against antisemitism. Regarding the subject of this session, I have no doubt the developments in the Middle East have a direct impact on the Western world. On October 7th, my people suffered a horrific massacre. Over 1,200 innocent civilians were brutally murdered. Today, 101 hostages, including babies and the elderly, still remain in the hands of Hamas. This is not just a conflict between Hamas and Israel. It is a battle between barbarism and civilization.

  The danger for the free world is radical Islam, which aims to globalize the world under Sharia law, seeking to create one nation, the Nation of Islam, Ummah al-Islamiyah. Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, a dangerous imperialist movement. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi often used to quote Muhammad saying: First we will conquer Constantinople, then Rome! – I’m telling you, believe them. Listen to the murderous regime in Iran, the head of the snake, and believe their intentions as well. Remember what happened today, 23 years ago in New York, 9/11.

  Sadly, some in the West have lost the ability to distinguish between good and evil. We see it on campuses. We see it in institutions like the ICC and ICJ, originally established to protect humanity. They are now being manipulated against Israel, the state that is fighting the most brutal enemies of humanity. This is antisemitism, and it is a disgrace. UNRWA is yet another example of a humanitarian organization that has been manipulated and is now being used to deny the Jewish people’s right to a state, and to support terrorism. I urge you to reconsider the decision to support this organization. When one denies the right of the Jewish people to have a state in their ancient homeland, that is antisemitism.

  When the EU funds the Palestinian Authority, which indoctrinates children to believe that murdering Jews is a commendable act, glorifies terrorists, and pays salaries to brutal murderers, it’s essentially supporting terrorism. The direct consequence of this is the rise of antisemitism in the streets of Europe. Attacking Jews is the beginning, but it will not stop there. Remember, today is the 9/11. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the world.

  Dear friends, we’re in a war, and we will win. We will win with our true partners in the world, upright people like you, who stand for justice and truth. Stand with Israel! Protect your Jewish communities! Together, we will win. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you. The next person to speak is István Hiller, Member of the Hungary-Israel Friendship Group. – Please.

  István Hiller (Vice-Chairman of the Hungary-Israel Friendship Group) (simultaneous interpretation): President of the National Council! Ladies and gentlemen! Dear guests! I would like to start by thanking the organizers and, in particular, President Sobotka for organising this conference. Thank you for inviting us as representatives of various countries, researchers, journalists, and for inviting us also to share our opinions on this very important and, unfortunately, topical issue.

  After the comprehensive statements and discussions, I would like to make a very subjective contribution. I would like to talk about something that I would like you to know about. At the beginning of February, more than half a year ago, a delegation from the Hungarian Parliament was invited to make a visit to Israel. The President of the Hungary-Israel Friendship Group, János Fónagy, who’s also here today, and I, the group’s vice-president, travelled together. We also had the possibility to meet Amir Ohana, the Speaker of the Knesset. We also talked to him.

  Ladies and gentlemen, only few delegations travelled to Israel at the time. There were no tourists at all. The area around the outstanding sites of human history was completely empty. There was no one. Usually, you would have long queues there, but no one was there, except for some locals, some soldiers, maybe. The purpose of our visit was to meet the family members of the kidnapped hostages, among them some Hungarian citizens. We spoke to the wife of one of them, the father of another, and a third one’s brother. Please believe me when I tell you that it was devastating. We have since learned that one of them, unfortunately, is no longer alive. We then visited the sites where the terrible tragedy took place. I saw the looted houses. I saw the shut-up kitchen. I saw blood on the beds and bullet holes in the walls. Outside the house, there was a children’s shoe. On the walls of the houses, there were photographs of those who had been living there and had either been murdered or kidnapped. We were wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by military staff from the IDF who kept us safe, a mere 300 meters from the border.

  At this point, I spoke to a man there in Hungarian. He was born in Cluj, Klausenburg, Kolozsvár in Romanian Transylvania and emigrated from there. He was a Jew of Hungarian origin. Why did you move here, so close to the border?, I asked him. – I have been living here for 15 years. It was a conscious decision. It was a conscious decision to come exactly here, he replied. – But why? – It may be difficult for you to understand this now. We moved here, so close to the Palestinians, because we wanted to prove to ourselves and to the whole world that we can live together in peace.

  I could hardly breathe. Here was a man standing in front of me in the middle of a shut-up kibbutz. Some of his friends and relatives were dead, had been taken captives, and he was saying these words to me. He probably saw that I was shocked and didn’t even wait for my next question. I’m staying, he said. I’ve pretty much fixed my house. I woke up here today again and I will do so tomorrow. I am not giving up. We are not giving up. We want to live here in peace.

  Ladies and gentlemen, when I first wrote this speech, I thought that I was going to write some kind of summary or some kind of conclusion. But then I decided not to write anything. You are all experienced, wise people. There’s an old Roman saying: Sapienti sat, a word to the wise is enough. – Thank you.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much. The next speaker is Harris Georgiades, Member of the Cyprian Parliament. – Please take the floor.

  Harris Georgiades (Chairperson of the House Standing Committee on Foreign and European Affairs, Cyprus): Mr. President! Speakers! Colleagues! October 7th will be a day that will remain in infamy. The terror attacks of Hamas were brutal and have once again thrown the Middle East into turmoil. But what we should understand is that these were not simply attacks against Israel. They were a challenge to international order, a challenge to the West, to the values of freedom and the liberal democracy, which we have been taking for granted for too long. In fact, I fear that we may have allowed the enemies of freedom to believe that we are no longer willing or able to stand up for our values and interests. For years, we have been appeasing autocrats like Putin and Erdoğan. We have been responding to Islamic fundamentalism with indulgence. So my first point is that the West should wake up. We should safeguard freedom, security, and democracy as a top priority.

  My second message is for Israel. I fully support Israel’s right to defend itself. This is an obligation. I also share the frustration of the Jewish people when calls for a ceasefire are not matched by calls for the disarmament of Hamas, for Hezbollah to stop its own attacks, and for the immediate release of all hostages. But at the same time, speaking as a friend of Israel, I say that the military solution alone will not work. Israel must win the war, but it must also win the peace. This requires courage and vision. It requires our own engagement and support. Ultimately, a political solution is the only way that will establish conditions of peace and security for Israel and the region, and at the same time will allow us to continue supporting Israel and the Jewish people in our own societies. – Thank you, Mr. President.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you. The next speaker is Martin Engelberg, Member of the Austrian National Council. – Please, the floor is yours. 

  Martin Engelberg (Member of Parliament, Austria): Mr. President! Distinguished colleagues and guests! Let me please start by praising you, Mr. President Sobotka. I think we have to acknowledge the incredible work you have been doing for many years in combating antisemitism in solidarity with Israel. Your role must be called nothing else than exemplary. I really have to thank you for that; I hope everyone else will join me in this appreciation.

  I want to talk about a couple of concrete actions. First of all, I’m happy to state that Austria is actually on the forefront in combating antisemitism in all forms. Probably the most important point is that we have passed legislation and strictly sharpened it against incitement. I think that’s an important point we have to follow in all our societies. Dear colleagues, make no mistake. Calling for the destruction of Israel, From the River to the Sea!, calling for mass murder and genocide is not legitimate criticism, and it’s not pro-Palestinian.

  We have established a whole variety of educational programmes in Austria, which I think is hugely important. Another important point, which I’m also very proud of, is that we have just started an extensive youth exchange programme between Israel and Austria, which I think is also hugely important.

  I think part of the fight against antisemitism today is the solidarity with Israel, since it is the victim of the newest form of antisemitism. Here, Austria has taken a really firm, strong stance. In our current governmental programme, we have written down that we no longer support one-sided resolutions against Israel. Austria has indeed taken a strong stance in this regard and opposed several one-sided resolutions. Unfortunately, not a lot of colleagues in the European Union were on our side. I want to mention the Czech Republic as a wonderful partner in this regard. Thank you very much for that. 

  I think we should really consider very concrete steps. I have mentioned one of them already: We should no longer support one-sided resolutions against Israel in international institutions. This also means that it makes absolutely no sense to recognize a state of Palestine. It does not serve any peaceful purpose. It even puts yourself in question if you recognize a state of Palestine while at the same time not recognizing an existing state of Kosovo. If you make such a move, how do you explain it to people? How do we not put the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as it was already called for, on the list of terrorist organizations when we know that they are sponsors of terror, not only against Israel, but against Jewish communities, against our societies all over the world? I also want to repeat my compliment to the Swiss National Council for passing this resolution against funding for the UNRWA. I wish other countries, also mine, would do that. I also want to repeat and comment on what your foreign minister said: UNRWA is really part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

  Now finally, I call on you. There is an upcoming resolution in the United Nations in the next couple of weeks, an unbelievable, outrageous resolution handed in by the Palestinian Authority. It can’t be labelled other than outrageous. Now, I hope that Austria will take a very firm stance and oppose that. And I call on you, I really call on you to also work with your respective governments: European countries should just clearly oppose such a resolution, which is completely one-sided against Israel, demonizing Israel, delegitimising Israel, using all forms of antisemitism, as we label it. We should not negotiate this resolution. I mean, this is one of the sicknesses of European diplomacy: An outrageous resolution is brought in, then we negotiate it, it’s still outrageous, but we found a compromise.

  So my call is: It would really help if countries like Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and others, which are, I think, inclined to oppose this resolution, took again a joint stance in that within the European Union. I think that’s what the fight against antisemitism is really about. That’s what the fight for peace is really about. – Thank you very much.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you very much. The next speaker is Evangelos Syyrigos, Member of the Greek Parliament. – Please take the floor.

  Evangelos Syyrigos (Member of Parliament, Greece): First of all, I would like to thank the organizers, and especially the President of the National Council, Wolfgang Sobotka, for the initiative and the warm hospitality.

  Dear colleagues! Esteemed members of the Jewish communities in Europe! Ladies and gentlemen! Judaism and Israel are not the same thing. Judaism is something broader than Israel. However, Israel is the child of the Holocaust of Judaism. Until then, many Jews had a positive view on their integration into the European societies in which they lived. What happened during the Holocaust radically changed this perception. It was then that the belief was solidified that only a Jewish state could provide true security for the Jews. After 1948, due to the refusal of the neighbouring Arab states to recognize it, Israel found itself in a permanent state of war.

  We must have no doubts about the reasons that led to Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel. It is the revulsion against the very existence of the state of Israel. This explains the scale, speed, and brutality of the killings that marked the heaviest civilian loss in a single day recorded since Israel’s independence. It goes without saying that we absolutely condemn the terrorist attack of the 7th of October last year as well as the ongoing hostage situation, which constitutes a war crime.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we are speaking about antisemitism. The condemnation of antisemitism is not something vague or superficial. Criticism of the practices adopted by Israel, for example in the way it conducts the war in Gaza, is not antisemitism. Antisemitism is the support of the slogan From the River to the Sea!, as it leads to the destruction of the state of Israel, to its disappearance from the map. Antisemitism is the demonization of Israel, which actually is the only democratic state in the Middle East. Here, we see a difference. For many months, there have been protests by Israelis against Prime Minister Netanyahu. In contrast, we note the guilty absence of corresponding protests against Hamas.

  Ladies and gentlemen, together we fight against antisemitism in Europe, whether it comes from the far right or the far left. Antisemitism is a threat to the principles upon which the European Union was founded following World War II. Never again!

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you.

  The last speaker is Marijana Petir, Member of the Croatian Parliament. – You have the floor.

  Marijana Petir (Chair of the Interparliamentary Friendship Group Croatia Israel): President Sobotka! Members of parliament! Distinguished guests! The terrorist attack by Hamas on innocent civilians in Israel horrified the world. It is the attack that killed the most people in the 75 years since the establishment of the state of Israel. Hamas operated in the same way as ISIS in Syria and Iraq. It is an act of vandalism against the civilian population that can be considered terrorism. Israel has the right to defend itself. Its legitimate defence and military response must be directed towards Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Maximum efforts should be made in order to preserve the lives of civilians.

  Europe must clearly condemn Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both terrorist organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel and murdering Israeli civilians while using their own population as human shields. Beyond condemnation, Europe has an influence and a role to play. Europe cannot continue its economic relations with organizations and countries that support and finance terrorists, so the international community’s sanctions policy must be clear and effective. – Thank you for your attention.

  Wolfgang Sobotka: Thank you so much. The panel discussion is closed now. 

  Thank you very much, dear speakers from Israel, Belgium and Canada, colleagues, MPs – more than 20 parliaments are represented here –, presidents of the Jewish communities in Europe, experts all over the world, as well as the rabbis. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your active participation in today’s discussion on these important issues.

  We have almost reached the end of our conference. The last item on the agenda is the adoption of a joint statement by the parliamentary participants of today’s conference. As I said in the beginning, I am very pleased that after our written procedure and final compromise amendments yesterday, we managed to agree on a joint statement. You can find this text in your conference folder. I would like to thank you all for your contributions. With your proposed amendments and comments, we have succeeded in achieving a balanced text that covers the most important points on the agenda and the major challenges we were discussing. So thank you again. If there are no further comments, we can therefore consider the joint statement of the conference as adopted. Is there any vote against? – No. Please also share this statement, share this message as well as the discussions we had today in your parliament.

  I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of you for your constructive contributions and debates during this meeting. Thank you for coming to Vienna. Thank you for your contributions. Your contributions will be edited in English and German and sent to you and your parliaments by e-mail. 

  We looked at many different topics. I hope that we can continue the constructive spirit of this conference and work together to follow up on the important points raised today. I want to encourage some of you to continue these discussions in your parliaments or, if it is possible, to organize a conference for all of us in Europe and beyond so that we can continue this dialogue.

  In order to take the impressions of the conference with you, the photos will be made available to you as soon as possible via a download link.

  I would like to thank everyone involved in the preparation and organization of this meeting, particularly my friends in the Jewish community, especially President Muzicant and the European Jewish Congress. Thanks to the members and the staff members of our parliament. During a special time, in summer, they took care of the preparations in a constructive and excellent manner.

  The traditional family photo will be taken immediately after the session in the Theophil Hansen room. It’s the same room where we had the reception yesterday. This will be followed by the reception that will take place in the Columned Hall. At 3 p.m. there will be an optional guided tour of the Austrian Parliament and the antisemitism exhibition in the parliamentary library. The starting point for the guided tour will be in the upper vestibule where the photos were taken yesterday.

  Thanks to all of you once again. Hereby I will close this conference. Many thanks for coming to Vienna.