The OSCE High-Level Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination was held in the Kazakh capital of Astana this week bringing together global leaders in a call for tolerance and non-discrimination.
“Together with the OSCE participating States, we call for implementation of the OSCE commitments with a view to devising and implementing effective policy measures aimed at preventing and responding to manifestations of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, discrimination and intolerance, including against Christians, Muslims, members of other religions, Roma and Sinti, other ethnic and racial groups,” State Secretary and Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Kanat Saudabayev said.
Farah Anwar Pandith, the U.S. State Department’s special representative to Muslim communities, addressed the conference on the importance of combating anti-Semitism and the spillover of anti-Israeli positions into anti-Semitic sentiments.
“In addition to an increased number of violent attacks against Jews and synagogues in Europe and elsewhere, 2009 saw growing incidents of harassment of Jewish children in their schools; desecration of Jewish institutions; and increasingly violent and virulent rhetoric in graffiti, as well as in various media,” Pandith said.
“In recent weeks, we have seen legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies cross the line into anti-Semitism. Natan Sharansky teaches us that anti-Israel sentiment crosses the line into anti-Semitism if Israel is demonized, delegitimized or held to a different standard than any other country.”
Continuing her address, Pandith noted the prevalence of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. “2009 has also seen the pervasiveness of wildly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This includes irrational Holocaust denial, actually denying the historical reality. This includes Holocaust glorification, in which community leaders ask God to be able to ‘finish the job’ of the Holocaust. This includes Holocaust relativism, where the genocide that was the Holocaust -- the systematic extermination of the Jewish people -- is minimized by being equated with large-scale acts of political violence, including decades of repression.”
Speaking on the experience of U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal, Pandith said, “In one OSCE participating State Hannah recently visited, a government official she met with actually gave credence to a modern version of the medieval anti-Semitic blood libel lie, discussing an accusation that Jews kidnapped children to steal their organs.”
Concluding her speech, Pandith stressed the importance of working together to combat not only anti-Semitism, but all other forms of hate and intolerance.
“Jews cannot fight anti-Semitism alone. Muslims cannot fight Islamophobia alone. Roma cannot fight – alone. The LGBT community cannot fight – alone. And the list goes on. Hate is hate, but we can overcome it together.”
