Why did the EU invite a racist to address a conference on racism?

There are three reasons why the European Commission should not have invited Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz to give a keynote speech at the EU's conference on combating racism, antisemitism and xenophobia on Tuesday (7 May). 

The first is that he is a racist. The second is that he is an antisemite. The third is that he is a xenophobe, whose rhetoric was cited by judges in The Hague to justify their assessment that Gazans were plausibly threatened by genocide. 

Specifically, they noted the following tweet by Katz:

“We will fight the terrorist organization Hamas and destroy it. All the civilian population in [G]aza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”

Perhaps Commission officials wanted to ask Katz how such innovative anti-racist strategies could be applied here? Perhaps they believe that starving a civilian population to death is one tool in the kit for dealing with xenophobes? Or perhaps they just don’t care.     

Katz gained notoriety in Israel two years ago when he threatened Palestinians with forced expulsion if they flew Palestinian flags at universities. "Remember our independence war and your Nakba, don’t stretch the rope too much," he said. "If you don’t calm down, we’ll teach you a lesson that won’t be forgotten!" These words violate the EU's definition of racism for inciting violence and hatred against a group defined by ethnic or national origin, and for condoning, denying or trivialising war crimes.

But that’s not all.

As Israel’s intelligence minister, he called for “targeted civil eliminations” – assassinations – of leaders of the non-violent Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He authored a bill to replace Israeli street signs co-written in Arabic and English, with pure “Hebrew names”. He pushed for annexation of West Bank settlements, opposes a “two-state solution” and advocates for housing Palestinians on an artificial island off the Gaza coast. 

By any European metric, Katz would be considered a rightwing extremist. So why was he invited to lecture the EU on how to combat racism? Presumably because of his record in the fight against antisemitism. Lets look at that.   

Last month Katz issued a call to diaspora Jews that repeatedly conflated the fight against antisemitism with Israel's bloody rampage through Gaza, He described diaspora Jews as part of the Israeli “nation” and rallied them to join a “global advocacy front” against criticism of the Gaza slaughter and in defence of national causes such as "the eradication of Hamas". He even appropriated a Talmudic saying that “All of Israel are responsible for one another” to try to enlist diaspora support. 

But under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)'s working definition of antisemitism, which the EU has adopted, his words could reasonably be defined as anti-Semitic because: 

1) The call on Jews to act as collective advocates for Israel depicts “Jewish citizens [as] being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.” These nations may, for example, oppose the “eradication” of Hamas-voting policemen, doctors or teachers, or their children.  

And

2) The statement that "all Israel" - diaspora and Israeli Jews alike - are responsible for each other is clearly “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”

Katz asserts that the diaspora and Israelis are "united in our cause," which has so far killed or wounded five percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and destroyed 70 percent of its civilian infrastructure. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, Katz has no right to dump responsibility for Israeli war crimes on Jews like me or anyone in the diaspora. 

Of course, Zionist antisemites have long been given a free pass. But what message does that send? That antisemitism is fine so long as it is in Israel’s interest?

And what message does it send to the Jewish diaspora? That we are not "real" Jews unless we deny our rich culture, history and traditions in favour of a Zionist counter-identity based on ethnic cleansing and murder? 

Backed by Germany

Another speaker at the conference, the EU’s Bavarian antisemitism “czar” Katharina von Schnurbein said in March that accusations of Israeli genocide in Gaza were resonant with “antisemitic prejudice.” She has made similar comments about BDS - and anti-Zionism, which was the majority diaspora sentiment before the Holocaust, and is a fast-growing Jewish trend today.

Von Schnurbein’s de facto smearing of Jewish supporters of Palestinian human rights is contemptible. Doubly so, when she fetes racist Israeli politicians who flout the same rules on anti-semitism that she incorporated into EU policy and which were then used to chill the free speech and assembly rights of pro-Palestinian groups.  

In truth, Katz's invitation only confirms that this Commission never had any real commitment to combating racism or antisemitism. Its primary goals have been to: defend the US foreign policy status quo in the Mideast; protect Zionism as an exculpation of Holocaust guilt, and to maintain trade ties with Israel, even at the cost of defending that state’s "right" to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians with impunity.  

None of this makes the lives of European Jews safer, or those of Palestinians less expendable. All of it will stoke racism and anti-semitism, not combat it. And it will embolden the Israeli state to believe that it can continue its slaughter in Gaza, while still presenting itself as a victim. Shame on you, Brussels.