Six months ago, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, presented an unprecedented report to the UN General Assembly expressing alarm about the significant increase, beginning in 2017, in reports of hostility, discrimination and violence motivated by antisemitism in many parts of the world. Dr. Shaheed’s report was particularly notable for its global scope – expressing concern about the prevalence of antisemitic attitudes in countries with significant Jewish populations and no Jewish inhabitants alike – and its conclusion that antisemitism is a universal threat, in that it not only denies Jewish individuals and communities worldwide the ability to enjoy their human rights but also “threatens the rights of all people in societies in which this insidious hatred is unaddressed.”
Dr. Shaheed’s UN report was welcomed by governments, several of which have taken important steps to combat antisemitism in line with his recommendations. One notable example is the increasing number of States that have recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA’s) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which Dr. Shaheed recommended that States “adopt…for use in education and awareness-raising and for monitoring and responding to manifestations of antisemitism.” Since October 2019, Cyprus, Italy, Sweden, and Uruguay have all adopted the Working Definition, bringing the total number of States that have done so to 22. States including Italy, Romania, and Sweden have also followed Dr. Shaheed’s recommendation that governments should assign senior government officials to oversee efforts to monitor, document, and combat antisemitism. Similarly, in a number of cases, key non-governmental actors, including social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, have followed Dr. Shaheed’s recommendation to them to “enforce terms of service and community rules that do not allow the dissemination of hate messages,” by taking down posts, pages, and tweets and suspending accounts in cases where users have published particularly egregious antisemitic content online.
Nevertheless, events over the last six months have made it clear that more effort is needed to combat the pernicious threat of antisemitism, and that the need to do so is more urgent than ever. Not only have Jewish communities continued to face deadly attacks, but antisemitic rhetoric has also continued to proliferate, espoused by speakers ranging from high-profile political and religious figures in traditional media outlets to white supremacists communicating online. Particularly alarmingly, antisemitic rhetoric appears to have increased as the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged in the first months of 2020, causing widespread fear and provoking an unprecedented increase in rhetoric scapegoating Jews for the global public health emergency. Reports of such antisemitic rhetoric have come from countries around the world – from the United States and Europe to Iran, Yemen, Turkey and Venezuela – and from individuals aligned with right-wing extremist groups as well from those with Islamist and left-wing views. In the United States, at least one individual affiliated with Neo-Nazi groups on social media and who had blamed Jews for the pandemic nearly attempted to commit mass violence, and the risk of additional such cases in the future is high.
These recent cases of antisemitic violence, discrimination, and rhetoric worldwide demonstrate that antisemitism remains a pernicious global challenge. It is imperative that governments, social media companies, and United Nations experts and officials devote more action and attention to meeting this challenge in the months ahead.