‘We Are at a Time of Urgency and Emergency’: Knesset Hearing Addresses Post-October 7th Global Antisemitism Surge

At a Knesset hearing on Monday, Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) Board of Governors Member IDF Brig. Gen. (Res.) Sima Vaknin Gil briefed Israeli lawmakers on the vital role of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism in the global fight against rising Jew-hatred following the October 7th Hamas attack.

“We are at a time of urgency and emergency,” Vaknin Gil said. “This period we are experiencing now could prove to be the tipping point in dealing with antisemitism — both old and contemporary.”

Participants in the meeting of the Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs — chaired by MK Oded Forer — included government officials, Jewish communal and organizational representatives, and antisemitism experts from around the world. Family members of Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7th and being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip also attended.

“We have to combat antisemitism with much harsher means,” Forer said. “We must advance legislation for imposing economic sanctions on antisemitic elements. The scope of the monitoring of antisemitic discourse on the social networks is relatively limited compared with the monitoring of acts of terror. We must promote Zionism as a protected value on campuses around the world. The fight against antisemitism is an international mission, and Israel is not alone at the forefront of this mission.”

At the gathering, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli presented the findings of an annual antisemitism data report produced jointly with the World Zionist Organization and  Jewish Agency for Israel.

The study — which can be read in full HERE (in Hebrew) — recorded a 235% increase in antisemitic incidents worldwide last year compared to 2022, with 43% taking place in the U.S. and 35% in Europe.

“This year has been unlike any other,” Chikli said. “Hatred of Israel around the world is the most severe since the 1930s of the previous century. Jews all over the West feel unsafe.”

In her remarks, Vaknin Gil highlighted the 2023 IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Adoptions and Endorsements Report that was released last week by CAM, in partnership with the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, and included in the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs report. According to the data compiled by CAM, there had been 1,216 recognitions of the definition globally as of the end of December.

“Following the Ocotber 7th massacre and the war between Israel and Hamas, we have seen an unprecedented and disturbing spike in antisemitism around the globe,” Vaknin Gil said. “The different manifestations and types of discourse and allegations in this current wave are sound proof that anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiments are in fact antisemitism. Hence the importance of the IHRA definition.”