The first-ever Summit on Antisemitism was held today at the Italian Senate on 23rd November in a joint session which took place in Rome and Jerusalem. The Summit featured both Italian and Israeli officials and JCPA experts, including Dan Diker, Presidente of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Senator Giulio Terzi, President of the Senate Committee for EU Policies and President of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella”; Dr. Giuseppe Pecoraro, Italian National Coordinator for the Fight Against Antisemitism; Fiamma Nirenstein, JCPA Fellow, journalist, and former MP; Dani Dayan, Chairman of Yad Vashem; David Wurmser, former Middle East Envoy to Vice President Cheney; Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser JCPA and Former Head Intelligence Assessment Division, IDF.
The Summit included the adoption of the “10 Principles for Combatting Global Antisemitism” as a testimony to the parliament’s commitment to zero tolerance for antisemitism. The declaration will travel throughout Europe and the U.S. as a pledge from leaders across the globe to combat antisemitism everywhere.
The Rome-Jerusalem Summit’s Ten Principles for Combating Global Antisemitism
In view of the sharp rise of global antisemitism across the United States and Europe, the aim of this conference is to affirm the following ten universal principles anchoring the moral imperative to uproot this dangerous historical phenomenon.
1. Free societies including organizations, institutions, schools, and universities set as a top priority the urgency of combatting the unprecedented spike in Global antisemitism in the democratic West to combat antisemitism in all of its forms.
2. We advise that antisemitism be defined as expressions or manifestations of hatred or physical violence, whether against individual Jews or against Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people. This definition does not limit individuals, groups, or governments from engaging in fair criticism of the state of Israel similar to any other state and devoid of double standards.
3. Combating antisemitism includes countering incitement to murder or assault individual Jews, Jewish communities, or Israel as the sovereign collective of the Jewish people. Combatting incitement applies to multiple discourses including governments, parliaments, civil society, media, social networks, and the public square.
4. Promoting educational initiatives regarding the history, culture, and biblical tradition and literature of the Jewish people and the land of Israel.
5. Legislating and enforcing societal and legal protections against religious and ideological extremism, including Jihadism, and radical expressions of Jewish erasure, such as the genocidal declaration “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free.”
6. Preventing financial payments and incentives to radical-antisemitic education, whether private, public, formal, or informal whether against the Jews or Israel. This includes payments by Western NGOs frequently disguised as civil society or human rights groups but are in fact vehicles for terror financing.
7. Guaranteeing and enforcing legal protections of the Jewish communities in Europe and across the West, as outlined in principles two and three.
8. Denouncing, delegitimizing, and combatting hate speech and disinformation, including mendacious reports and fake news regarding the Hamas war in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and the Iranian regime’s deception and psychological warfare.
9. Combatting distortions of the international human rights agenda and institutions, including avoiding the reflexive and automatic condemnation of Israel in the major international institutions that were established to combat anti-Semitism.
10. Combatting antisemitism’s “3 Ds”: Delegitimization, Demonization, and Double standards, in international institutions, including the European Commission, United Nations, and its agencies, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court (ICC).