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Draft International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Anti-Semitism
(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Alan Baker - The international community has never considered criminalizing anti-Semitism as an international crime, in a manner similar to the criminalization of genocide, racism, piracy, hostage-taking, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and terror. By its very nature, with anti-Semitism's long, bitter, and never-ending history, and its propensity to constantly re-appear in modern forms and contexts, it cannot and should not be equated with, linked to, or treated as any other form of racial discrimination. It stands alone. It cannot and should not be relegated to any type of listing of forms of racial discrimination and xenophobia. In this context, attempts, principally at the behest of the Muslim countries, to attach to it Islamophobia are clearly artificial and transparent, and fail to do justice to what clearly is a unique phenomenon that must be dealt with independently. To this end, and with a view to correcting what is clearly a vast international injustice, the draft document presented here is intended to universally criminalize anti-Semitism within the world community, in the form of an "International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Anti-Semitism." The writer participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israel's ambassador to Canada.