Advocacy and Representation is our path to victory

The United Nations had long struck me as a symbol of much that is wrong in our world. A place where noble ideals drown in sloth and self-interest. At the signing of the UN Charter in San Francisco in June 1945, Harry S Truman gravely warned the original 51 members that if nations weren’t true to the UN’s founding principles, “we betray all those who died so that we might meet here in freedom and safety. If we seek to use it selfishly – for the advantage of any one nation or any small group of nations – we shall be equally guilty of that betrayal.”

Thirty years later, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, which declared Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people, to be a form of racism.

Truman’s injunction had been ignored and the betrayal had come to pass. The UN had become a protection racket run by despots who snorted at democracy while using the UN’s democratic mechanisms to pursue their racial and ideological foes. The place where Yasser Arafat brandished a pistol and Nikita Khrushchev removed his shoe and pounded it on the table.

But whether we like it or not, the UN still carries immense moral weight. It is also the fountainhead of an elaborate process through which the conjuring of Israel’s enemies becomes public and eventually trickles into newsrooms, NGO campaigns, party conferences and university campuses. After the General Assembly had declared Zionism to be racist, 17 student unions in Britain debated motions along the lines of Resolution 3379. York, Salford, Warwick and Lancaster went further, pass- ing motions to expel their Jewish societies “on the grounds that they are Zionist and therefore racist”. Jewish students suffer for it to this day.

When the World Jewish Congress (WJC) invited me to participate in meetings with heads of state and foreign ministers on the sidelines of the September session of the United Nations General Assembly, it was an opportunity to not only contribute to diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Australian Jewish community and our people, but to examine the beast up close.

The experience allowed me to draw several conclusions about the role of our people in the international system and what we, as a community, need to bring to our own diplomatic engagement.

Representation is critical

A key principle of advocacy is that it is not only what is said that is important, but who says it. Many talented individuals and worthy organisations can make the case for Israel and articulate new ideas and old truths in the fight against antisemitism. Non-Jewish allies are also extremely valuable. But the primary advocate for the rights of the Jewish people must be Jewish and it must be representative.

The World Jewish Congress is globally what the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is nationally, a peak representative body that, through its structure and processes, can legitimately claim to speak on behalf of global Jewry. It has over 100 communities affiliated to it, and it arrives at policy positions and sets priorities through free and dynamic deliberation by its member communities. Our own Robert Goot co-chairs its policy committee. ECAJ president Jillian Segal serves on the WJC executive.

This representative status is highly significant. The world leaders and global influencers that meet with the WJC know that when they raise an issue, they do so on behalf of 16 million people on six continents. In a meeting I attended with the Hungarian President, recent comments by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were raised. Orban had spoken of the need to preserve racial purity through a dog whistle so shrill it would incapacitate a
Rhodesian ridgeback. Our concerns could not be easily dismissed because they were presented as something that touched and concerned the Jewish world. This is the power of representative communal leadership. It projects strength through numbers and diversity, and confers a clout on Jewish delegations that is almost state-like.

The fight for Israel

Defending the legitimacy of Israel is a core function of every Jewish representative body. There are good reasons for this. First, Israel is the one place that exists to preserve Jewish life and ensure that our contributions to humanity never vanish from this earth. We are responsible for each other, which means being responsible for the welfare of Israeli Jews and their homeland. Second, Israel was founded and exists to bestow equality on the Jewish people, to ensure the continuation of Jewish civilisation, and to recognise our peoplehood and indigenous rights. It follows that an attack on Israel’s legitimacy is an attack on those founding precepts and obligates all of us to fight back.

When questions that go to the heart of Israel’s place in the world arise, for example, discriminatory anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, the lawless recognition of a Palestinian state and the triumph that is the Abraham Accords, Jewish representative bodies must step to the fore. This ensures that the issues are not framed narrowly, but as matters concerning us all as Jews and citizens of the countries in which we live. This immeasurably bolsters our effectiveness.

Take heart

The longstanding campaign by the Palestinians and their patrons to turn Israel into a pariah is failing. A key reason for this is the strength of Jewish representative bodies globally and domestically. Israel is no longer viewed solely as one half of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is now entirely possible to conduct a meeting with no discussion of its adversaries. To be sure, the campaign to humiliate and degrade Israel in international forums has not been eradicated. However, today it is not the Soviet Union advancing anti-Zionism with a malignant expertise, it is a collection of failing states that lack credibility and impact.

Our task as a people and a community is ensuring that antisemitism, deadly and perennial, is not overlooked for more fashionable hatreds; that the history and the memory of our martyred millions is preserved; and that Jewish self-determination never again vanishes from this earth. Advocacy and representation are key to winning on every count.

Alex Ryvchin is co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. He was in New York for UN General Assembly week with the World Jewish Congress Jewish Diplomatic Corps.