Summary
Sharansky’s prescribed policy for combating anti-Semitism: states’ relations with governments that support anti-Semitism should be linked to that support — combating anti-Semitism made a much more prominent issue in America’s bilateral relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds — on the model of the Western linkage of relations with the Soviet Union to its human-rights treatment of its own people (3D Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization, lines 367-377).
Details
- The policy is proposed where condemnation is judged insufficient: the free world must “not only publicly and forcefully condemn this anti-Semitism, but also to pursue a policy of linkage against states that support anti-Semitism” (line 367).
- Its precedent, from Sharansky’s own history: the Helsinki Group of Soviet dissidents, with courageous Western leaders willing to link their relations with the Soviets to their treatment of their own people, ensured the Soviets could not take one step in the international arena without their human rights policies becoming an issue, and “real progress was made” (lines 373-375).
- Its stated mechanism in the new application: “Linkage can be used to marginalize the extremists and to encourage and support those who reject this virulent hatred.” (line 377)
- The article names no sanction, condition or specific demand the linkage would carry; the proposal is stated as prominence in bilateral relations and public, forceful condemnation (lines 367, 377).
Related pages
3D Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization, Natan Sharansky, Helsinki Group, Antisemitism