Michal Cotler-Wunsh, the Israeli government’s antisemitism envoy, said this week that governments, universities and other organizations are failing to take the necessary steps to properly combat antisemitism and called for the U.S. to make more of an effort to lead on the issue. She also characterized the growth of global antisemitism as the harbinger of a global antidemocratic and authoritarian movement.

Asked whether any government, university, company or entity has been effective in combating antisemitism over the past year and can serve as a model for others, Cotler Wunsh said, “No one has done it right so far.”

“We can only do it right if we acknowledge [antisemitism] as the national security threat that it is,” Cotler-Wunsh told Jewish Insider on the sidelines of the inaugural MEAD Summit in Washington, D.C., this week. “I call it an additional war front that has been raging for decades … It actually impacts the entire international rules-based order [because] it co-opted and weaponized that international rules-based order. So the only way to actually do this right is to have a comprehensive or holistic strategy.”

She said that embracing and utilizing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism is the key first step to properly combating antisemitism.

Cotler-Wunsh argued that the U.S. “has the capability, and I’m going to say the responsibility, to lead the way, not just theoretically but in making a clear statement” that nations should use and implement the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism as a key part of the fight to combat antisemitism.

Cotler-Wunsh has been calling on U.S. officials to offer stronger and clearer support for IHRA since she was named to her role in September 2023.

She also said that the past year has shown the need to either extend the State Department antisemitism envoy’s mandate to cover domestic antisemitism within the United States, or to create a domestic envoy, as some in Congress have proposed.

“At the end of the day, it is for me about the United States and other democracies understanding that antisemitism is just a predictor… [of] the extremism that endangers the national security of the countries in which it is thriving,” she said. “That’s what thousands of years of Jewish history show us.”

She said that Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel recognize the threat that antisemitic extremism poses to themselves and to the region. 

Cotler-Wunsh also linked rising antisemitism to the emergence of an alliance of authoritarian countries and regimes including Iran and its proxies, China, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela.

“This is a moment for courage and leadership that will have to come from democratic countries” — the United States in particular — “that recognize this as our shared responsibility, and Oct. 7 as, just like 9/11, just one more moment in which there was an attack of barbarism on our shared civilization,” she said. “Hope is not just something that’s going to happen on its own — requiring leadership with moral clarity and courage.”

She said that the increased international pressure on Israel following Hamas’ execution of six hostages, rather than increased pressure on Hamas and its allies, will further embolden authoritarian regimes.

One point of hope that she said she’s seen in her travels is the willingness of Jews and allies around the world to recognize the Oct. 7 attacks and their aftermath as an inflection point and to serve as “boots on the ground in what we recognize as our shared struggle for our shared values and humanity.”

Cotler-Wunsh said the most disappointing aspect of her work has been that schools, companies, international institutions, social media companies and other bodies have been failing to implement and enforce policies on the books — including ones announced this year  with the goal of preventing similar incidents as occurred in the previous school year.

“There is a double standard in applying the policy, or selective application of a policy. Double standards in the application of a policy render it useless,” Cotler-Wunsh said. “If it does not protect me today, it will not protect you tomorrow, and the selective application of policy has been, perhaps been the most, for me, disappointing in terms of leadership or lack thereof.”