"The most valid thing Jews and Israelis can do to keep themselves safe is to show their enemies that they can break their necks." With this pithy phrase, four Iberian Jewish organizations requested the Justice Minister Yariv Levin's intervention with the Knesset to restore security to Jews in the diaspora. B'nai B'rith Portugal, Action and Communication on the Middle East, Hispanic Jewish Foundation, and Porto Shoah Museum believe that a punitive Israeli law would be the best way to awaken state antisemites abroad.

The statement of reasons presented by those Iberian organizations to Minister Levin leaves no doubt:

“Portugal, 2024. As published in the Israeli press, there was a demonstration demanding better housing that claimed Oporto’s Jewish business owners were responsible for the crisis. No police investigation took place (despite the community filing a complaint), no political leader condemned the demonstration, the official newspaper of a left-wing party exposed the names of Israeli individuals and companies in the real estate market, etc. These events created fear in the Jewish community and spread a sense of impunity throughout society, because basically no one cares, starting with the political, media, and judicial elites.”

“Portugal, 2025. An Israeli girl reported a plot to poison Israelis at a music festival. Although these events were reported in the Jewish and Israeli press, silence prevailed in Portugal. No political leader condemned the demonstration, and the local press remained silent, with the exception of a small irrelevant piece of news in a second-rate newspaper. These facts created fear in the Jewish community and spread a sense of impunity throughout society, because basically no one cares, starting with the political, media, and judicial elites.”

“Spain, 2025. At Valencia airport, 44 French minors were expelled from an airplane by the pilot after being identified as Jewish, and their young supervisor was subdued and detained by police in a violent manner, before the traumatized eyes of the minors. The adolescents were detained for hours, irregularly forced to delete the videos they had recorded of the incident. All of this has provoked a wave of international indignation that once again questions the bias and hatred against Jews executed by individuals, institutions, and authorities in Spain in the face of inaction, if not connivance, of the government, which has not expressed any type of concern nor opened any investigation of the incident.”

According to the promoters, the state of Israel should create and integrate into its national law a CRIME of antisemitism, applicable extraterritorially, unless states demonstrate that they have laws and procedures in place to effectively investigate and punish such acts. "The Crime of Antisemitism should be defined in two complementary forms. A crime of harm, making the conduct of the offender punishable; and a crime of endangerment, punishing the omission or inaction of those who have a professional duty to publicly condemn that crime of harm, or to investigate and punish it, yet deliberately do nothing, creating a sense of impunity among the public and promoting the recurrence of similar antisemitic behavior."

The suggestion delivered to Minister Levin details the possible wording of the bill:

Crime of harm: “Verbal or physical expressions against Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or against their property, community, religious or cultural institutions, and/or against the right of Israel to exist, are punishable when said expressions aim to create a climate of fear or a hostile environment within a Jewish community and/or result in fostering a negative perception of Jews, as an individualized people, by not linking them to any virtues but only to allegations of trickery, material interests, infidelity to the homeland, violence or similar negative tropes and infamous conspiracy theories.”

Crime of endangerment: "The same punishment applies to anyone who, by virtue of his or her official duties, has the obligation to publicly condemn, investigate, and prevent similar behaviors and who deliberately maintains a passive stance and does nothing, knowing that this inaction fosters a sense of impunity and societal indifference, and the recurrence of similar acts."