For the first time, a senior Islamic Movement figure will be participating in the International Conference of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, which opens today at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish, head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, is slated to sit on a panel on anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim world, together with the former minister for Diaspora affairs, MK Rabbi Michael Melchior and the chairman of the Policy Council of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Israel Singer, among others.

About 150 organization leaders, academics and ambassadors will attend the conference.

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In addition to the usual faces, the list of participants will also for the first time include people like British MP John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, and Benedikt Haller, special envoy for Relations with the Jewish Communities and for Anti-Semitism issues in Germany.

Melchior founded the forum and last year it was transfered to the Foreign
Ministry, which recently created the Department for Combating Anti Semitism.

Department director and conference chair, Aviva Raz-Shechter, told Haaretz that the decision by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to place the forum within the Foreign Ministry framework expresses the ministry's new realization that the battle against anti-Semitism is a foreign policy issue - and is not confined to the Jewish world alone.

"The message we want to send to other countries is that when anti-Semitism rears its head, it is another symptom of xenophobia and racism that threatens social stability and human rights in those countries," Raz-Shechter said.