>>Re: I didn't read Sharon's comments as condemning France as an anti-semetic country. He did say that Arabs living in France are increasingly threatening and attacking peaceful French Jews, including children. Seems quite accurate.<<
>>Sure, but who knows better, you and Sharon or the French Jews themselves.
Knows better about which issue? The article below confirms at least what I say.
Copyright 2002 Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
January 17, 2002, Thursday
01:08 Central European Time
SECTION: Miscellaneous
LENGTH: 790 words
HEADLINE: FEATURE: Mideast crisis brings fear and loathing to French Jews
DATELINE: Paris
BODY:
"The people walking to the synagogues here are afraid. The Jewish children going to school are afraid."
A description of Nazi Germany? Or perhaps of an Israeli city victimized by terrorists?
No, Emmanuel Weintraub, the chairman of the French section of the World Jewish Congress, was referring to France, where a series of anti-Semitic attacks, allegedly by young Arab men, has raised accusations of French anti-Semitism around the world. President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine have all publicly defended the country against the accusations, which Vedrine called "odious".
The charges reached a climax earlier this month when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior accused France of being "the worst western country" in terms of anti-Semitic assaults and incidents.
"Anti-Semitism is not taken seriously in France," Melchior said, "and we sense a hesitation among the authorities to do what's necessary to stop this wave of anti-Semitism."
According to Melchior, there were 312 anti-Semitic incidents reported in France last year, a figure the French interior ministry disputes.
According to French government figures, only 26 anti-Semitic attacks had been committed up to the end of November 2001, down significantly from 119 for the entire year of 2000.
However, a week before Melchior raised his charges, unknown perpetrators tossed petrol bombs into a Jewish school and three youths attempted to break into a synagogue, all in the Paris suburb of Creteil.
These incidents came shortly after the French ambassador to Britain, Daniel Bernard, was reported to have described Israel as "a shitty little country" at a dinner party, allegedly adding, "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?"
The report drew a sharp rebuke from a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and a call on the French government to "draw the conclusions of a senior representative of a nation making an anti-Semitic remark".
Bernard denied making the comments, refused to apologize and the French foreign ministry stood behind him, branding the charges of anti-Semitism "malevolent insinuations".
Nevertheless, media reports of the alleged statements prompted the combative former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, to urge his fellow Americans to boycott all French products.
In a strongly worded opinion piece in the American newspaper Newsday, Koch offered a long list of French transgressions, from the infamous 1894 trial of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus on trumped-up charges of treason to Paris's refusal to allow U.S. planes to overfly France when Ronald Reagan went after Libya's Moammar Gadhaffi.
"French anti-Semitism is well-known," Koch declared.
Weintraub - who is also a member of the executive committee of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) - does not agree.
"The French are not anti-Semitic, and France is no anti-Semitic country," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
He said that the Jewish community in France, and particularly the 350,000 Jews living in the greater Paris area, had been placed on a "political minefield" by events in the Mideast since the beginning of the latest Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, some 15 months ago.
Many of the approximately 5 million Moslems living in France are young Arab men who have not been well integrated into society, Weintraub said.
"They are angry, have no jobs and often don't go to school, and they lack a clear identity, considered French when they go to North Africa and called Arabs here in France," he said.
"With the Mideast, they can identify with what they think is a just fight."
At a recent demonstration in Creteil against anti-Semitism, a leader of the Paris Jewish community, Moise Cohen, also refuted the charges of French anti-Semitism.
"France is not anti-Semitic," he said. "What is worrying, however, is a new form of Islamist Judeophobia. For the last 15 months, we have been struck by a new surge of hatred, and the silence of the (government) creates a double feeling of abandonment and insecurity in our community."
Weintraub also placed some blame on French officials for the increase of fear in the Jewish community here.
"There is some degree of laxity by French authorities in pursuing the anti-Semitic incidents," he charged. "And some officials are telling Jews not to rock the boat by making too much of them."
As a result, he noted, one anti-Semitic incident a month was enough to make people afraid.
"The climate becomes more important than the facts," Weintraub said. "And then the facts feed the climate." dpa sm mb ct
LOAD-DATE: January 17, 2002 |
