Israel's Zero-Sum Boondoggle:
Wednesday, February 27, 2002 Adar 15, 5762
Solana to chide PM over French anti-Semitism slur
By Yair Ettinger and Aluf Benn
Javier Solana, the European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, yesterday rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's comment last week that there is "a wave of dangerous anti-Semitism sweeping through France."
Solana is expected to raise the issue when he meets Sharon today. Yesterday he said the prime minister should avoid accusations such as these since they "cause Israel damage in Europe."
Sharon said last week, in a speech to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, that "there are around six million Arabs [in France] and [French] Jewry could find itself facing great danger. This is why we have started preparing to welcome them [as immigrants]."
His remarks provoked outrage in France, leading the country's foreign minister Hubert Vedrine to say that "calling France an anti-Semitic country is repulsive and despicable." Jewish leaders in France also rejected Sharon's comments.
An Israeli diplomat yesterday said "the French reality is very complex. You can't simplify it into a shallow six-word slogan like `if there are Arabs, there's anti-Semitism'. A statement like this only gets us in trouble," said the diplomat.
The diplomat went on to say he believed that the French government stood behind the message Solana plans to give Sharon today. "The French government has succeeded in convincing the EU that Israel is trying to silence European criticism against its actions," he said.
haaretzdaily.com
That's for the "+" column.... Here's the "-":
Economy helps
The economic situation of course plays a strong role in an increasing demand for European citizenship. The crisis in the high-tech industry that resulted in many educated people losing their livelihoods has prompted many of them to consider living abroad for a few years. In that regard, the transformation of Europe into a single work zone definitely helps.
French embassy officials say applications for foreign passports have doubled in recent months from the normal in the number of applications they normally receive for foreign passports. The embassy spokesman's office reported that Israeli citizens submit approximately 40 applications a day for French passports - people whose parents immigrated to Israel from Algeria, Tunisia or France. This is double the rate in the same period last year.
The embassy assumes the number of potential applicants is even higher still, since the application is an extended procedure that can take up to a year, making it difficult to assess the numbers with any exactitude.
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Excerpted from:
Message 17080645
PM Sharon'd better coax his own bright-weather citizens out of jumping ship rather than crying wolf to French Jews.... Well, I guess reading that kind of anti-Arab smear tactics by Israeli officials, somehow, makes us all ZIONIST! Indeed, let's urge all the Israelis to REMAIN in Israel, let's fence them all in their Promised Dreamland --LOL!
Gus |
