Arafat Should Stay in France (They Appreciate Him)
By Don Feder
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 2, 2004
“France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France.” -- Mark Twain.
On Saturday, Yasser Arafat, capo of the Palestinian Cosa Nostra, was flown to Paris for treatment of an undiagnosed medical condition which we can only hope is terminal.
As a humanitarian gesture, Israel let the mass murderer go and promised he could return.
Then too, if the French heal the way they fight, the PLO chieftain will be dead within a week. Perhaps Sharon was counting on that.
But, seriously, what could be more fitting than for the slimy, little killer to seek medical attention among his bosom buddies and Saddam Hussein’s erstwhile protectors?
When you stop to think about it, Arafat and the French have so much in common.
1. The French love Arafat. The lily-livered Perrier guzzlers are the foremost European champions of the Palestinian jihad.
In July, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier paid a two-day visit to Arafat’s Ramallah rat hole.
Oh, those heartless Israelis, not allowing the man responsible for the murder of more than a thousand of their civilians to travel freely, the froggy foreign minister croaked. (Barnier: "I’ve seen the situation, and it is not suitable for him nor for the Palestinian people.")
Barnier delivered a personal message from French President Jacques Chirac, who reiterated his unconditional support for the Palestinian cause. (Frog went a-courting; he did ride, uh-huh.) Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza wasn’t nearly enough for Paris. Israel must adhere to the UN/EU Road Map, and "stop building the wall and stop confiscating land and stop the destruction and demolitions," Barnier blathered.
Let’s see: Israel is to give the Palestinians whatever territory they demand. Israel is to stop making it harder for suicide bombers to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, by halting construction of its security barrier. Israel must cease demolishing the former homes of those who slaughter its women and children. (Why should terrorism be penalized?)
If Chirac donned an Arab headdress and changed his name to Abu Jacques, he could hardly show more sympathy for Arafat and company.
French fondness for the Jewish state was summed up by its ambassador to the U.K., who told guests at a London cocktail party in 2001 that all of the world’s problems are attributable to “that shitty little country, Israel.” This is more the kind of talk that goes with beer and Wagner, than martinis.
2. Arafat and the French both hate America. When news of the deaths of 3,000 Americans reached the West Bank on 9/11, Palestinians were dancing in the streets and throwing candy to children (a symbol of rejoicing in the Arab world – along with going an extra month without bathing, something else they have in common with the French). A square in Ramallah was name for the first suicide bomber who killed U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
But when it comes to hating the U.S., the French have a head start of several hundred years on the Palestinians.
Some Americans are fooled by Lafayette (an anomaly) and our alliance with France in two World Wars. The French sided with the Colonies during the War for Independence to get back at the British (who had beaten the pantaloons off them in a string of continental conflicts). The Doughboys fought to save France in 1917-18, not the reverse. De Gaulle didn’t deliver America from a German occupation in 1944.
The French attitude toward their betters on this side of the Atlantic was succinctly expressed by France’s former president, the late Francois Mitterand: "We are at war with America…. The Americans are voracious. They want undivided power over the world."
Spoken like a true loser.
The French envy our economy (their unemployment rate is 9.9%), our military – the last time they won a war on their own (without an Anglo-American bailout), battles were fought with muskets – and our global influence. The last time France was a superpower, diplomats wore powdered wigs.
After getting their derrieres dusted by the Germans (three times), the Algerians, the Vietnamese, (did I forget anyone?), French influence has been limited to sneering at America and futile efforts to stop us from saving the world.
Did I mention that convicted American cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal was made an honorary citizen of Paris this past spring? All an American need do to earn the esteem of the French is to adopt a Muslim name and get on death row.
3. Arafat Kills Jews. The French are indifferent to crimes against them. No need to recount the sordid history of French anti-Semitism: the Dreyfus Affair, Vichy’s complicity in the murder of 61,000 French Jews during the Holocaust, and the like.
The French government confronts the ongoing pogrom in its land with typical Gallic indifference. Anti-Semitic incidents in France increased from 329 in 2001 to more than 500 in the first six months of this year.
Chirac’s initial response to this tidal wave of hate-inspired violence was to deny that the fire-bombings of synagogues and sniper attacks on buses carrying Jewish school children had anything to do with anti-Semitism. If he was as concerned about the safety of French Jews as he is about the imaginary oppression of his beloved Palestinians, men in skullcaps could again walk the streets of Paris in safety.
4. Both are erstwhile allies of Saddam Hussein. Arafat’s love affair with the Butcher of Baghdad predates the first Gulf War. Prior to the U.S. intervention of 2003, the Palestinian president repeatedly professed his undying love and affection for the Iraqi tyrant.
Saddam was an even bigger booster of the Palestinian cause than Chirac. Jacques doesn’t pay bounties to the families of suicide bombers (perhaps because he hadn’t thought of it).
For a decade, the French struggled valiantly to keep Saddam in power.
Who can forget then-French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin at the UN in January, 2003, telling the world that France would never support a U.S.-led effort to topple Saddam, regardless of how many international resolutions the Iraqi tyrant violated, and even if it was shown conclusively that he had his own Manhattan Project (as he did in 1981).
"If war is the only means of resolving the problem, then we have reached a dead end," de Villepin whimpered. "A unilateral military intervention will be the victory of might makes right." Yeah, sorta like June 6, 1944.
5. Arafat is a terrorist. The French invented terrorism. Lest we forget, in the 1970s, when French agents captured Abu Daoud, mastermind of the 1972 Olympic massacre, Paris promptly freed him, for fear of provoking a terrorist attack on French soil.
In the 1980s, when Reagan asked to use French airspace to bomb Libya (to avenge the murder of U.S. servicemen in a Berlin nightclub bombing), the French issued an emphatic "non!"
When was the last time the fearless French stood up to any terrorist state? North Korea? Iran (it eased the Ayatollah Khomeini’s path to power)? Syria?
In 2001, the French collaborated (one of their favorite pastimes) with communist China and Cuba to get the U.S. kicked off the UN Human Rights Commission, and replaced by that paragon of respect for The Rights of Man: Sudan.
The French pioneered terrorism. The hallmark of the French Revolution is the Reign of Terror. Just as the American Revolution is symbolized by the Liberty Bell and Declaration of Independence, France’s revolution is represented by an automated decapitation device.
The French are still a bloodthirsty lot. Their national anthem, "The Marseillaise," calls for the "impure blood" of France’s enemies to "water our furrows."
The French were the first to employ mass murder to advance an ideology. During the Revolution, people were executed, en masse, not for any crimes they had committed, but for the class to which they belonged.
The dogmas responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of millions in the 20th century – communism and fascism – were forged in the fires of Revolutionary France. Far more than the Enlightenment or Renoir, this is the French contribution to the modern age. Pol Pot, the Eichmann of 3 million Cambodians, learned his lessons studying at the Sorbonne.
6. Islam – Arafat must feel right at home in Paris. France leads Europe in Islamization.
The religion of peace currently has between 5 million and 8 million followers in the nation of Charles Martel and Martin of Tours (over 10 percent of the total population). Moreover, they’re the ones having children. Ordinary Frenchmen (hardly a virile race to begin with) devote themselves to the joys of bizarre fashion and cuisine symbolized by smelly cheese.
As a British officer remarks in the 1992 movie "The Last of The Mohicans" (set during the French and Indian War), the French are "a voluptuous race whose primary interests are food and making love with their faces."
If current birthrates and immigration patterns continue, France will be a Muslim country sometime in this century. When Notre Dame is a mosque, and Paris has a Grand Mufti, let’s see how smug the French are about their superior culture.
Arafat must just feel so at home in France that he may decide to stay on indefinitely. Maybe he can organize an Intifada there. I’ll bet French Muslims feel oppressed. Aren’t they entitled to statehood, too? (The majority of France’s imams currently preach the most virulent version of Islam.)
If all goes well, soon the French will be erecting their own security barrier on the West Bank – of the Seine. |
