-Caveat Lector-
>From World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
> Their aims are three-fold: In order to justify Sharon�s war
> against the Palestinians, their propaganda portrays all Muslims as
> anti-Semitic. For the same purpose they attack all critics of
> Sharon and of political Zionism as essentially anti-Jewish and,
> finally, they use fear of anti-Semitism to oppose Jewish
> assimilation and argue for mass emigration to Israel.
To proclaim all of any group as being all one way has its own flavour of bigotry
without specific examples of specific acts by specific persons. If all are blamed,
this
will tend to unite the "like" persons whether they share views or not.
Thus, this plays out in any attacks on Sharon and his band of hooligans. Although
some may personally feel Sharon is the wrong person for this time in history, they will
band with Ariel due to some fluffy idealistic codependent identification. Again, that
acrid flavour becomes apparent.
And, thus, we find ourselves confronted with all of "them" ("they" who are
discourteous enough to self-define themselves as a "them", "other" than "us"), "they"
look upon us and everyone else apart from them as being the "others". Now, I don't
look like no one else. This has been a BIG problem with accepting people who have
aspirations of repatriating to migrating to another locale. I don't care who it is:
they
just might not be depended upon to support the immediate (time and place) groups
with whom they live. So, by their own actions, they have not only separated
themselves from the whole but the whole has accepted their voluntarily self-imposed
separation. Instantaneous discrimination. Mutual and equal.
I, as an American, living in Germany for a period of three years, was perceived to be
a temporary asset to that country. I could have cared less what happened in the
local community and there was no secret about it. As long as my favourite restaurant
had good food and cold beer, I was happy. As long as I paid my rent and utilities on
time, the Germans were happy. I broke no laws, was polite, and gave the landlord a
gift at the holidays. So, I was not introduced into polite society nor accepted into
many's homes as a consequence. I did not perceive that the Germans were anti-
American (of some German extraction). It's just no one's gonna stick their necks out
for someone they know would rather be somewhere else and just might be on their
way in the morning.
Until the people decide they're (in general) stuck where they're at (at least country-
wise), they're always gonna be a little less accepted and a little more out cast. I
didn't feel a need to have any part of my body kissed because I was a minority and
expected to be considered special thereby. A<>E<>R
}}}>Begin
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : France
France: Anti-Semitic attacks complement anti-Arab racism
By Chris Marsden
26 April 2002
Back to screen version| Send this link by email | Email the author
An unholy alliance of hard-line Zionists and the fascist National Front of Jean Marie
Le Pen is spearheading efforts to whip up already festering tensions between
France�s Muslims and Jews. What amounts to a concerted political campaign is
utilising a spate of anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by disaffected North African
youth
in order to legitimise racist and nationalist policies and stringent law and order
measures that are antithetical to the interests of Muslims and Jews alike.
It is of paramount importance to take a principled stand against the advocates of
communal hatred on all sides. Especially in the country that is home to Europe�s
largest Muslim population of around six million and to 700,000 Jews�making France
the world�s fourth largest population centre for Jewish people after Israel, the United
States and Russia. This is lent additional urgency not only by the terrible events
unfolding in the Middle East, but also by the recent electoral success of the fascist
National Front (FN) leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who placed second in the first round
of France�s presidential elections.
The man who once described the Holocaust as �a detail of history� is seeking to
foster anti- Muslim sentiment while portraying himself as a friend to France�s Jewish
people due to his advocacy of law and order measures and anti-Muslim stance.
All evidence suggests that the latest outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks are generally
motivated by a misplaced sympathy amongst Muslim youth for the Palestinians
suffering under Israeli occupation. This fact alone demonstrates once again that
Zionism is the enemy of the Jewish people, rather than its saviour. The crimes of
Ariel Sharon�s government has blackened the name of Israel amongst millions of the
world�s people and has associated a people historically amongst the foremost
advocates of progressive ideals with the systematic denial of the democratic rights
and brutalisation of the Palestinians.
None of this makes attacks on Jewish people and religious institutions any less
reactionary. There can be no justification for identifying all Jewish people with the
crimes of the Israeli government, because such a stance is essentially racist. And
though there is no indication that the youth who have attacked Jewish workers are
directly influenced by the various Islamic fundamentalist groups, such groupings and
a number of Arab regimes often encourage anti-Semitic sentiment in order to build a
popular base amongst the more politically ignorant.
Neither can one take comfort from the fact that in the main, anti-Semitism has taken
the form of racist graffiti and in so doing seek to minimise the problem. Although one
must avoid the type of hysterical reaction favoured by the hard-line Zionists,
complacency in regard to the re-emergence anti-Semitism is impermissible. There
have been a number of arson attacks on synagogues, the desecration of Jewish
cemeteries, and around 60 physical assaults on Jewish individuals. The worst
incident�and so far the only one of an organised character� was the attack by
hooded men armed with iron bars on a Jewish football club in the Paris suburb of
Bondy. The 15-year-old goalkeeper was beaten so badly he was hospitalised.
The targeting of Jews by Muslim youth does nothing to further the cause of the
Palestinian struggle for their democratic rights. The spokeswoman for the Palestinian
Authority in France, Leila Shahid, issued a statement declaring, �Every act against
the Jewish religion and their people is a crime against the Palestinian cause.� Instead
anti-Semitism plays directly into the hands of the right-wing in both France and
Israel.
It can only serve to alienate the many Jewish people in both countries who are
opposed to Sharon�s war, but who justifiably fear the growth of anti-Semitism
amongst the Arab peoples and the growing influence of neo-fascist groups in many
European countries.
In the struggle against Sharon�s efforts to destroy the Palestinian Authority and
against the fascist danger in France, nothing must be allowed to compromise the
struggle to unite Muslim and Jewish workers, youth and intellectuals. This task
cannot be entrusted to any of the major bourgeois parties, despite their efforts to
portray France�s republican state institutions as a safeguard against racism. Gaullist
leader Jacques Chirac and his defeated Socialist Party rival, Lionel Jospin, both
combined condemnation of anti-Semitism with appeals for unity between French
Jews and Muslims. But the main thrust of their policies foster anti-immigrant
sentiment and target Muslim youth in particular for repressive law-and-order
measures.
Young North Africans already suffer the worst forms of social oppression and
discrimination. The French police have admitted that the perpetrators of attacks on
Jews are likely a small number of young, second-and third-generation French North
Africans. But the reaction of the authorities has been to call for harsh police
measures in terms that portray the attacks as only the worst expression of a general
rise in violent crime, for which young immigrants are largely to blame.
Daniel Dugl�ry, the former inspector general of the French police and a supporter of
President Chirac, claimed that the annual number of crimes and misdemeanours
increased from 500,000 to as many as 12 million over the past three decades and
called for more police. In immigrant suburbs, �policemen run away from youths every
day,� he claimed. The theme of immigrant crime featured subliminally in an election
pamphlet issued by Chirac entitled �Insecurity. France loses its bearings,� showing a
grasping black hand as a symbol of crime.
The attacks against Jews have also been seized on by right-wing Zionists in France
and by the Sharon government. Their aims are three-fold: In order to justify Sharon�s
war against the Palestinians, their propaganda portrays all Muslims as anti-Semitic.
For the same purpose they attack all critics of Sharon and of political Zionism as
essentially anti-Jewish and, finally, they use fear of anti-Semitism to oppose Jewish
assimilation and argue for mass emigration to Israel.
A significant feature of Zionist propaganda is the attempt to link the political left
and
anti-Zionist sentiment generally with anti-Semitism. Rabbi Andrew Baker of the
American Jewish Committee described French Jews as facing a three-pronged
threat�from France�s Arab minority, from right-wing extremists and from the
intellectual left.
A number of major Jewish organisations, headed by CRIF, the Representative
Council of Jewish Organisations in France, are more blunt in their approach. An April
7 rally was held in Paris that explicitly linked opposition to anti-Semitic attacks
with
support for Sharon�s war. It drew the support of upwards of 50,000 people (the
organisers claimed 150,000). Many waved Israeli flags and, according to the chief of
police in Paris, Jean-Paul Proust, �A core of between 400 and 500 people belonging
to extremist pro-Israeli movements did not cease provocations for several hours.�
They were armed with knives, stun guns and baseball bats. Members of Betar, the
Likud youth movement in France, and the Jewish Defence League beat up North
African Arabs and journalists whom they accused of being pro-Palestinian and one
Zionist militant stabbed a policeman in the abdomen when he tried to intervene.
The decision to support Sharon�s war met with opposition within France�s Jewish
community, but CRIF president Roger Cukierman was angrily dismissive of his
critics. His predecessor as CRIF president, Theo Klein, was amongst those who
refused to take part in the rally and held a counter-demonstration that was confined
to opposing anti-Semitism. Cukierman said in response, �I said [at the time] that
while France suffered from anti-Semitism, there had not been a single Jew killed in
these incidents, whereas 125 people were killed in Israel in the month of March
alone. Thus, I felt that decency compelled us to express support for Israel.� At a
meeting attended by Jospin earlier, Cukierman declared, �There is nothing closer to
anti- Semitism than anti-Zionism.�
Spokesmen for the Israeli government have made repeated calls for France�s Jews
to emigrate. In February, Sharon himself said Israel was preparing for an exodus of
French Jews due to �this dangerous wave of anti-Semitism.� On April 10, the Israeli
government said the emigration of all 700,000 French Jews had become a
�necessity� and announced the setting up an inter-ministerial committee on the issue.
Following Le Pen�s success in the presidential primaries, Israeli Deputy Prime
Minister Elie Yisha, who heads the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, called on French Jews
to emigrate to Israel, insisting that the �Jews of Europe, and the Jews of France in
particular, cannot remain indifferent in the face of growing anti-Semitic attacks,
which
the French authorities seem unable to stop.�
Le Pen�s long-held anti-Semitic views are well known, but the most significant feature
of his most recent statements is his obscene efforts to solidarise with French Jews,
Israel and the Sharon government. Le Pen�s intention is to further his own campaign
against the National Front�s major scapegoat, hate-figure and designated enemy of
his chauvinist vision for France �Muslim immigrants.
In an extensive interview with Israel�s Haaretz newspaper on April 23, Le Pen stated,
�There is a general problem of gangs that live in the suburbs of the big cities. They
are using the events [in the Middle East] as ideological cover for their actions...
There
is an Islamic population in France, most of which comes from the North African
countries. Though some may have French citizenship, they don�t have the French
cultural background or sociological structure. They operate according to a different
logic than most of the population here. Their values are different from those of the
Judeo-Christian world.�
Le Pen added, �These elements have a negative effect on all of public security. They
are strengthened demographically both by natural reproduction and by immigration,
which reinforces their stubborn ethnic segregation, their domineering nature. This is
the world of Islam in all its aberrations.� In failing to clamp down on immigrants,
�The
French government is simply fleeing from responsibility� by �preventing the security
forces from intervening.�
Later, he states, �The most worrisome thing about the new Islam is the demographic
data. This means it doesn�t have to resort to military means to take over a country. In
France, there are six million Muslim citizens who are recent arrivals. They entered in
civilian dress, in jeans. They�d never let six million people with weapons enter our
territory. But a person in jeans can become a soldier... A propos this subject, I�ll
mention the complex problem of Israeli Arabs: The problem with Islam lies in its
incredible demographic momentum. Over the next 20 years the population in four
areas in the Mediterranean and Middle East�Turkey, Iran, Egypt and the
Maghreb�will grow from 60-100 million inhabitants. They ought to be thought of as
superpowers. Let�s hope that they will be pacifistic, but this is in no way a sure
thing.
This is why we must protect our interests, our territory and our heritage.�
On this basis, Le Pen identified fully with Sharon�s war against the Palestinians and
compared it with his own efforts within �the 10th paratroop division that was ordered
to destroy the terror in Algiers... The division did wipe out terror, and it didn�t do
this
by being gentle with the terrorists. A war on terror is a brutal thing.�
He concludes, �I completely understand the State of Israel, which is seeking to
defend its citizens.�
Zionism has a long and dishonourable history of utilising the threat posed by the far-
right to argue for its own brand of religious nationalism, sometimes to the point where
an almost symbiotic relationship is established�the fascists want rid of the Jews and
the Zionists want them to emigrate. Present-day France is no exception. CRIF
President Cukierman is far from having endorsed the calls emanating from Israel for
French Jews to emigrate. Rather he has made statements emphasising a degree of
supposed commonality between the interests of Jews and Le Pen.
Prior to the results of the first round of the presidential elections, Cukierman
declared, �The very fact that Le Pen is an outspoken opponent of Muslim immigration
to France sends a message which helps contain the violence which has come from
this immigration.� After Le Pen�s vote came in, he returned to the theme of Le Pen as
an ally against France�s Muslim population. �Le Pen�s success is a message to
Muslims to keep quiet,� he asserted, �because he is known as someone who has
always been opposed to Muslim immigration.�
The situation in France is politically complex and does not lend itself to the easy
answers advanced by the ideologues of religious exclusivism, race and nation. Anti-
Semitism and anti- Muslim racism are not opposites, but twins. Both serve to divide
the working class against itself in the political interests of the ruling elites.
The present resurgence of anti-Semitism has its immediate origins in the events in
the Middle East, but this does not impart a unique character to the fight against it
that
can be found in the separatist program of constructing a Jewish state. The Zionists
are in fact asking Jews to flee from anti-Semitism in France that is so far only a pale
reflection of the hostility they will face from the Arab masses as a result of Sharon�s
pogromist war.
The essential content of the struggle against all forms of racism is the political
unity
of the working class, based on the program of socialist internationalism. Progressive-
minded Arabs and Jews all over the world must not only unite in a mutual rejection of
nationalism and chauvinism and for the creation of the United Socialist States of the
Middle East. They must do so through engaging in a broader political movement to
mobilise the entire French, European and international working class independently
of the political representatives of imperialism.
Copyright 1998-2002
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no automatic endorsement
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
