France Says It Must Not Be Arab-Jewish Battleground

Reuters ^

[RCW2001]

France Says It Must Not Be Arab-Jewish Battleground
Last Updated: April 02, 2002 12:10 PM ET
By Rebecca Harrison PARIS (Reuters) - France must not become a battleground where Jews and Muslims re-enact the bloody Middle East violence, national leaders said Tuesday after a series of attacks on Jewish targets in the country. Unknown arsonists tried to burn down a building at a Jewish cemetery in Strasbourg Monday night, following attacks on synagogues and a Jewish butcher's shop over Easter weekend. Right-wing pro-Israeli activists clashed Tuesday with Palestinian supporters waiting at a Paris airport for militant French farmer Jose Bove, deported from Israel after visiting Arafat in his besieged office. "Showing solidarity over the Middle East conflict is one thing. But it's totally unacceptable that this leads to conflict between communities, that some blame Jews for what is happening there, and others Arab circles," Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin told RTL radio. President Jacques Chirac decried the violence after meeting a delegation of Jewish students. Police quickly stepped in to break up the fighting at Paris-Orly airport but the pro-Palestinian group continued to chant: "We are all Palestinians" and "Fascist Zionists." In Germany, a gang of seven or eight men attacked two American Jews walking on one of Berlin's smartest streets on Sunday after visiting a synagogue. In Brussels Monday, unknown assailants hurled firebombs at a synagogue. BATTLEFIELD ANNEX? The French daily Le Figaro voiced concern about rising tension between France's Jewish community -- Europe's largest -- and its four to five million Muslims, suggesting the country could become "an annex of the battleground in the Middle East." Jewish leaders in France said the attacks might signal a fresh wave of anti-Semitism reminiscent of the Nazi era. Israel's ambassador to France said young Arabs were behind recent anti-Jewish attacks that were directly linked to the worsening Middle East violence. Tuesday Israeli troops with tanks invaded more West Bank towns after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. "I am worried about all these acts," ambassador Elie Barnavi told LCI television. Some Jewish leaders say violence against Jews in France has shot up since the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israel 18 months ago. They accuse the French government of turning a blind eye to what they call organized terrorism. "The French government is very good at speaking out against right-wing extremism. But it has laryngitis when it comes to anti-Semitism," Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center monitoring neo-Nazi activity worldwide, told Reuters by telephone from the center in Los Angeles. The European Union's European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia said it had recorded a rise in attacks on Jewish communities in Europe, but said this followed the September 11 attacks and was unrelated to Middle East violence. In January, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior said France was "the worst western country for anti-Semitism." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made similar comments. Saturday, the day after Israeli tanks surrounded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, thousands joined pro-Palestinian protests across France, one of the first western nations to advocate an independent Palestinian state. (Additional reporting from Brussels and Berlin)

[Shermy]

"Right-wing pro-Israeli activists"

In France?

[Kerberos]

"The French daily Le Figaro voiced concern about rising tension between France's Jewish community -- Europe's largest -- and its four to five million Muslims, suggesting the country could become "an annex of the battleground in the Middle East."

If this conflict were to spread into France, want to place bets on how fast the French will be begging us to come over there and save their sorry butts.

[mattdono]

Right-wing...France?

sdj;falsdhig[oaiwhrnq'baa'wm'dv;lasknbawoprhji9gawgasldnb....oh, I am sorry, I just lost consciousness for a second and my head hit my keyboard.

Boy, I think the world really might be coming to an end, especially with titles like these.

[wideawake]

Hmmmm . . .

The Front National, a pro-French party which has opposed the dilution of French culture and the out-of-control immigration policies of the Socialist government, has continually been criticized by Jewish groups in France as "fascist, xenophobic, racist" and all the other usual epithets.

Jewish leaders have claimed that the Front National would support a return of anti-Semitism in France even though the Front National has several board members and candidates who are conservative French Jews (yes, they exist!).

Hopefully Jewish organizations in France will realize that those who support a traditional, Christian France are their allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. Perhaps now French Jewish organziations will stop their policy of reflexively endorsing continued Thrid World immigration into France.

Only the reversal of France's suicidal immigration policy can prevent crimes as heinous as the burning of synagogues.

[Ciexyz]

The French Jews are starting to fight back, and suddenly the French government sees that it has a problem.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

I would think it would make it more convenient to surrender to both groups at the same time....

[wideawake]

The Front National, a French political party which is as fiscally conservative as the US Republicans (i.e., somewhat fiscally conservative) and far more socially conservative than the US Republicans, won 14% of the French vote in 1997 and was the third largest party in France behind the RPR and the Socialists.

More than four million Frenchmen have voted FN. There are many, many conservative Frenchmen living in the gun-toting, churchgoing, agricultural South of France.

We never hear from them because, like American conservatives, they don't own any networks or national magazines.

[Intimidator]

sdj;falsdhig[oaiwhrnq'baa'wm'dv;lasknbawoprhji9gawgasldnb....oh, I am sorry, I just lost consciousness for a second and my head hit my keyboard

LMAO

[wideawake]

Let's hope that French Jews fight back hard and refuse to listen to the blandishments of the Socialists whose predecessors handed them over to the Nazis.

[AFPhys]

I'm certain that this call for peace by the French government will be a great success.

[bert]

It is indeed unfortunate that in the war on terrorism France doesn't have a Maginot line to insure its defense.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

What ever happened to "Vive la difference"?

[LarryLied]

Right-wing pro-Israeli activists

Vat is diss? I taught right wingers were Nazis. I vill go to the Simon Weisenthal web site und check und make sure I did not misread something.

[LarryLied]

The Front National, a pro-French party which has opposed the dilution of French culture and the out-of-control immigration policies of the Socialist government, has continually been criticized by Jewish groups in France as "fascist, xenophobic, racist" and all the other usual epithets.

Thanks for looking that up. Think the attacks on the FN will stop now?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Only France would consider a terrorist attack as the victim's fault.

[arkfreepdom]

You guys obviously don't know about some of the neo-nazi groups in France. That place has the potential to explode...especially with the influx of immigrants. The French are great at lecturing others about racism but are very xenophobic themselves.

[bfree]

The French have a REAL PROBLEM-- who to surrender to.