Posted on 04/02/2002 9:10:54 AM PST by RCW2001
France Says It Must Not Be Arab-Jewish Battleground | |
Last Updated: April 02, 2002 12:10 PM ET |
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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) |
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Bend over for the Jihad baby! The Arabs also like Hitler.
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