Posted on 01/07/2003 9:07:26 PM PST by Nachum
FRENCH government ministers will attend a Jewish prayer service in Paris today as a show of anger against the perceived rise of anti-Semitism in France. The visit by Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, and other colleagues follows vigorous condemnation by President Chirac of a knife attack last Friday on Rabbi Gabriel Farhi of the Jewish Liberal Movement (MJLF).
The rabbi was wounded in the stabbing at his synagogue by a man shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. On Monday, Rabbi Farhi’s car was set on fire outside his home.
In dozens of attacks last year, synagogues were burnt and damaged and Jews were subjected to violence, mainly at the hands of young men of Arab origin. The strong showing by Jean-Marie Le Pen, figurehead of the far Right, in last April’s presidential elections also seemed a throwback to the intolerance of the wartime Vichy state.
The issue was exacerbated this week with a call by a section of Paris University to halt European Union contacts with Israeli universities, and by news that immigration from France to Israel had doubled last year.
The departure of 2,566 people to Israel, mainly members of France’s 575,000-strong Jewish community, is seen as a consequence of the hostility.
French Jewish leaders have played down the attacks, depicting them largely as a symptom of the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, their American and Israeli colleagues have pilloried France for tolerating anti-Semitism.
On Monday night, celebrity writers joined a demonstration by 500 people against the decision by the governing board of Paris VI University at Jussieu to urge an end to EU academic links and subsidies in a sign of disapproval of the policies of the Israeli Government. The protesters said that the university was calling for an “anti-Jewish boycott”, similar to that applied by Nazis.
M Chirac is still trying to repair the damage that he caused last spring when he insisted that there was no anti-Semitism in France.
Condemning the “intolerable violence” against Rabbi Farhi on Monday, M Chirac said that “there can be no place in our Republic for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia or acts of religious intolerance”.
M Sarkozy has also promised to investigate the attacks. The minister, who is also deputy to Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, has pleased US Jewish leaders by branding such attacks “hate crimes” and ordering police to treat them as such. The Government has also just toughened penalties for hate crimes.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, congratulated M Sarkozy for reversing the “callousness and denial of official France”.
Opinion is divided inside France’s Jewish community over the nature of the acts. Some see them as a return to the anti-Semitic past, while others distinguish between the racial and political aspects.
Menahem Gourary, director of the Jewish Agency in Paris, said yesterday that last year’s exodus to Israel reflected something more than distress over anti-Semitism in France.
“The decision to emigrate stems from something deeper. It reflects above all a desire to ensure the future of Israel.”
ARAB NEWS.com: "A FRENCH ISLAM: DREAM OR NIGHTMARE?" -Opinion Commentary by Amir Taheri, Arab News staff" (OPINION-COMMENTARY SNIPPET: "The Sarkozy project also has a security subtext. This is understandable. Since the Sept. 11 attacks against New York and Washington, many politicians in the West believe that "the Islamic dimension" of terrorism must be brought under control. There is no doubt that many terrorist organizations, especially those operating in Algeria, have been able to exploit the Muslim community in France, and a number of other European Union countries, for fund-raising, propaganda and logistical support. These are activities that have to be monitored by the police and stopped in accordance with the law. The creation of an artificial, but officially approved, French "church of Islam" is unlikely to do the job.") (010302)
BBC NEWS: "PARIS TERROR SUSPECT UNDER INVESTIGATION" (ARTICLE NOTE: The suspect has been identified as "Abderazak Besseghir - a French national of Algerian origin.") (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Police said before Christmas that they had found bomb-making equipment during raids in the Paris suburbs. In total, nine arrests have been made since 16 December. All those arrested are said to be of Algerian or Moroccan origin.") (January 1, 2003)
***FOX NEWS.com (AP): "PARIS AIRPORT WORKER HAD BOMBS, GUNS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "PARIS - A baggage handler arrested at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport had a mini-arsenal of weapons stashed in the trunk of his car, including explosive devices ready to be used, police officials said Monday. Abdrazak Besseghir, a 27-year-old French man of Algerian origin, was arrested late Saturday after police searched his car and found in the trunk an automatic handgun, a machine gun, five bars of plastic explosives and two detonators, officials said on condition of anonymity. The explosive devices were ready to be ignited.") (123002)
***FOX NEWS.com (AP): "FBI WARNS TERRORISTS STILL INTERESTED IN SHOE BOMB-STYLE ATTACK" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON - A year after a passenger failed to blow up an airliner with a shoe bomb, the FBI is warning that terrorists remain interested in carrying out such an attack and that winter coats and shoes could be used to conceal explosives.") (122402)
ISLAM-ONLINE.net - News: Paris. "FIRST UNIFIED ISLAMIC COUNCIL IN FRANCE IN PLACE" (ARTICLE SNIPPETS: "The day-to-day tasks of the new Council will be providing clergy to minister to Muslims in the army, universities and prisons, acquiring burial sites, delivering halal meat certificates, organising the pilgrimage to Mecca and building new mosques and prayer-halls. Fekkar-Lambiotte and another leading liberal, the mufti of the main Marseille mosque Soheib Ben Sheikh, both agreed to take up places on the Council's central committee."..."Algeria funds about 200 religious centers, while Saudi Arabia provided 90 percent of the money for the main mosque in Lyon. In addition 90 percent of French imams are paid by foreign countries, including Boubaker himself who is an employee of the Algerian government.") (122002)
WorldNetDaily.com: "TERROR ATTACK FOILED IN FRANCE? by Jon Dougherty (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Quoting unidentified police sources, French radio and television reports and the daily newspaper Le Parisien said the group was planning a chemical attack. UPI reported that French police seized empty containers, vials of suspicious fluids, powders and a chemical suit, along with $5,000 in cash and phony identification papers in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis. Specialists are currently studying the materials...") (121802)
BBC News: "POLICE SEIZE CHEMICALS IN PARIS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "All three men, arrested in a dawn raid on Monday, are reported to be of North African origin. The French news agency AFP quoted a source close to the investigation, who said that the men had all spent time in both Afghanistan and Chechnya. Some French media reports described the three men as Algerians, and said they were allegedly preparing a chemical attack.") **Note: This article has been recently updated. (121702)
TELEGRAPH.co.uk: "COLLAPSE OF 'FARCIAL' DUTCH AL-QA'EDA TRIAL EXPOSES JUSTICE SYSTEM'S DIFFICULTIES" by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "After a trial criticised as farcical, a court in Rotterdam freed four members of an Islamic cell accused of plotting to blow up the US embassy in Paris and a Nato base at Kleine Brogel in Belgium. The alleged ringleader, Jerome Courtailler, was a laddish Roman Catholic butcher and football champion who grew up in the little French Alpine town of Bonneville, near Mont Blanc, before converting to Islam two years ago in an attempt to free himself from drug addiction.") (121902)
"The protesters said that the university was calling for an 'anti-Jewish boycott', similar to that applied by Nazis."No kidding? They really said that???
"there can be no place in our Republic for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia or acts of religious intolerance."
Unless you people face reality about #4, you won't have a Republic much longer, and proscriptions # 1-3 will be moot.
"FRENCH government ministers will attend a Jewish prayer service in Paris today as a show of anger against the perceived rise of anti-Semitism in France."Are these people putting a bandaid on a cancer or what?!??
Are you familiar with "The Boats of Cherbourne"? An interesting and true story of how Israel purchased military torpedo boats from France only to have the French renege on the deal. De Gaul refused to allow the Israelis to sail the boats out of the Harbor after a conflict between Israel and one of her neighbors in the late fifties or early sixties.
The Israelis were so mad at France's refusal to allow them to take possession of the boats Israel had already paid for, that they took the boats (they had already paid for) out of the harbor and sailed them to Israel in the middle of the night despite the refusal of DeGaul to give permission. Consider that DeGaul refused Israel, despite the history of France towards Jews in WWII and the memories of the Vichy government fresh in everyone's minds.
There is ample precedent for Jews, and especially Israelis to have little faith or trust in the French. You say that 1/3 of all the Jews you know are cheats and liars? I say to you that my experience with the French has not been all that wonderful either. I have many friends who are French Jews, also many Jewish friends who have spent time in France recently. There are all sorts of unpleasantness that can be described. It is no accident that more than 2,000 Jews left France and more are planning to do so.
You defended Jews from being attacked? Thank you. It was a fine thing to do. Too bad there was no one else to defend the Rabbi who was recently stabbed in the stomach in France. Too bad my friends who got the crap beat out of them in France only because they were Jews did not have you around to defend them.
Why did it take all this time for the French to get upset about the attacks on Jews? I'll tell you why, because it got out into the press. There is embarassment over being noticed. It was not that there were over 300 separate attacks on Jews this year, but the bad press the people of France were getting in America.
You are angry? I hope you become more angry when more bad press comes to France for the stupidity of allowing this hatred to grow and fester.
So shut up and sit down.
The truth is that I deeply repect the French people and la belle France. I have been there many times. In fact, I am of French descent myself--French and English. So if I criticize the French (or the English)--as I will do from time to time--it's like criticizing my own family. (And God knows I criticize the Americans!)
I am deeply concerned about the Muslim invasion of France and of Europe in general. I think that if it is not stopped soon, future (and present!) generations will deeply regret it. A tragedy of historic proportions is in the making!
As for Israel--I find it hard to sympathize with anyone who will not even acknowledge its right to exist.
Furthermore, I find the acceptance--to say nothing of the promotion--of anti-Semitism among American and European "Liberals" to be horrifying.
As for Muslims, before September 11, 2001, I had great respect for them and for Islam. Since then, I have learned a great deal about Islam. That respect has turned to disgust.
I think the French and the rest of the Europeans had better wake up and protect themselves before it's too late. The same is true of the Americans.
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