French ambassador to Israel calls Sharon 'lout', Israel a 'paranoid country'

Radio Netherlands ^ | August 30 2003

[knighthawk]

France's recently appointed ambassador to Israel, Gérard Araud, has caused a diplomatic row by calling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "lout" and describing Israel as a "paranoid country."

The French ambassador allegedly made the comments at a reception, where he was overheard by a journalist who published them in an Israeli newspaper.

The incident prompted calls from Israel's education minister, Limor Livnant, for Israel to reject the ambassador's credentials.

Mr Araud denies the allegations.

[gedeon3]

If it happened, they would blame it on GW Bush and the United States.

[ladyjane]

Too busy to post since May? No job keeps you that busy. It's probably a new girlfriend.

[knighthawk]

Or both?

[Texican]

Knighthawk:
In any event I sure miss his great posts. He was one of the best.
I also miss Fishhog, another great poster gone by the wayside.

The very best to you and yours.

Semper Fi
Tommie

[Paulus Invictus]

The death toll is now over 12,000 old people in France. Hey, that's socialism for you. It's called euthaniasia in Holland.

[Gritty]

I'll bet if you could peek into the hearts of "Christian" Frenchmen, you would find plenty of paranoia about their own Muslim problems!

They're whistling past the graveyard.

[thierrya]

French FM Urges To Reconsider Stereotyping Islam


“The ignorance of Islam leads to misunderstanding it,” De Villepin

By Hadi Yahmed, IOL Paris Correspondent

PARIS , June 16 (IslamOnline.net) - French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin called for the removal of all stereotypes etched into the minds of non-Muslims about Islam, stressing that Islam, like all other religions, calls for social peace, tolerance and freedom of criticism.

“The ignorance of Islam leads to misunderstanding it, and even pushes many to claim that the religion does not encourages a spirit for criticism,” De Villepin addressed a lecture organized by the French Senate on Saturday, June 14.

“One of the principles historically associated with Qur’an was the individual ability to interpret it,” he added in the lecture entitled “Islam and the West … From Old World To the Future”.

The French minister cited a number of Islamic scholars whose interpretative judgments painted an enlightened picture of the Islamic thought, such as Tunisian Mohamed al-Tulbi and Syrian Burhan Ghalyoun.

But he lamented the lack of democratic institutions, social justice as well as the rampant financial corruption blocks the path to an enlightened western vision of Islam.

For All Peoples, Cultures

De Villepin said he admired Islam for its assimilation of varied civilizations, cultures and languages given his ubiquitous nature in many geographical spots in North Africa and the Middle East .

“ Europe is in need for this diversification down the road of building its future,” he said.

Such cultural enrichment carried by Muslims allowed them a smooth integration not only in France , but all over Europe , De Villepin said.

France is a rigid secular country, with six million Muslims, or up to ten percent of the overall population, hailing from 53 countries and speaking 21 languages other than French.

The number is expected to triple to 20 millions by 2020 due to high birth rates, growing flow of Muslim immigrants and the conversion of not so small number of French citizens to Islam.

[McGavin999]

Sharon ought to make a public statement that he doesn't take seriously the remarks of a country that leaves it's elders to die of neglect while they frolic on a beach.

[Gritty]

Everything, and I repeat, everything De Villepin has said here in your post is completely false.

The man is nothing less than a bald-faced liar, and he surely knows it!

[blam]

French ambassador calls Israel 'paranoid' and Sharon 'a lout'

By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv
(Filed: 01/09/2003)
The Telegraph (UK)

France's new ambassador to Israel caused a diplomatic row with his hosts yesterday after he was reported to have described the Jewish state as "paranoid" and called its prime minister, Ariel Sharon, "a lout".

Limor Livnat, Israel's education minister, said the remarks attributed to Gerard Araud were "very grave". If true, she said, Israel should refuse to accept his letter of accreditation.

The row is reminiscent of comments by Daniel Bernard, the former French ambassador to London. He caused a storm in December 2001 after being heard at a dinner party speaking of "that shitty little country, Israel".

M Araud's comments appear to have been made in a similarly unguarded moment. Boaz Bissmuth, a correspondent for the mass circulation Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, reported hearing M Araud talk disparagingly about Israel in conversation with two other French diplomats during a recent cocktail party in Paris.

The newspaper said M Araud did not know an Israeli journalist was there. When Mr Bissmuth introduced himself, he said M Araud tried to dissuade him from reporting what he heard because it was a private occasion.

The reporter said he decided to publish them because they reflected a possible bias on the part of an envoy of "a key European Union member state".

According to the Yediot report, M Araud also tried to explain that he meant Israel "has become paranoid because of what it has gone through".

In a statement, the French foreign ministry spokesman, Hervé Ladsous, said: "Gerard Araud denies in the most formal way all of the comments attributed to him by an Israeli journalist with respect to the state of Israel and its prime minister".

• About 13,000 police officers, security personnel and volunteers fanned out across Israel yesterday to protect 1.5 million pupils returning to school after the summer holidays.

Hamas has vowed to avenge the recent killings of four activists in Israeli air strikes. The last incident was on Saturday night when rockets from an Israeli helicopter struck a car carrying two militants.

[vikingcelt]

The French SUCK. Big time. They have the nerve to criticize Israel when they willingly handed their Jewish citizens over to the Germans so that they could be put in concentration camps and exterminated. The French have no soul, no courage, no LOVE. They hate their own elderly relatives so much that they leave them to die alone in the heat. I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about these weasly subhumans.

[thierrya]

Gritty, that's why I posted this, to remind you that France is turning to an Islamist country.
I think you know already but I wanted to insist on the fact that Chirac, Villepin and some others have decided to do anything possible to weaken Israel and USA by using Islam as a weapon.

To MinuteGal: there's a French resistance, still rather small and discreet, with no access to the medias in France where nearly everything is under control.
And the French laws are tough, it's extremely difficult to express different views without getting in some kind of trouble, there's a lot of pressure.

[GOPJ]

Boycott France bump...

[sheik yerbouty]

France is the whore of the Arabs.

[M Kehoe]

Who gives a sh!t what the French think?

5.56mm

[rmgb]

This is not about France: Antisemitism is fostered also by official US institutions. The article below is a good example on how the US is actively fostering hatred of Jews while officially posing as a defender:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=483856

One diplomat officially speaks against Jew-hating lies, but another one in the audience supports it and is enthusiastically applauded by the audience.

This is a good example of that evil comedy of "the honest US retired diplomats" and "the honest CIA retirees" . I did not come up against any example as "exemplary" for the whole method than this.

This is important, since after the near official renouncement to the pre-war claims (Kay report) that hunt will intensify (and of course also in Britain -> Kelly case).

This is a tsunami, and it is gathering momentum.

Months ago it was possible to see how thanks to a Ms Karen Kwiatkowski, the backstabbing legend was taking is canonical shape, and was as such published in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
"The spies that pushed for war."

A little later, a "private dinner" of Blair and Sharon in Downing Street was maed responsible for a change in Britain's IRAN policy, of course against British interests, suggesting that this was not the first instance. So implicitly Sharon (i.e. Israel and more generally the Jews) is also blamed for Britains participation in the Iraq war, with all implications also for the Kelly case.

Wow, what a kind of charm this man Sharon must have... Turning around a nation's strategy with one dinner.

A google search something like: Blair + Sharon + dinner

will make people realize that this dinner is to Britain what the so-called "Office for special plans" and the Neocons are to the USA.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1035078,00.html
„Another dangerous collision course"

Now the Kwiatkowski canonical Neocon-based version of the backstabbing legend is presented on Mother Jones, in all journalist glory (the lone whistleblower), with the comical notion that nobody has been asking for her story (except, of course, the Guardian, antiwar.com, Mother Jones and the rest of them all).

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/iraq/1448.html

There is no way of ignoring all this. If people will not speak out against the notion, this stab-in-the-back myth will have as disastrous consequences as in Germany in the 20ies and 30ies ("Dolchstoss", they called it then. It meant that the Jews had pushed Germany into the First World War. Regardless of political orientation, this tsunami is threatening the world through a massive and wicked distortion of reality.