Free Republic

French footballer Nicolas Anelka denied, Sunday, that a gesture he made during a Saturday match was Anti-Semitic, according to Agence France Presse. Using the Twitter social Website, Anelka argued in his tweets that the gesture - in which he thrust his straightened right arm downwards while tapping his bicep with the other hand - was merely "anti-establishment". adding, "I don't know what religion has to do with it. Of course I'm not an anti-Semite or racist and (I) stand by my gesture." Anelka did assert that the gesture was a dedication to French comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala who has made...

PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris prosecutor has launched an inquiry into a controversial TV sketch by a French comedian which many say was anti-Semitic. Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala appeared wearing guerrilla clothing and a Jewish skullcap and made a Nazi salute in the live show on France 3 television on December 1. As he made the salute he invited "youths watching today from suburban high-rises to join the American-Zionist axis." He then cried "IsraHeil," in an apparent reference to the "Heil Hitler" salute of Nazi Germany. "The sketch and the words in question seem capable of constituting defamation of a racial...