As for Jews in France, please refer to my previous posting (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150110).(Lily)
1. Gatestone Institute(http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org)
(1)Europe: "Je Suis Charlie"? Maybe. "Je Suis Juif"? Not Really, 18 January 2015
by Abigail R. Esman
To call for an end to Israel, or to its sovereignty, is now, more glaringly than ever, to call for an end to the Jews.
The four people gunned down in Paris on January 9 had not even been buried yet -- four men murdered by a Muslim terrorist just for being Jews -- when Amsterdam's pro-Palestinian student group demanded an academic boycott against Israel.
Not that they are anti-Semitic -- not a bit, insists Studenten for Rechtvaardig Palestina [SRP], which models itself on the American Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that accuses Israel of genocide. A leader of the group, Sarah (who would not give her last name to reporters, she said, for fear of reprisals), declared, rather, "I find anti-Semitism terrible. We are against it, and we said so from our first informational meeting. I find Israel as bad as IS," she continued, "and I am Muslim myself."
Comparing Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East and a country regularly subjected to terrorist attacks, to the Islamic State would be surreal under any circumstances; but even more so when four European Jews have just been killed by Muslims, and when IS has not only applauded their murders but called on Muslims everywhere to commit more.
But it is not, it turns out, inexplicable.
The SRP's outburst was set off by the decision last week by Amsterdam's Vrij Universiteit [VU] (Free University), to cancel a previously planned "debate," called for by SRP, on encouraging the school to join the international academic boycott against Israel. This debate, to which not a single pro-Israel speaker had been invited, was to have taken place the following day at VU. The debate was to be led by former Dutch Socialist Party member Anja Meulenbelt, wife of convicted former Fatah terrorist Khaled Abu Zaid. Abu Zaid, by his own description, once trained fellow Palestinians in the use of explosives against Israeli targets.
Also scheduled to speak at the event was the Dutch-Iraqi journalist Abulkasim al-Jaberi, who recently blamed the Paris attacks on French imperialism. "Were France not part of the trigger-happy international Mafioso, this would never have happened," he wrote in an article for the online publication "Voorbeeld allochtoon" ("Exemplary Immigrant").
To their credit, before cancelling the "debate," VU president Jaap Winter announced that the university had no intention of conceding to the SRP's demands; rather, he said, they felt it appropriate that an academic institution provide "open and honest debates over difficult, sensitive, and controversial issues, such as the Palestinian question."
The failure of the SRP to offer a real debate -- rather than one-sided, propagandistic arguments -- was not, however, the reason VU revoked their permit for the event. Rather, university officials said, "We have determined that, in light of social unrest in response to the events of last week, this debate could engender feelings of insecurity and exclusion with the university community." Why such concerns were not raised by the presence at the event of the Dutch wife of a convicted Palestinian terrorist remains a mystery -- at least formally.
Nevertheless, Sarah and her fellow SRP members quickly found an alternative site: the peaceful-sounding Nelson Mandela Center in Amsterdam.
The Nelson Mandela Center, however, is merely the name of a building. It houses the offices of (among others) Holland's Euro-Mediterranean Center for Migration and Development [EMCEMO], a Dutch-Moroccan organization that has been accused of urging Dutch Moroccans to resist efforts to crack down on welfare fraud by Moroccan immigrants. More pointedly, last August, as Dutch-Moroccan extremists chanted "death to Jews" during pro-ISIS demonstrations in The Hague, EMCEMO called on Holland's Jews to distance themselves from Israel. In the end, by all accounts, the evening passed relatively peacefully, other than the arrest of one attendee who allegedly issued threats against another.
This, however, does not mean that the issue has played itself out. Far from it. In America and Europe, from politicians to universities, ongoing efforts to demonize and alienate Israel continue. Yet, as Esther Voet, Executive Director of Holland's Jewish rights organization, the Center for Information and Documentation Israel [CIDI], pointed out in a recent phone conversation,
"To all those people who waste their energy now on the BDS [Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions] movement, I would say, first, you are either naïve or really vicious. And second, ask yourself why you are focusing on Israel, and not on the vicious stuff that is going on right now in the rest of the world. If you want to fight for something in this world, fight for the incredible, beautiful civilization that we have: the civilization of freedom."
The recent attacks in Paris made clear the threat we all live under now; but more, they made clear that Israel is the only place on earth where Jews -- especially European Jews -- are truly safe. To call for an end to Israel, or for an end to its sovereignty, is now, more glaringly than ever, to call for an end to the Jews.
Let's stop pretending that it's not.
(2)Note to Our Readers
by The Editors
January 14, 2015 at 2:30 pm
A few readers have questioned the authenticity of some of Gatestone's articles, such as the "Open Letter to the French President" posted this morning. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, writers sometimes need to remain anonymous to protect their safety. If we could not assure them of privacy, there would be no letters or articles from those places at all — from where they are most needed. So we prefer to publish them rather than not. Critics will always oppose an article even when the author's name is on it. We also wonder if people who focus on the identity of a writer, rather than on the content, are trying to shift attention away from the content, no matter how accurate or well-sourced it might be.
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(3) Open Letter to the French President, 14 January 2015
by A Palestinian Journalist in Ramallah
Your Excellency, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march at the front row of a rally in your capital to protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.
Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that President Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Every day we see that the Western media, including French newspapers and magazines, does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel.
Your Excellency, you are completely mistaken if you believe that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. While he was attending the rally, a human rights group published a report accusing the Palestinian Authority of "waging war" against university students in the West Bank.
President Abbas has managed once again to deceive you and the rest of the international community. He now has managed to create the false impression that he cares about freedom of speech and independent journalism
Palestinians like me will now pay a heaver price because Abbas has been emboldened and will now step up his assaults. France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship -- one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.
I hope now your Excellency understands why I am too scared to reveal my identity.
His Excellency, François Hollande
Dear Mr. President,
First, I wish to express my deep condolences over the killing of innocent citizens in the recent terror attacks in Paris.
Second, I want to apologize to Your Excellency for not revealing my true identity. After you read my letter, you will realize why people like me are afraid to reveal their real identity.
I decided to write to you this letter after hearing my president, Mahmoud Abbas, declare that you had invited him to attend the anti-terror rally in Paris earlier this week.
Like many Palestinians, I see President Abbas's participation in a rally against terrorism and assaults on freedom of speech as an act of hypocrisy -- a condition that is not alien to Palestinian Authority leaders.
In fact, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march in the front row of a rally in your capital, in protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.
President Abbas's participation in the rally is an insult to the victims of the terror attacks. It is also an insult to Western values, including freedom of expression and democracy.
Your Excellency, myself and other journalists living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank were the first to be offended by the invitation you extended to President Abbas to attend the anti-terror rally.
Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Of course, Your Excellency, we cannot blame you for being unaware of this assault on public freedoms because the mainstream media, including French newspapers and magazines, deliberately turn a blind eye to these practices. Every day we see that the Western media does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel.
That is why, Your Excellency, you are probably unaware of the cases of several Palestinian journalists who have been arrested and intimidated by President Abbas's security forces over the past few years. Yes, this is the same Abbas who came to Paris to express his condolences over the brutal killing of the Charlie Hebdo journalists.
The most recent example of Abbas's crackdown on Palestinian journalists occurred shortly before Your Excellency phoned President Abbas to invite him to Paris. The case involves my female colleague, Majdolin Hassouneh, who was detained for "extending her tongue," or insulting, President Abbas.
Your Excellency, please allow me to tell you that you are completely mistaken if you ever thought that President Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. And of course, you haven't heard of the Palestinian Authority's decision to cancel the only popular satirical show on Palestine TV, Watan ala Watar (Country on a String).
The show was forced off the air in 2011 because President Abbas believed it had "crossed a line" by mocking his top officials in Ramallah. This is the same Abbas who came to Paris to protest the massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
And, Your Excellency, if you want further evidence of President Abbas's clampdown on political satire, you can ask Palestinian comedians Abdel Rahman Daher and Mahmoud Rizek. The two men are currently in Jordan because they are afraid to return to the West Bank. No, Your Excellency, they are not afraid to return home because of Israel. They are afraid of being arrested by President Abbas's security forces, which accuse the two men of insulting their leader.
President Abbas, Your Excellency, should be the last person to walk in a march honoring journalists who were massacred because of their satirical work. His participation in the Paris rally is not only in an insult to the memory of the slain journalists, but to all those who believe in freedom of expression and media.
I also want to bring to the attention of Your Excellency that while President Mahmoud Abbas was attending the rally in Paris, a human rights group published a report accusing the Palestinian Authority of "waging war" against university students in the West Bank. According to the report, 24 students have been arrested in recent weeks by Abbas's security forces for "political reasons."
Again, I'm sure Your Excellency did not hear about the crackdown on university campuses because Western media outlets and foreign journalists based here do not report about such stories. You read and hear about such incidents only when the Israeli army or police are involved.
I do not want to take much of your time, Your Excellency, by telling you about President Abbas's double standards and hypocrisy on the subject of terrorism. You can learn a lot about this by going on the Internet and seeing, with your own eyes, how our president often condones and glorifies terrorism and terrorists.
You will even discover that our president, who will soon celebrate his 80th birthday, is prepared to stay awake all night to welcome Palestinians released from Israeli prison for murdering Jews and committing terror attacks no less serious than the ones your country experienced last week.
You will also discover, Your Excellency, that our president also rewards terrorists by granting them monthly salaries and other privileges.
What would be your reaction, Your Excellency, if someone decided to reward financially the families of the terrorists who massacred the innocent civilians in Paris?
Your Excellency, perhaps it is now too late to talk about the decision to invite President Abbas to the anti-terror rally. The damage has already been done, as far as I and many Palestinians are concerned. The way we see it is as follows: President Abbas has once again managed to deceive you and the rest of the international community by placing himself on the side of the good guys in their fight against terrorism and extremism. Even worse, President Abbas has managed to create the false impression that he cares about freedom of speech and independent journalism.
Undoubtedly, now Palestinians like me will now pay a heavier price because President Abbas has been emboldened by his participation in the Paris rally. President Abbas will now step up his assaults on public freedoms because he knows that the international community will only see photos of him marching together with Your Excellency and other world leaders in defense of freedom of expression.
By extending the invitation to President Abbas, you have caused damage to Palestinians like me who have been hoping that someone -- maybe even a leader like you -- would finally expose the dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority for what it is. President Abbas's participation in the Paris rally is a severe blow to people like me who are genuinely opposed to terrorism and suppression of free speech.
Your Excellency, now that the damage has already been done, all that is left for people like me is to beg you to take all what I have said into account in your future dealings with President Abbas. Please do not hesitate to raise these issues with President Abbas the next time he requests your support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Otherwise, France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship -- one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.
Finally, Your Excellency, I hope that by now you understand the reason why I am too scared to reveal my identity.
Sincerely,
A Palestinian Journalist with No Name or Voice
(4)An Open Letter to the People of France
by Randy D. Hill (United States)
14 January 2015
His Excellency, François Hollande, and the people of France,
Dear Mr. President,
The world has watched as evil once again reared its ugly head in your land. The perpetrators, acting in a deluded belief that they could bring liberty to its knees, sought to punish those it judged offensive and frighten the free world.
Those who acted in such a close-minded position failed miserably. Their comrades present them as martyrs but what the are is mere debased murderers. The only true martyrs are the victims of this senseless act. They gained nothing for their cause. In the final analysis this event, like the horrors of World War II, will bring unity to the peace loving people of the world.
France and the United States have at times had a tempestuous relationship. We have had our squabbles. But we Americans will not sit idly by in the face of any attack against our French brothers and sisters. Political differences, economic variables, ideological challenges, slide into oblivion in the face of the harm done to the French people.
Do not think we have no compassion for you all during this sad period. Though our president failed in his duty to show unity with you at this time, that is not the feelings of a huge number of Americans. Our support at this time comes in the form of prayer, unity of purpose, and a mutual bond.
Continue to hold your heads high. Let the people of the world see your resolve and determination. And, let those full of hate, hardened hearts and intolerance, know that France is not some deserted island ripe for the taking. Let them know that France has withstood much more in her past and will rise victorious and even more united with her comrades around the world.
・Note: Reader comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. Gatestone Institute reserves the right to reject anything found to be objectionable. Reader comments, including the one above, represent solely the opinion or viewpoint of the readers that submitted them and do not represent the opinion or viewpoint of Gatestone Institute. Gatestone Institute takes no responsibility for the content of reader comments.
2.Tablet(http://tabletmag.com)
(1)The Frightening Reality for the Jews of France, 9 January 2015
A year of anti-Semitism, violence, and incitement in France
by Stephanie Butnick
Two days after heavily armed gunmen killed 12 people at the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, two gunmen took hostages at a kosher supermarket in a Paris, killing at least four people. Police killed one of the gunmen, who was suspected in yesterday’s murder of a police officer and reportedly affiliated with the gunmen behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, who were also killed in a shootout with police Friday.
The deadly siege on the kosher supermarket, which occurred on a Friday afternoon, when Jewish shoppers would likely be purchasing last-minute items for Shabbat, is not without context. Marc Weitzmann’s sadly prescient five-part series, France’s Toxic Hate, which details the rise of extremism throughout France and its anti-Semitic tendencies, is a helpful primer.
But the other important piece of context is that this attack comes after a truly frightening year for French Jews. Nearly 7,000 French Jews moved to Israel this year, more than double the figure from the previous year. Smaller things, like the viral popularity of the quenelle gesture—a reverse Nazi salute—created by controversial Cameroonian-French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, compounded with attacks on visibly identifiable young Jews in Paris and the quickness with which anti-Israel protests during this summer’s Gaza war devolved into anti-Semitism, have fueled a climate in which many French Jews simply don’t feel safe.
Here’s what the past year looked like for French Jews.
Jan. 26, 2014: Video footage captures anti-government protestors shouting “Juif, la France n’est pas a toi”—“Jew, France is not yours”–at a demonstration in Paris.
March 2, 2014: A Jewish man is beaten on the Paris Metro by assailants who reportedly told him “Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.”
March 3, 2014: France’s Jews demand the election of new chief rabbi (the post had been filled by two interim chief rabbis since April 2013), in a letter that cites the need of a leader “to express the voice of Judaism during the difficult period we are experiencing.”
March 10, 2014: An Israeli man is attacked with a stun gun in the Marais district.
March 20, 2014: A Jewish teacher is attacked leaving a kosher restaurant in Paris. After breaking his nose, the assailants drew a swastika on his chest.
April 3, 2014: A French court fines a 28-year-old Moroccan man $4,130 for posting photos online of himself giving the quenelle salute in front of Grand Synagogue in Bordeaux.
May 15, 2014: A Jewish woman was attacked at a bus stop in Paris’ Montmartre district by a man who shook her baby carriage and said, “Dirty Jewess, enough with your children already, you Jews have too many children, screw you.”
May 19, 2014: A poll of 3,833 French Jews reveals 74 percent have considered emigrating.
June 9, 2014: Two Jewish teenagers and their grandfather are chased by an ax-wielding man and three accomplices as they walk to their synagogue in the Paris suburb of Romainville on Shavuot.
June 10, 2014: A Jewish teen wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit is attacked with a Taser by group of teens at Paris’ Place de la République square. In Sarcelles, two Jewish teens wearing yarmulkes are sprayed with tear gas.
June 23, 2014: Rabbi Haim Korsia is elected Chief Rabbi of France.
June 24, 2014: A French court drops its lawsuit against Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, ruling the French comedian’s video mocking the Holocaust doesn’t constitute hate speech. (Europe’s notoriously strict hate speech laws regulate Holocaust denial as well as “racially or religiously discriminatory expression”.)
July 10, 2014: A 17-year-old Jewish girl is pepper-sprayed at Paris’ Place du Colonel-Fabien square.
July 14, 2014: Bastille Day celebrations in Paris turn violent. Anti-Israel rioters attack the Don Isaac Abravanel synagogue on Rue de la Roquette, and its congregants fight back.
July 16, 2014: More than 400 French Jewish emigreés arrive in Israel, most of them young families from Paris and its suburbs.
July 23, 2014: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounces anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. “Anti-semitism, this old European disease,” he said in a speech, has taken “a new form. It spreads on the Internet, in our popular neighborhoods, with a youth that has lost its points of reference, has no conscience of history, and who hides itself behind a fake anti-Zionism.”
Aug. 14, 2014: The Simon Wiesenthal center requests that a small hamlet south of Paris known as La-Mort-aux Juifs—‘Death to the Jews’—since the 11th century change its name.
Sept. 2, 2014: Two French teenage girls are arrested for plotting to blow up a synagogue in Lyon. A Central Directorate of Homeland Intelligence source said the teens were “part of a network of young Islamists who were being monitored by security services.”
Sept. 12, 2014: French anti-Semitic watchdog group SPCJ reports 527 anti-Semitic incidents from Jan. 1 to July 31, 2014. There were 423 incidents reported in all of 2013.
Oct. 23, 2014: French Jewish leader Roger Cukierman is indicted for referring to Dieudonné as a “professional anti-Semite” during a television appearance.
Nov. 5, 2014: Arsonist responsible for setting fire to a kosher supermarket during July 20 riot in Sarcelles is sentenced to four years in prison.
Nov. 12, 2014: In a new spree of anti-Semitic incidents in Paris, a kosher restaurant is firebombed, and a Jewish student wearing a yarmulke is assaulted outside his private high school.
Nov. 21, 2014: French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve expresses his support for the Jewish community. “Every time you feel the violence exercised against you, when you are afraid for your children, when you are worried about this rising violence, remind yourselves that the republic protects you and an interior minister who loves you and who is your friend,” Cazeneuve says at an event sponsored by Station J, a Jewish radio channel.
Dec. 2, 2014: France votes to recognize Palestine as a state, which the Israeli embassy in Paris says sends “the wrong message to leaders and people in the region.”
Dec. 31, 2014: France states the country from which the largest number of Jews immigrated to Israel in 2014. Nearly 7,000 French Jews immigrated to Israel, double the 2013 figure of 3,400.
(2)Should French Jews Leave for Israel?,15 January 2015
In the wake of Paris terror attacks, calls for aliyah prompt varied responses
by Stephanie Butnick
In the wake of last week’s massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the deadly siege on a kosher supermarket in the French capital, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged the Jews of France to move to Israel. “The State of Israel is not just the place to which you turn in prayer,” Netanyahu said over the weekend as he headed to France for a commemoration at Paris’ Grand Synagogue and the city’s unity rally. “The State of Israel is also your home. This week, a special team of ministers will convene to advance steps to increase immigration from France and other countries in Europe that are suffering from terrible anti-Semitism.”
The call for aliyah was controversial, and prompted a host of reactions. “The Israeli government must stop this Pavlovian response every time there is an attack against Jews in Europe,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the European Jewish Association, said in response.
Still, for French Jews, the situation is understandably frightening. The murder of four Jewish men at the Hyper Cacher supermarket capped off a troubling year of anti-Semitism, violence, and incitement. In a report for the New York Times, Dan Bilefsky writes that many French Jews say “the trauma of the terrorist attacks last week has left them scared, angry, unsure of their future in France and increasingly willing to consider conflict-torn Israel as a safer refuge.”
French leaders, fearing the consequences of an exodus of Jews from France, have issued robust expressions of support. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Saturday that “France without Jews is not France.” President François Hollande, wearing a skullcap, joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at a commemoration event at the Grand Synagogue of Paris on Sunday. He had already deplored the attack as a horrific act of anti-Semitism.
But Jewish residents said the new security measures were not enough to restore frayed nerves. Some said they were already planning to pack their bags for Israel, urged on by Mr. Netanyahu, who told French Jews on Sunday that they would be welcomed with “open arms.”
More than 7,000 Franch Jews moved to Israel in 2014, more than double the previous year’s figure. It’s likely that the Paris terror attacks will prompt more to do so in the coming weeks and months. Yet as the moving scene at the Grand Synagogue of Paris on Sunday illustrates, the reality of French Jewishness is unique and complex. The massive crowd of French Jews at the synagogue cheered loudly for Netanyahu after largely ignoring Hollande’s own entrance moments earlier, and then, after Netanyahu’s speech ended, immediately broke into a moving, impromptu rendition of the French national anthem.
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