Italian Economist Sees Euro Currency as Harmful, Likewise Germany's Stifling Role

Paolo Savona is an Italian economist of the older generation. A veteran official at the Italian central bank, the Banca d'Italia, he was nominated by the two main political parties in Italy, the Lega [League] and the Movimento Cinque Stelle [Five Stars Movement], to be minister of finance when the Italian government was being formed last May and June [2018]. But Savona's positions on the euro currency and German domination in the single currency [euro] zone were anathema to the EU/Eurozone and to various domestic Italian interests.
His views were summed up by the Wall Street Journal:
Savona . . . sharply criticized the euro and compared the dominant role of Berlin in determining Eurozone financial policy to Nazi German aggression in the Second World War. [Globes, 5(29-30) 2018]

In any event, the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, nixed Savona's appointment as finance minister on the grounds that a new government with Savona as finance minister might endanger Italy's membership in the Eurogroup [that directly sponsors the Euro currency]. Now, criticism of the EU and its institutions and Germany's role in particular are nothing new in Italy. Former socialist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi sharply criticized the EU and Germany's dominant role in it [here].

In any case, the man who did become finance minister in the new government, Giovanni Tria, was quite conciliatory towards the Euro and the EU. In contrast to Savona. But he too indicated tensions with the EU and the Eurogroup, Germany in particular, but France as well that --under Macron-- wants to expand the powers of the EU central authorities in Brussels through greater political and financial integration of the Eurogroup [the single currency group] and the EU. Tria told an interviewer:
"Look, paying attention to keeping the accounts in order and to bringing down the debt  is not appropriate because Europe tells us but because we should not take the chance of damaging confidence in our financial stability"[qui Corriere della Sera, 9 (modified 10) June 2018; Eng. trans. here]. Thus Tria expresses fear of what the Eurogroup and Germany in particular will say or do if Italy acts in such a way as to damage their confidence in Italy's financial stability. Nevertheless, as long as Germany enforces an austerity policy on Greece, Italy and other Eurozone states, economic growth in the Zone will be low --and it is now low in Germany too. But the Germans and the Brussels bureaucrats, the unelected rulers over millions --sometimes called Eurocrats-- are rigid. Thus needed changes will not be made or only very slowly and too little will be done in the way of changes out of the austerity straitjacket. The Greek case is blatant because the country cannot pay its debt in the long term --debt which was mostly incurred by the initial refusal of Germany led by Wolfgang Schaeuble to help Greece keep up with a smaller debt than now starting in 2010. Even the International Monetary Fund, notoriously friendly to fiscal stinginess, now agrees that the Greek debt should be restructured if not forgiven in part. But this does not happen. German domination of the Eurogroup seems to be still intact.

We have already explained why the EU is  not democratic [here] and we believe that the more the EU integrates and centralizes control and regulations in Brussels (the EU parliament at Strasbourg hardly counts) the less democratic each member country will be.  That is the less democratic power or influence the various peoples of the member states will have over their own lives. This greater political and financial integration is what Macron is seeking. He gave a speech on this subject just the other day. However, looking at France today, what with the mass terrorist attacks and the Yellow Vest movement which opposes Macron's proposed reforms, reveals that things are not going smoothly in what French people call the Hexagon. Safety on the streets especially for Jews, but not only, cannot be taken for granted in France today. Maybe it is not Macron's proposed reforms that have brought France down --reforms mostly not yet implemented-- but the EU and Eurogroup policies that have been in effect up till now.

Yes, the dream of a united Europe has its attractions but the reality is not so rosy.
Knowing what we do about the EU explains to us why nothing good for Israel is likely to come out of the EU. Israelis and Jews generally have to start seeing the EU as a body that cannot act for the best of its own several peoples let alone helping to bring peace to Israel and the Middle East generally.

France Foreign Ministry Falsifies International Law, Accusing the US of Violating It

In a fit of desperation at seeing their beloved "Palestinians" losing ground politically/diplomatically, the French Foreign Ministry, led by foreign minister Jean-Yves LeDrian accused the United States of violating international law by deciding to move its embassy to Jerusalem. It is very seldom that France or its NATO allies accuse the USA of violating international law. So this statement is remarkable for that reason, besides being a lie. See below the French statement:

France disapproves of the American decision to transfer the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as President Macron has reaffirmed on several occasions. This decision contravenes international law and in particular the UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. [here]
La France désapprouve la décision américaine de transférer l’ambassade des Etats-Unis en Israël de Tel Aviv à Jérusalem, comme l’a rappelé à plusieurs reprises le président de la République. Cette décision contrevient au droit international et en particulier aux résolutions du Conseil de sécurité et de l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies. [ici]

Why is the French statement a lie? 
The San Remo Conference and the League of Nations assigned the Land of Israel, what the Europeans --although not the Arabs-- called "Palestine." as the Jewish National Home in 1920 and 1922 respectively. The Preamble to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) specifically referred to the historical connection of the Jews with the Land:

Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine  and to the grounds for the reconstituting their national home in that country . . . .

Even after the exile from Jerusalem forced by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who changed the city's name to Aelia Capitolina, Jews returned to Jerusalem in late Roman times and after other periods when they had been expelled from the city and forbidden to live there. Jews have lived in Jerusalem continuously after the Crusades since the Mongol withdrawal from the city in 1260. In more recent times, Jews became the absolute majority of inhabitants of the Holy City in the middle of the nineteenth century, by 1853, if not before. In 1853, the Old City was the whole city. Hence the Jews were the majority then in the Old City and up to at least 1900.

Now the Quai d'Orsay [French foreign ministry] makes a legal argument supposedly based on international law. But Article 80 of the UN Charter, 1945, confirmed Jewish rights to the Land under the Jewish National Home principle previously adopted by San Remo and the League. Hence, in November 1947 when the UN General Assembly recommended accepting the partition plan for the country of the UNSCOP [UN Special Committee on Palestine], the existing legal status of the Land of Israel ["Palestine"] was that of the Jewish National Home. Since the UNSCOP Partition Plan was a recommendation, it was not law. In fact, the General Assembly can only make recommendations on political matters, according to the UN Charter. Therefore, subsequent General Assembly resolutions on the Land of Israel are no more law and no more binding than the UNSCOP plan. Therefore, the General Assembly resolutions that the Quai d'Orsay statement mention are not law and not at all binding. They are only recommendations.

Security Council resolutions are considered binding. However, the SC cannot legally revoke rights of peoples and states that it does not like or no longer approves. Especially when the people or state in question is already exercizing that right. The anti-Israel resolutions of the GA and SC of the past and future can rightly be seen as Judeophobia, anti-Jewish expressions. The France of today is the heir of Vichy France and has no right to lecture Israel on its rights no more than the Palestinian Arabs whose top leaders collaborated with Nazi Germany and in the Holocaust.

Italian Jewish Response to the UNESCO Big Lie & Western Collaboration In It

Fiona Diwan, editor of the Bulletin of the Jewish Community of Milan, had some sharp words for UNESCO over its sinister vote "revising" the known history of Jerusalem and the Jewish role in that history. She also had sharp words for her own government and other EU and Western governments that collaborated in that vote by voting in favor or by merely abstaining. By abstaining they refused to take an honest stand on the integrity of known history. The West stays on the route towards barbarism.

Fiona Diwan in Mosaico, il Bollettino of the Milan Jewish Community, November 2016, no. 11:
Every month, here on earth, we cannot even count the pieces of archeological evidence and the discoveries of Jewish, Biblical, Hasmonean, and Herodian antiquities. However, France and Italy pretended not to know that. and were ready to exhibit the most scandalous silence when they abstained from the vote on the motion at UNESCO labeled "occupied Palestine," in which last month any tie between the Temple Mount and Judaism and Christianity was definitively denied. Among so many things that it did, the motion cancelled the Hebrew names of all the places on the Temple Mount in order to keep only the Arabic names. By now, everything has been written about this ignominious text. It is a text that falsifies history, denies the ancestral tie between Jerusalem and the Jewish people, once again giving in to the pressures and the intellectual terrorism of the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority. I want to point out that England, Holland, the United States, Germany, Lithuania, and Estonia voted against the motion.
We hoped that Italy and a France would have been more courageous by rejecting this buffoonish text. We would never have thought that at the session of the definitive vote, they would have chosen to abstain, thereby endorsing UNESCO's perverse calling in the delegitimization of Israel. Because, obviously, this is what was at stake. A delegitimization that runs in parallel with the demonization of Israel and the new European antisemitism with an Arab-Muslim matrix and its demographic explosion on the continent of Europe.

Ogni mese, quaggiù, non si contano le evidenze archeologiche e le scoperte di antichità giudaiche, bibliche, asmonee, erodiane. Eppure Francia e Italia hanno fatto finto di non saperlo, pronte a esibire il più scandoloso silenzio quando si sono astenute al voto della mozione Unesco denominate "Palestina occupata," con cui si è negato il mese scarso, in via definitive, qualsiasi legame tra il Monte del Tempio, l'ebraismo e il cristianesimo.  Tra le tante cose, la mozione cancellava i nomi ebraici da tutti i luoghi del Monte del Tempio per mantenere solo quelli in arabo. Su questo testo ignominioso si è ormai scritto di tutto, un testo che falsifica la storia, nega il legame ancestrale tra Gerusalemme e il popolo ebraico, cedendo, una volta di più, alle pressioni e al terrorismo intellettuale degli stati arabi e dell’Autorità palestinese. Voglio qui ricordare che Inghilterra, Olanda, Stati Uniti, Germania, Lituania e Estonia avevano votato contro. Speravamo in una Italia e Francia più coraggiose nel rigettare questo testo buffone. Mai avremmo pensato che, in sede di voto definitivo, avrebbero scelto l’astensione avallando così la vocazione perversa dell’Unesco alla delegittimazione di Israele. Perché, ovviamente, di questo si tratta.
 Una delegittimazione che corre in parallelo con la demonizzazione di Israele e col nuovo antisemitismo europeo di matrice arabo-musulmana e la sua esplosione demografica in terra d’Europa. [testo qui]

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The Italian daily newspaper, Il Foglio, sponsored a demonstration against the UNESCO in Rome, in front of the UNESCO offices, I believe. It was rather well-attended for an event of this kind.
See the video at the link [qui]

It Was Only a Detail That They Forgot -- The Detail Was Jewish Victims

Not speaking about the Jewish victims of Islamism 
says a great deal, unfortunately, about what is going 
on between Islam, France and the Jews.
Ne pas parler des victimes juives de l'islamisme 
en dit long hélas sur ce qui se joue entre l'islam, 
la France et les juifs.
David Isaac Haziza, La Regle du jeu

On 31 July 2016, a group of about fifty French Muslims prominent in various secular fields, the academic world, business, medicine, arts & entertainment, journalism,  engineering, education, and including a philosopher, high state functionaries, politicians, one of them a former government minister, and so on, signed their names to an ostensibly frank and sincere open letter to the people of France, terribly shocked by the murder of a helpless priest during his worship service. This atrocity came after several years of mass murder terrorism in France perpetrated by Muslims. These Muslims prominent in secular society stressed the need to "finally conduct a cultural battle against radical Islamism"  [mener enfin la bataille culturelle contre l'islamisme radical]. But there was something in their open letter or manifesto that did not ring true. Or rather there were certain things missing from it that cast a dark shadow of insincerity over what was stated. No atrocities specifically aimed at Jews were mentioned. Let's look at the first paragraph of their statement:

After the murder of caricaturists [Charlie Hebdo], after the murder of young people listening to music [Bataclan], after the murder of a couple of police officers [Magnanville], after the murder of children, women and men attending the celebration of the [French] national holiday [in Nice 14 July 2016], today [7-31-2016] the murder of a priest celebrating the mass. . .  The horror, ever more horror and the now very clear desire to set the French one against the other. [ici et ici]

« Après l’assassinat de caricaturistes, après l’assassinat de jeunes écoutant de la musique, après l’assassinat d’un couple de policiers, après l’assassinat d’enfants, de femmes et d’hommes assistant à la célébration de la fête nationale, aujourd’hui l’assassinat d’un prêtre célébrant la messe… L’horreur, toujours plus d’horreur et la volonté très claire maintenant de dresser les Français les uns contre les autres. » [ici]

Where is Ilan Halimi in this statement drawn up by people with very high social status in France? Where is the Sellam young man, a disc jockey, killed in the 2000s? How about the Jewish children in Toulouse and their teacher, the father of two of them? And Hypercacher, which came just two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre? How can the victims, the Jewish victims  of those atrocities be forgotten? But they were. How can we explain that? Simple forgetfulness? Really!! Weren't French Jews the first victims of Arab and Islamist terrorist in France, starting in late 2000, after the Muhammad ad-Durah hoax was broadcast repeatedly on France2 state TV?

To be sure, when various critics publicly pointed to the forgotten Jewish victims, these socially prominent and moderate Muslims added a post-script to their original manifesto. The Algiers-born Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi weighed in on the obviously dissembling original document [ici].

Others in other places might observe that Jewish lives count --matter-- less than others apparently.

D’autres, sous d’autres latitudes, observeraient que les vies juives comptent –matter– apparemment moins que les autres.

Levi also alluded to the fundamentally racist, Judeophobic nature of the omission --and of the document-- by hinting at a connection with the slick Judeophobe, the "right-wing" Jean-Marie LePen, in the title of his own critique [L’Hyper Cacher, un « détail » ?]. In the late 1980s, LePen notoriously argued in France that the Shoah was a mere "detail" of history, not an epochal or alpine event, as Dr Franklin Littell had called it. Levi asked if the murder of four Jews at the Hypercacher supermarket was a mere "detail" for the signatories of the manifesto. Levi went on:

. . . you cannot denounce the hangmen by sorting out their victims [with some to be remembered and some not]. And you cannot, above all, claim to get out of an "intolerable situation" . . . . while hiding an antisemitism that is, like it or not, one of the marks and, perhaps, one of the sources of what Abdelwahab Meddeb called the "illness of Islam." 

. . . on ne peut pas dénoncer des bourreaux en faisant le tri parmi leurs victimes.  Et on ne peut pas, surtout, prétendre sortir d’une «situation intolérable » où le déni nourrit l’amalgame et où la confusion sème, à son tour, les germes de la division et, un jour, à Dieu ne plaise, de la guerre de tous contre tous – et occulter un antisémitisme qui est, qu’on le veuille ou non, l’une des marques et, peut-être, l’une des sources de ce qu’Abdelwahab Meddeb appelait la «maladie de l’islam».

One of the implications of the manifesto is that the moderate Muslim signatories exclude the Jews thereby from the French national community. Or one might say that they dehumanize the Jews, saying, as the omission implies--as Levi pointed out-- that Jewish lives do not matter. That this shocking omission came from ostensibly moderate Muslims opposed to radical Islamism, people successful in their careers in French society --presumably the last ones you would think might be bare-faced bigots-- is shocking in itself. It needs to be seen as a warning as to who can be trusted to deal fairly with Jews. If these people are prominent and influential in France, what future can there be for relations between Israel and France? For Jews in France?

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Post-Script or Addendum added by the moderate Muslims to their manifesto:      
We French people and Muslims deem it necessary to say with the greatest clarity that we do not make any distinction among the victims of the blind terrorism that has been striking at our nation [presumably France here] for many months. Jewish pupils in Toulouse or customers of Hyper Casher murdered because they were Jews, a Catholic priest martyred in his church [already mentioned in the original document], a Muslim soldier or policeman killed on duty . . . . the list of victims is terribly long and so diverse, in the image of our nation [presumably France] in all its components . . .

Nous Français et musulmans tenons a dire avec la plus grande clarté que nous ne faisons aucune différence entre les victimes du terrorisme aveugle qui frappe notre nation depuis de nombreux mois.
Elèves juifs de Toulouse ou clients de l’Hyper Casher assassinés parce qu’ils étaient juifs, prêtre catholique martyrisé en son église, soldat ou policier musulman abattus en service…la liste des victimes est terriblement longue et si diverse, à l’image de notre nation dans toutes ses composantes, qu’il nous faut affronter l’adversité ensemble. C’est bien tous ensemble – juifs, chrétiens, musulmans, agnostiques et non croyants –, que nous aurons à mener ce combat, il nous faudra toutes nos forces.[at bottom of web page, ici]. 

This statement or clafication later added on  --after criticism was expressed-- sounds good. But how is it that they forgot in the first place about Jewish children in Toulouse or Ilan Halimi, who is not mentioned or alluded to even in the post-script?

For further reading: Bernard Henri-Levi ici. David Isaac Haziza ici.

Obama Pressured Europeans to Give in to Iran on the Nuclear Deal

Shocking news from the Wall Street Journal. It has long been known that France was much more concerned over an Iranian nuke than Washington was. Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president even made a speech about Iran as a problem at the UN General Assembly [see here about Iranian insults & threats to Sarkozy's wife]. Now we find out this:

One of the toughest of the country’s hard-nosed security experts, Bruno Tertrais, wrote last month in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir that “with pressure from the Obama administration” European negotiators’ original intent deteriorated from a rollback of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to their containment. [John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

So Obama's administration pressured the  supposed "Western allies" of the USA to go easy on Iran and give in to Iranian demands rather than forcing Iran to give in to Western demands, through sanctions for instance. Moreover, Obama's Iran nuke deal is:

. . . . what France knows is a lousy Iran nuclear deal. [same article, John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

A French negotiator at the P5 + 1 talks with Iran was one Jacques Audibert. He met two American congressmen visiting France and told them that if Congress voted down the deal it would most likely NOT mean war. Rather, congressional disapproval of the deal would likely lead to renewed negotiations and a better deal. Here is the story from Bloomberg:

Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal

532 JUL 31, 2015 3:04 PM EDT

By Josh Rogin

Secretary of State John Kerry has been painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Congress killed the Iran nuclear deal. Among other things, he has warned that “our friends in this effort will desert us." But the top national security official from one of those nations involved in the negotiations, France, has a totally different view: He told two senior U.S. lawmakers that he thinks a Congressional no vote might actually be helpful.

His analysis is already having an effect on how members of Congress, especially House Democrats, are thinking about the deal.

The French official, Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.”

. . . . . . . .

Audibert's comments as recounted by the lawmakers are a direct rebuttal to Kerry, who in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations on July 24 said that if Congress voted down the deal, there would no chance to restart negotiations in search of a tougher pact. Kerry also said that Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would erode the U.S. credibility to strike any type of international agreement in the future. “Do you think the Ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate again? Do you think that they're going to sit there and other people in the world are going to say, hey, let's go negotiate with the United States, they have 535 secretaries of State?” Kerry said. “I mean, please.”

This argument is being echoed by a throng of U.S. commentators and former Obama administration officials who support the deal. . . . . .

Audibert also wasn’t happy with some of the terms of the deal itself, according to Sanchez and Turner. He said he thought it should have been negotiated to last forever, not start to expire in as few as 10 years. He also said he didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program. He also expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers. . . . .

When the lawmakers returned to Washington, news of their conversation with Audibert spread among their colleagues. Turner confronted Kerry with Audibert’s statements during a July 22 closed-door briefing with Kerry and more than 300 House lawmakers. The briefing was classified, but Turner’s questions to Kerry were not.

“Are you surprised Jacques Audibert believes we could have gotten a better deal?” Turner asked Kerry, according to Turner.

“The secretary appeared surprised and had no good answer as to why the national security adviser of France had a completely different position than what the secretary told us the same day,” Turner told me.

Sanchez was not at that briefing, but since then, many lawmakers have asked her about the information, especially Democrats, she told me. “It’s one piece of information that people will use to decide where they are,” she explained. [Josh Rogin, Bloomberg,  31 July 2015]

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France's position before capitulating to Obama administration pressure [here]

Saudi Arabia's stance against an Iranian nuke was clear but disregarded by Obama, as was Israel opposition [go to link and go down toward the bottom].

Italian Middle East expert, Carlo Panella, foresaw in 2009 that Obama and his crowd would capitulate to Iran on the nuclear issue [here]

Did US Pres. Obama & French Foreign Minister Fabius Coordinate Lies about Justice Being on the Arab Side?

Last week Pres. Obama spoke to a Jewish congregation in Washington DC, and subtly told them that justice in the Arab-Israeli conflict was all on the Arab side, which he fashionably referred to as the "Palestinians." Just the other day, French foreign minister Fabius, about to make a trip to the Middle East for the sake of "peace," told a French radio station:

"We are for a two-state solution. We need to ensure Israel's security that's obvious. There is no peace and security without justice for the Palestinians, but let's be frank justice hasn't been given to the Palestinians," Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio

Is it mere coincidence that both Obama and Fabius spoke about justice being on the Arab side and, by implication, not on the Jewish side? Most likely not. Be that as it may, Fabius was probably franker on this claim than Obama dared to be in front of a Jewish audience, so Obama spoke more subtly. Subtle lies are one of Obama's specialties and I give him full credit for this talent of his.

Nevertheless, there is no justice without truth and if Obama's audience in Washington or Fabius' audience on Radio FranceInter thinks that justice is on the Arab side, then they are ignoramuses and fools manipulated by clever politicians. I for one think that promoting Obama's dangerous pro-Iran nuke policy was just part of the meaning of this speech.

Historically, not only was the Land of Israel the homeland of the Jews, called Judea by the Roman Empire, but nobody ever heard of a "palestinian people" before this psychological warfare invention came to light and was embodied in the PLO in 1964. There were always Jews living in the country and during the periods of Arab, Mamluk and Ottoman Muslim rule the Jews in the country were at the bottom of the social barrel, inferior even to the Christian subjects of the Islamic empires who were also called "dhimmis" in Islamic law and practice  and were subject to a whole series of oppressions, pecuniary exactions, and humiliations, like the Jews. Yet, as said, the Jews were in an inferior status even to the Christian dhimmis.

The top Palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini, collaborated with the Nazis and in the Holocaust. Why does Obama not remember that? Husseini was given a headquarters in Berlin during the war by the Nazis as well as funds for his entourage of other Arabs, palestinian Arabs, who were with him in Berlin. He broadcast for the Germans over Radio Berlin, urging the Arabs to "Kill Jews wherever you find them." And hundreds of Jews were massacred in Arab lands by Arabs during the Holocaust.

Indeed, historical justice is on Israel's side, although our enemies like Obama and Laurent Fabius, the foreign minister of France, claim that these Arabs need "justice." Indeed, this is an evil Judeophobic falsification of history, since it was the Arabs who oppressed Jews for more than 1000 years and whose religion teaches them to hate Jews. And it was the top palestinian Arab leader who collaborated with the Nazis and in the Holocaust and who was pleased when Hitler told him that it was his plan to extend the Shoah to the Jews in the Arab countries. And it was the Arabs in the country, in Israel, following the leadership of the Mufti Husseini, who started a war against the Jews within hours of the 29 November 1947 UN General Assembly partition recommendation for both a Jewish and an Arab state in the Land of Israel, plus an internationally governed enclave or corpus separatum in and around Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

France Is Rewarded for Its Pro-PLO Vote at the UN -- 12 Murdered

Unfortunately, sometimes our dismal and dreary predictions come true. My last blog post last week foresaw that France would be "rewarded" for its outrageous pro-PLO vote at the UN Security Council.

What we don't know is how the Arabs/Muslims in France will reward Hollande. Now, that France has voted at the Security Council in favor of an outrageous pro-PLO/PA Arab proposed resolution, maybe the days to come will bring more Muslim and Arab rewards for France. [here]

Now we see that terrorists, apparently professional killers, went into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that several years ago published an issue mocking Muhammad and more recently published a cartoon mocking him. The attack was well-planned and the attackers knew things that were not generally known. The offices of Charlie Hebdo had been firebombed several years ago after the issue on Muhammad was published. The attackers knew the new address which was not supposed to be public knowledge. They also seemed to know that there was going to be an editorial staff meeting in the offices at the time that they attacked. They went around the office asking, Are you so-and-so [names of cartoonists, writers, editors, etc]? Those who answered, Yes, were shot and killed. Before entering the offices, the policeman guarding the entrance was shot. One of the terrorists came up to him as he lay on the ground and made sure he was dead with additional shots.

The terrorists made their motives clear. They screamed, Revenge for the Prophet Muhammad & Allahu Akbar.

On the way out, the terrorists commandeered a car, perhaps a police car. They fled from the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Boulevard Richard Lenoir in the 11th borough [arrondissement] of Paris to the 19th borough. The last that I heard was that they were surrounded by police in one of the suburbs, banlieues, of Paris.

President François Hollande arrived at the scene of the crime and was joined by other high officials. He said some of the expected platitudes, including a promise to pursue and catch the culprits. Will he understand that this event was a reward for voting in the UN Security Council in favor of setting up another Arab state to be called "Palestine," whereas the Palestinian Authority was not willing to agree that this state to be would exist at peace with Israel and that it would foreswear any future claims against Israel and would acknowledge that the Israel was a Jewish national state?

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Here are relevant links in French [ici] One of the attackers shouts that he took revenge for the sake of "the Prophet Muhammad" & "Charlie Hebdo is killed"
The cartoonists/writers who were murdered [ici]
François Hollande, president of France, calls this event "an act of exceptional barbarity"[ici]
Javier Solana, chief foreign affairs officer of the European Union, receives Arab/Muslim demands to censor European publications that are said to insult Islam [here]. Solana reminds  me very strongly of Pierre Laval. Solana traveled to Arab capitals to receive demands in the wake of the Muhammad Cartoons controversy and riots in late 2005 and early 2006.

Will France Betray Decency Again -- After Being Rewarded for Past Betrayals in True Arab/Muslim Manner?

A couple of weeks ago, the French parliament, the Assemblee Nationale, voted in favor of the unjust idea of an Arab state in the Land of Israel to be named "Palestine."  The  resolution was pushed through by the socialists, communists and ecofreaks [les verts].

 A few days later, on  Saturday. a week ago, a jihadist went into a police station in a Paris suburb and stabbed several policemen before being shot dead by another policeman.  The next day, a jihadist ran over a dozen or more people walking on the sidewalks of the city of Dijon in several different places. The day after that, another jihadist ran over people attending an outdoors Christmas fair in the city of Nantes, killing one victim and wounding many others. The jihadist driver knew that he would find Christians, unbelievers, kufar, at the Xmas fair. So we see how France was rewarded for its pro-PLO, pro-Arab, pro-Muslim gesture.

Now, despite the negative rewards France received from Muslim jihadists, French diplomats said before the Security Council vote that they would vote "consistent" with their views. As it turned out France voted for a wild and destructive and arrogant Arab resolution put forth by the Arab states at the behest of the PLO/PA government which siphons off a good share of the massive foreign aid for the PA ["Palestinian Authority"] into the pockets of individuals close to the plate in the PA, including Mahmud Abbas himself.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Watch-Live-UN-begins-vote-on-Palestinian-demand-for-Israeli-withdrawal-386201

How can we explain France's position? Since the eve of the Six Day War, when De Gaulle clearly stated his pro-Arab stance as Nasser and other Arab leaders openly threatened Israel with mass murder, as a mob of  millions marched through Cairo waving the skull and crossbones flag (the flag of death), France has been pro-Arab and basically anti-Israel. That might explain a pro-Arab, anti-Israel vote. But the present resolution at the Security Council dispenses with real negotiations  and makes demands on Israel of an imbalanced, unilateral nature. France has never gone so far in that direction.

Why has France now gone even further in the pro-Arab direction to the point that France voted with Russia and China?

Think of French President Francois Hollande's domestic situation. During the last presidential election campaign [spring 2012] his socialist party issued a manifesto containing some 58 promises to the French people. He and his party must have known during the election campaign that there was no money for the pie in the sky promises and that they could not be kept. In 2014, we know that the French economic situation is a disaster, even worse now than under Sarkozy. The promises of economic improvement as well as of additional social welfare could not be fulfilled. France does not have the money for more social welfare and cannot make reforms to improve the economy and cannot get sufficient help from other Eurozone states to overcome the German mania for austerity, which has been a very destructive factor for almost all of the Eurozone.  The only promise Hollande kept out of the 58 was to recognize or legalize gay marriage. Most French people are fed up with him. His approval ratings are lower than Obama's, about 15%. France's economic growth rate is about zero or maybe a fraction above zero. He is a failure. So he flails around looking for an issue where he can show how strong and decisive he is.

 

Then he looks at the French population and sees at least 10% Muslims. Indeed, one "thinker" (Pascal Boniface), one of the intellectual leaders of  the Socialist Party, recommended years ago that the  party cultivate the Arab vote and support the "palestinians" since there were more Arabs and more Muslims in France than Jews. That  way  the party was sure to get the Arab vote. The PLO representative in France, one Leila Shahid, supposedly a granddaughter of the Nazi mufti Amin el-Husseini, is popular on TV in France and is given free rein to incite anti-Jewish as well as anti-Israel hatred.

 So Hollande may have decided to vote for the Arab/PLO resolution at the Security Council for domestic reasons: In order to make France and himself look relevant and to ingratiate himself and the socialists with the Arab/Muslim vote in France. Add to what we can expect from Hollande the fact that his father was a Vichyite. 

What we don't know is how the Arabs/Muslims in France will reward Hollande. Now, that France has voted at the Security Council in favor of an outrageous pro-PLO/PA Arab proposed resolution, maybe the days to come will bring more Muslim and Arab rewards for France.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1-4-2015 Here is an earlier post on Emet m'Tsiyon about an earlier French betrayal of Israel, another betrayal by Hollande's government [here]
1-6-2015 Here is an article on the persecution of Jews in France which became a major threat about 14 years ago. The article seems to have been published  in  2004 [here]

Hamas' Strategy & France's Betrayal

How she sits forlorn.
The  City teeming with people
Became like a widow; . . . .
She  weeps and wails at night
With a tear on her cheek.
She has no comforter
Out of all her lovers.
All her friends betrayed her,
They became her enemies
Book of Lamentations, chap 1
ספר איכה א

Prime Minister Netanyahu thought that French president Hollande was his friend and Israel's friend. Compared to some earlier presidents of France like De Gaulle, Chirac and Giscard d'Estaing, that may be true. But Muslims, most of them considering themselves Arabs, make up around 20 % of France's population. In the years since the Oslo War (also called the Second Intifada) was instigated by Arafat, French Arabs and other French Muslims, have performed several murders of Jews in supposed retaliation for the hoax "killing" of young Muhammad al-Durah by Israeli forces at Netzarim Junction in Gaza on 30 September 2000. This hoax was produced by French and Palestinian Arab journalists working for France2, the French state TV network. The al-Durah hoax has never been officially repudiated or apologized for by France. President Hollande is not responsible for that hoax but he has not acted to alleviate its effect on public opinion, which has been mainly to agitate the French Muslims into more hatred of Jews than they had before.  And it incited them to act out their hatreds by burning synagogues, attacking and murdering Jewish individuals, etc.

How does this connect with Hamas and its strategy?

Hamas has felt emboldened since the US Government accepted and approved the Hamas-PLO-PA-Fatah unity government for the Palestinian Authority several months ago. It intensified its agitation for Arabs in Judea-Samaria and elsewhere to attack Jews and kidnap Jews. It also intensified the shooting of rockets and mortars at Israel. The first five months of 2014 saw more rockets and mortars shot at Israel than all of 2013.  In March, when talk began of a unity government for the Palestinian Authority between the PLO/Fatah and Hamas, the numbers went up to 64 rockets and one mortar, close to the number of 78 for all 2013. The numbers went down in April and May, perhaps not to disrupt American approval of the  unity govt, but shot up again in June, the month when Hamas members from the Hebron area kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers, an act approved by Hamas although it disclaimed responsibility for it. The agitation by Hamas leaders and Muslim clerics associated with Hamas for such kidnappings is not cited often enough. In June the number of rockets shot up again to 62 and the mortars numbered 3. [numbers are from Maqor Rishon, 18 July 2014]

Hamas wanted to provoke Israel into a war. Hamas wanted to make it impossible for Israel to avoid a war. That is part of the strategy. In the war, Hamas' leaders would be safe in their underground tunnels and bunkers, while their rank and file subjects would be subject to legitimate Israeli military action to stop the firing of rockets aimed at Israel's civilian population. Hamas built a vast network of tunnels and bunkers crisscrossing throughout the Gaza Strip and going under the frontier under Israeli communities, under their fields, courtyards, schools and homes. Hamas used the tunnels and bunkers to store its vast arsenal of rockets and for attack purposes (intending to send terrorists to pop up out of the ground and kill and kidnap Israeli civilians and soldiers which has several times occurred) and as shelters for its leadership.

Ordinary Gaza Arabs could not use the tunnels as bomb shelters. They did not have bomb shelters. Hamas did not build bomb shelters for civilians. So in the kind of war that Hamas provoked Israel into, many of their own Gaza civilians would die. Which Hamas surely knew in advance. But that was a strategy. The deaths of civilians would be filmed and photographed and shown around the world. And Israel would have a terrible image from all that. Indeed Hamas would see to it that foreign news photographers, reporters and film cameramen would not film rocket launchers set up in civilian locations, such as next to hospitals and schools, including UNRWA schools, and in homes and apartments, nor the storage of rockets in UNRWA schools, in mosques and other civilian locations.

The cameramen and photographers were intimidated by Hamas into not filming or photographing these violations of the laws of war. Some who violated Hamas' rules for news coverage have been forced to leave Gaza. Oddly, although forbidding filming of rocket launchers in civilian locations, Hamas also shot rockets from near journalists during live broadcasts, leading to the reporter fleeing in fear. Such events have been seen several times on TV, although the rocket launchers themselves did not appear on screen. For instance, Hamas shot rockets from near France24 reporter Gallagher Fenwick during a live broadcast, which I and other TV viewers saw. Fenwick fled in fear and then told what had happened. But the rockets and the launcher were not seen. Other examples have been broadcast too, one involving a woman reporter for an Arab network. These shootings invited Israeli retaliation, thus they endangered the journalists. But in general journalists toe the Hamas line and present scene after scene of civilian suffering in Gaza. The numbers of civilian deaths are supplied by Hamas government  agencies, such as the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as by international bodies known to be hostile to Israel, such as UNRWA and the Red Cross [international committee of the Red Cross, a Swiss govt agency] which in any event get their numbers from Hamas.

 This picture of the war deliberately produced by Hamas and its media collaborators and psywar advisors has been shown worldwide leading to numerous demonstrations and riots, as in Paris and other places in France. In France, Islamist fanatics have been joined by so-called anti-capitalists, self-styled true blue Marxists. The Bolsheviks showed their fondness for aggressive Muslims as far back as 1917.   France has seen several cases where supposed protest demonstrations against the Gaza War have turned into anti-Jewish riots, attacking synagogues in Paris, Sarcelles and elsewhere, or have turned into plain riots, and where Islamist demonstrators have attacked and tried to disrupt pro-Israel demonstrations.

These riots could  not have failed to make an impact on French policy. Curiously,  in cases where demonstrations had been banned by the legal and police authorities, the organizers who called for going ahead with the demonstrations despite the ban have not been arrested. And the so-called New Anti-Capitalist Party was  guilty of calling for violation of the law in that way, which is also called sedition. But the party leaders were not arrested as far as I know. Since Hollande's govt has failed to solve France's economic problems, which are probably not solvable without drastic reforms in the labor laws, among other reforms, which would be opposed by the trade unions, part of his political base and constituency, he does not want to lose any more popular or institutional support, and certainly not from the "Left." Therefore he does not enforce the law against the "New Anti-Capitalist Party."

Now the Hamas strategy was to have large numbers of its own people killed in legitimate Israeli acts of self-defense. And the scenes of death and destruction would be seen worldwide and produce anger against Israel and pressure for foreign intervention of various sorts, especially intervention by great powers, the UN, etc. Meanwhile, Hamas was committing the double war crime of attacking Israeli civilians while using its own civilians as human shields.

Hamas' strategy has succeeded. Today, August 4, France capitulated to the Islamist-cum-"marxist" mobs and pro-Hamas agitprop. Hollande himself called Israel's actions in Gaza a "massacre", comparing Israel's war of self-defense to massacres in Iraq and Syria. And his foreign minister, Fabius, advocated imposing a settlement on Israel and the Arabs, despite what either side may want. Actually, several state members of the EU and EU functionaries have been speaking of an imposed settlement for a long time. They really mean a settlement or "peace" imposed on Israel because many of the Euro politicians and foreign ministries and the EU's own foreign affairs commission in Brussels hate Israel which represents their own bad conscience over the Holocaust, and would like to turn the moral tables on the Jews by showing that the Jews/Zionists are really Nazis. And then their own consciences would be clean and they would have validated the Nazi genocide of the Jews ex post facto. This is important not only to Germany but to many EU states, almost all of which took part in the Holocaust directly or indirectly.

Hamas itself has a Nazi-like ideology aimed at mass murder of the Jews. But somehow the oh so clever Europeans, and some Americans too, can't read the Hamas charter, several times translated into English and other languages. Or they have read it and they like what it has to say.

UPDATINGS 5 August 2014
Interesting article on Hamas strategy by Prof Gregory Rose [here]

Film by Indian NDTV news crew shows rocket being assembled and fired near residential buildings and hotels in Gaza [here].
I hope that the fellows who made the film stay safe and are not harassed for having told the truth which sometimes seems so elusive for the Western press.
I just found out that the Indian news team left Gaza. Here is a report from them after leaving.

8 August 2014
Statement by Colonel Richard Kemp on Hamas tactics of sacrificing its own civilians and on the IDF's efforts to spare civilian life [here ]. Statement delivered at the UN Human Rights Commission  in Geneva.
11 August 2014
Hamas training manual explains the importance of  using human shields [here]&[here]&[here]

Once Respected French Monthly Descends to the Level of Propaganda Rag

Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris est allemand.
[Slogan of the Free French during WW2 -- Paris Radio lies,
Paris Radio is German--rhymes in French]

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Once upon a time when reason was more prevalent in the world than nowadays, Le Monde Diplomatique provided intelligent commentary and important facts about contemporary events, going into depth about various subjects. However, over the years Mondiplo --said to be linked to the French foreign ministry-- became more and more the captive and the vehicle of simplistic slogans about the "Third World", "palestine liberation" and such. Now it takes an outrageously simplistic anti-Israel stance, at the cost of making itself ridiculous. As the Free French and the French Resistance used to say during the German occupation of France, Paris Radio lies, Paris Radio is German [Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris est allemand -- rhyming in French] we may say today: Mondiplo Lies, Mondiplo resembles Nazi propaganda.

Is that unfair? Consider a headline in Le Monde Diplomatique [English ed. translated from the French--February 2007]: "Jerusalem's Apartheid Tramway." This headline is used although nothing in the article justifies it. Now, more than four years after the agitprop article appeared, the tram has begun service and Jews and Arabs are riding the tram in the same cars. And the tram stops in Arab neighborhoods, Beyt Hanina and Shu`afat [two stops] as well as near Damascus Gate where it can serve both Jews and Arabs. Indeed, Arabs ride the tram and wait at the stops in Arab neighborhoods. I rode the tram southbound yesterday and stood next to an Arab woman and her two daughters. They got on in Shu`afat neighborhood and were standing next to me. Interestingly, they were not wearing head coverings. The mother was relaxed but the older, teenaged daughter --dressed in tight pants and with painted fingernails-- was looking around in a very suspicious way, maybe to see if we had horns. Since the tram was air-conditioned, I didn't mind standing.

How do the mendacious journalists for LeMondeDiplomatique [English ed.] get to defining the tram as an "apartheid tramway"?? Their reasoning is strikingly flawed. They quote an Israeli official spokesman as saying that: "the tram must serve the Jewish quarters (Israel’s politically correct term for settlements) such as Pisgat Ze’ev, as well as Arab quarters like Shu’fat." They do not deny that Arabs would be allowed to ride the tram but speculate if Arabs will be able to afford to travel on it. Then they insinuate apartheid or what used to be called jimcrow in America: "How will the settlers react to seeing Arabs travelling on the tram? One person we spoke to wondered whether there should be separate carriages for Arabs and Israelis." This is all speculation at best, contradicting the pains taken by the Israeli spokesman to explain the intention to make the tram available to all. Yet the Mondiplo authors insinuate the possbility of apartheid. Nevertheless, despite having no real grounds to claim "apartheid" they still entitle the article: "Jerusalem's Apartheid Tramway." This brings LeMonde Diplo close to the level of pre-WW2 Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda. Maybe not quite there. But on the way.

So here was another lie about "apartheid" in Israel that turns out to be totally false. Further, some anti-Israel group in France sued French firms involved in the tram project. Supporters of the suit throw around slogans and pejoratives like: apartheid, illegal, "occupied" territory, international law, "judaizing" Jerusalem [which has had a Jewish majority since 1853 or earlier] and other usual epithets. Here is a video in French from France24 in which Arabs interviewed claim that it would be of no use to them, because --inter alia-- there would be no stops in Arab neighborhoods [ici&ici][I originally saw this story on France24 in English but cannot find the English], which is false, as we have seen.

Another lying slogan thrown around in the context of the tram claims that Jewish neighborhoods in "east Jerusalem" were built on "stolen land." The stolen land argument is also false since Jews began to purchase much real estate in and around Jerusalem in the late Ottoman period --from the 1860s to 1914-- when it became possible for Jews to purchase real estate. This "stolen land" claim is a big lie but a separate issue. Suffice it to say that Neveh Ya`aqov and much of Pisgat Ze'ev --served by the tram, among other areas -- were built on land belonging to the pre-1948 agricultural village of Neveh Ya`aqov [founded 1924].

Here's a pix of a flyer in Arabic distributed by the CitiPas [OR City Pass] company that operates the tram for the purpose of attracting Arab riders.

Note the diagram of the tram's route. The three tram stops encircled in blue ink on the diagram are in Arab neighborhoods [Beyt Hanina and Shu`afat (two stops in Shu`afat)].

Will Mondiplo admit its gross misuse of the apartheid label?

Strong words from Claude Lanzmann about the pro-Hamas Lies in the MSM concerning the Turkish Thug Armada

Claude Lanzmann is a rare bird on today's political landscape. He was an assistant to Jean-Paul Sartre as a young man and inherited Sartre's mantle and legacy as chief editor of Sartre's heavy weight intellectual journal, Les Temps Modernes, after Sartre's death. He had strong words for Hamas and its Western supporters and sympathizers, including those in the French press and media, over the Turkish Thug Armada and the fighting on board the Mavi Marmara on 31 May 2010. We translate below his speech given at a rally in Paris on behalf of freedom for Gilad Shalit on 22 June 2010, as well as presenting the speech in French below that. Lanzmann's pro-Israel position shows once again the falsehood of the "right-left political spectrum" notion, especially but not only in regard to Israel.

Who Is Delegitimizing Israel?
by Claude Lanzmann

What happened after Israel's boarding and seizure of the so-called humanitarian flotilla and what we could read and hear in so many newspapers, on all of our television networks, our radio stations, on a thousand unsupervised blogs, in discussions among web surfers in which hatred fought it out with stupidity, was really frightening. What joy, my friends, my brothers, what happiness in being able once again, without any restraint, to stigmatize Israel, a scapegoat laden with all crimes, and first of all with the original sin of existing. Those who were so prompt to condemn Israel, without having any other source of information than that thundered by Hamas propagandists and their faithful, didn't care one bit about the reality of the facts, of their genesis, of the reasons for the blockade, or of the warnings given by Tsahal to the "peace activists." They were only motivated in fact by one single dream: to get into a fight and thereby tear the veil off the true face of the Jews before the world: drinkers of blood, starvation-causers, thieves, cowards and I won't bother to go on; or, what comes down to the same thing, to unveil the true face of Israel, a pirate state. We instantaneously read and heard this obscene refrain in the dailies, on the broadcasting stations, and the networks, whose names it would be best not to mention.

The blockade has an origin: It is called Gilad Shalit, a young soldier fallen, in Israeli territory, into an ambush set by Hamas, and held hostage for four years now by his kidnappers, who play on the nerves of his family and the country by promising a phantom release. Hamas or Hezbollah have most usually handed back dead bodies for hundreds of live Palestinians that Israel had released, because this pirate state --it has proven it a hundred times-- has always been ready to repatriate its dead or its living at any price.

The second origin [of the blockade] is the Hamas itself, which declares itself in a state of war with Israel, having conducted indiscriminate bombardments of its villages for months without respite. This is the Hamas that calls in its press, its schools, in all its propaganda, for the eradication of the Jewish state. It is first of all by Hamas that the blockade was cynically imposed on Gaza. By Hamas but also by Egypt that, fearing for its regime from the jihadist contagion, has closed its land border at the south of the Gaza Strip. But, as we know, a profitable trade which enriches Arab millionaires brings all the merchandise possible and imaginable to Gaza through tunnels dug in the sands of Sinai.

Know this, detractors of Israel. You are being lied to and you are lying. Gaza is stuffed with goods. You can find there televisions, the most modern computerized gadgets, the IPhones, the IPads, the top of the line refrigerators, etc. And especially, people there eat as much as they need. No one in Gaza is dying of malnutrition nor suffers thirst nor hunger. Where are the fleshless bodies, where the skin hanging from the bones in the photographs of the plump, well-fed high officials of the Hamas government? Have you seen faces of emaciated children, skeletal bodies? We can be certain that if, by chance, they existed, the Hamas' master propagandists would transmit them to us continuously ad nauseam. No, Gaza is not the Warsaw Ghetto, though that may displease the true believers who hurriedly visit for several hours, though that may displease the UNRWA and Mister Goldstone. And let's finish off another lie. Israel never wanted to starve Gaza. It has, as is its right, demanded to inspect the merchandise. It forbids some things for security reasons and sends every day dozens of trucks that, starting from the Ashdod port, unload their contents at the northern entrance to the Gaza Strip.

Out of the six ships of the abovementioned flotilla, five, we know, let themselves be brought to Ashdod after being boarded non-violently by the Israeli navy. What they were carrying was put on the dock, checked and immediately shipped to the northern border of Gaza, where the Hamas people refused to accept delivery. The perishable materials spoiled in place. All that remained under the sun was a comical number of wheel chairs brought by the "humanitarians" for the legless amputees who form --in the "humanitarians'" minds the majority of the people of Gaza.

Don't imagine, good people, that Gaza is a brotherly, classless society. There are poor and rich in Gaza, billionaire land owners, living on the heights of luxury residences, who never raised a finger to help their supposed brethren of the poor neighborhoods and the refugee camps.

It was necessary that Gaza remain --and this is what Jean-Paul Sartre reproached them for before me in 1967, three months before the Six Day War-- a morbid focus of attention, a canker sore defying any solution (while it would have been so easy for the oil rich to help them) , thus making it possible to condemn Israel forever. That continues. The unanimous concert of loud, angry voices aroused by Israel's refusal to allow the humanitarian convoy to pass is the best proof of that. On the sixth boat, chartered by the Turkish branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch, the Israelis were awaited by armed men determined to make Jihad. That is, to kill and be killed, certain of being immediately received in Allah's dwelling by caressing maidens.

If we do not have the right to rebuke Israel for boarding and seizing the ships, we may be astonished at the impressive naiveté with which the soldiers acted. The naval commander had told them: "You will be greeted with spitting, insults, burning cigarettes. Above all, don't retaliate." What happened was entirely different: Coming down from a helocopter in a geostationary position above the Mavi Marmara, the soldiers slid down one by one on a smooth rope, letting themselves be picked off by long clubs, sling shots, iron bars, long knives, etc, before even touching the deck. Many were injured, some very seriously, one being thrown from the upper deck to the lower deck. He was found with his back broken. It is the rule in the Israeli army: the soldiers have the right to shoot if their lives are in danger. This was the case.

The investigating commission formed by Israel, a model democracy, will give its conclusions and it should be believed. The barking dogs understood moreover that they had gone too far and are now putting a muffler on their vitriolic invective. In such circumstances, we Jews have a duty of solidarity toward Israel in danger, threatened in the North as in the South by Ahmadinejad's allies. Meanwhile Ahmadinejad is readying his nuclear arsenal. The same duty of solidarity commands us to express and to bring, as rightful citizens of the French Republic, a severe judgment of contempt for the pathetic fools who call for a boycott of Israel and demand removing Israeli films from a schedule, which is a way of calling for its death. We will not allow that. It is not the policy of Israel that delegitimizes that state, as some would have us believe. It is first of all the irredentism of the Arab extremists and, we regret that a certain number of complacently conformist Jews, who have been silent up till now, were not more perceptive when they signed a text which, as the flotilla affair has unmistakably demonstrated, was a tissue of unrealistic ideals, unrealistic principles and unrealistic aspirations.

(a speech given on 22 June 2010 in Paris, during the demonstration organized by the CRIF, in support of Israel and Gilad Shalit) [the CRIF is the umbrellas organization of French Jews]

«Qui délégitime Israël ?», par Claude Lanzmann

Ce qui s’est passé après l’arraisonnement par Israël de la flottille soi-disant humanitaire, ce que nous avons pu lire, voir et entendre dans tant de journaux, sur toutes nos chaînes de télévision, nos stations de radios, sur mille blogs incontrôlés, dans des discussions entre internautes où la haine le disputait à la stupidité, est proprement effrayant. Quelle joie, mes amis, mes frères, quelle félicité de pouvoir à nouveau, sans retenue aucune, stigmatiser Israël, bouc émissaire chargé de tous les crimes et d’abord du péché originel d’exister. Ceux qui étaient si prompts à condamner Israël, sans avoir aucune autre source d’information que celle tonitruée par les propagandistes du Hamas et leurs affidés, se souciaient comme d’une guigne de la réalité des faits, de leur genèse, des raisons du blocus, des avertissements prodigués par Tsahal aux « activistes de la paix » qu’un seul rêve animait en vérité : en découdre et dévoiler ainsi au monde le vrai visage des Juifs buveurs de sang, affameurs, voleurs, lâches et j’en passe, ou, ce qui revient au même, le vrai visage d’Israël, Etat pirate. On a lu et entendu instantanément cette obscène rengaine dans des quotidiens, des stations et des chaînes, dont il vaut mieux taire le nom.

Le blocus a une origine : elle s’appelle Gilad Shalit, jeune soldat tombé, en territoire israélien, dans une embuscade tendue par le Hamas, et otage depuis maintenant quatre années de ses ravisseurs, qui jouent sur les nerfs de ses proches et du pays en promettant une libération fantomatique. Hamas ou Hezbollah ont le plus souvent restitué des cadavres contre des cen taines de Palestiniens bien vivants qu’Israël relâchait, car cet Etat pirate —il l’a cent fois prouvé— a toujours été prêt à rapatrier ses morts ou ses vivants à n’importe quel prix. La deuxième origine, c’est le Hamas lui-même, qui se déclare en état de guerre avec Israël, ayant procédé pendant des mois et sans répit à des bombardements indiscriminés sur ses villages, le Hamas qui appelle, dans sa presse, dans ses écoles, dans toute sa propagande, à l’éradication de l’Etat juif. C’est d’abord par le Hamas que le blocus est imposé cyniquement à Gaza. Par le Hamas, mais aussi par l’Egypte qui, craignant pour son régime la contagion djihadiste, a fermé sa frontière de surface au sud de la bande de Gaza. Mais, on le sait, un fructueux trafic, qui enrichit des millionnaires arabes, amène, par des centaines de tunnels creusés dans le sable du Sinaï, toutes les marchandises possibles et imaginables à Gaza. Sachez-le, détracteurs d’Israël : on vous ment, vous mentez, Gaza regorge d e biens, on y trouve les téléviseurs, les outils informatiques les plus modernes, les Iphone, les Ipad, les réfrigérateurs de grand luxe etc. Et surtout, on y mange autant qu’il se doit : nul à Gaza ne meurt de malnutrition, ne souffre de la soif ou de la faim. Où sont les décharnés, où la peau sur les os, dans les photographies des membres bien en chair du gouvernement du Hamas ? Avons-nous vu des visages d’enfants émaciés, des corps squelettiques ? Soyons certains que si d’aventure ils existaient, les maîtres propagandistes du Hamas nous les repasseraient en boucle ad nauseam. Non, Gaza, n’en déplaise aux dévots pressés, visiteurs de quelques heures, n’en déplaise à l’UNRA et à Monsieur Goldstone, n’est pas le ghetto de Varsovie. Et finissons-en avec cet autre mensonge : Israël n’a jamais voulu affamer Gaza, il a, comme c’est son droit, demandé à contrôler les marchandises, interdit certaines pour des raisons de sécurité et envoie chaque jour des dizaines de camions qui, à partir du port d’Ashdod, déchargent leur contenu à l’entrée nord de la bande de Gaza. Sur les six navires de ladite flottille, cinq, on le sait, se sont laissé conduire à Ashdod après leur arraisonnement non violent par la marine israélienne. Ce qu’ils transportaient a été mis à quai, vérifié et expédié immédiatement à la frontière nord de Gaza, où les gens du Hamas ont refusé d’en prendre livraison. Les matières périssables ont pourri sur place, seules demeurent sous le soleil un nombre comique de chaises roulantes apportées par les « humanitaires » pour les culs-de-jatte qui dans leur esprit forment la majorité du peuple de Gaza. N’imaginez pas, braves gens, que Gaza est une société fraternelle et sans classes. Il y a à Gaza des pauvres et des riches, des très riches, milliardaires propriétaires des terres, vivant sur les hauteurs dans de somptueuses demeures, qui n’ont jamais levé un doigt pour venir en aide à leurs prétendus frères des bas quartiers et des camps de réfugiés. Il fallait que Gaza —et c’est ce que Jean-Paul Sartre leur reprochait déjà devant moi en 1967, trois mois avant la guerre des six jours— reste un abcès de fixation, un chancre défiant toute solution (alors qu’il eût été si facile aux opulents du pétrole de leur venir en aide) et permettant de condamner Israël pour l’éternité. Cela continue, le concert unanime de vociférations suscité par le refus de laisser passer l’escadre humanitaire en est la meilleure preuve. Sur le sixième bateau, affrété par la branche turque des Frères Musulmans dont le Hamas est la branche palestinienne, les Israéliens étaient attendus par des hommes en armes résolus au Djihad, c’est-à-dire à tuer et à se faire tuer, certains d’être reçus aussitôt chez Allah par de caressantes pucelles.

Si on n’a pas le droit de reprocher à Israël l’arraisonnement des navires, on peut s’étonner de la naïveté formidable avec laquelle ses soldats ont agi. Le Commandant de la marine leur avait dit : « On vous accueillera avec des crachats, des insultes, des cigarettes enflammées. Ne ripostez surtout pas. » Ce fut tout autre chose : à partir d’un hélicoptère en position géostationnaire au-dessus du Mavi Marmara, les soldats qui glissaient un par un sur une corde lisse se faisaient cueillir avant même d’avoir touché le pont par de longues matraques, des lance-pierres, des barres de fer, des coutelas, etc. Beaucoup furent blessés, certains très grièvement, l’un d’eux fut balancé du pont supérieur vers le pont inférieur, on le retrouva avec le dos brisé. C’est la règle dans l’armée d’Israël : les soldats ont le droit de tirer si leur vie est en danger. C’était le cas. La commission d’enquête formée par Israël, démocratie exemplaire, rendra ses conclusions et il faudra la croire. Les aboyeurs ont d’ailleurs compris qu’ils avaient été beaucoup trop loin et mettent maintenant une sourdine à leurs vitupérations. En de telles circonstances, nous autres Juifs, avons un devoir de solidarité envers un Israël en péril, menacé au Nord comme au Sud par les alliés d’un Ahmadinejad, qui fourbit son arsenal nucléaire. Et le même devoir de solidarité nous commande de l’exprimer et de porter, en tant que citoyens de plein droit de la République française, un jugement lourd de mépris sur les tristes imbéciles qui appellent au boycott d’Israël et demandent la déprogrammation de ses films, ce qui est une façon de crier à la mort. Nous ne le permettrons pas. Ce n’est pas la politique d’Israël qui, comme on a voulu le faire croire, délégitime ce pays. C’est d’abord l’irrédentisme des extrémistes arabes et l’on regrette qu’un certain nombre de Juifs bien-pensants, et qui se taisaient jusque là, ne s’en soient pas avisés avant de signer un texte dont l’affaire de la flottille démontre sans fard l’angélisme.

(Allocution prononcée le 22 juin 2010 à Paris, lors de la manifestation, organisée par le CRIF, de soutien à Israël et à Gilad Shalit; voir ici)