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.

Muslim Ottoman Subjects Resented the Equality Granted to Dhimmis, Non-Muslim Subjects of the Empire in 1856

The Ottoman Empire became clearly dependent on the military strength of the two main Western powers, Britain and France, in the mid-19th century. The Ottomans were threatened by rising Russian power to their northeast. Russia coveted Ottoman  territories and aspired to give the eastern Orthodox churches primacy over the Christian holy places in the Land of Israel. In this case, Russia would support the Greek Orthodox church of which the Russian Orthodox Church was an offshoot or branch.

Russia had already taken over vast territories under Ottoman suzerainty in the 18th century around 1774. These lands comprise the Crimea and  most of southern Ukraine of today. The effective rulers before the Russian conquest were the Crimean Tartars, under Ottoman suzerainty and loyal to the Ottoman sultan, who was also the Caliph of Islam.

The Crimean war of 1854-1855 focused on control of the Christian holy places, foremost among them the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, with Russia supporting Greek Orthodox dominance and  France supporting Roman Catholic claims to the same holy places. British policy was to prevent Russia from taking more land from the Ottoman Empire and thereby becoming a stronger rival empire to the British.

British and French forces defeated the Russians, preserving Ottoman territory for the Sultan and his government. Of course the British and French wanted to be rewarded. They were, and this caused the Sultan's government, called The Sublime Porte, to violate long-standing Islamic principles. One reward was to allow the building of new churches, a definitely forbidden act since the Arab-Muslim conquests of the 7th century. France was, inter alia given back the location where a Catholic church had stood during the Crusader period.

Most importantly, the Sublime Porte  issued a decree, the Hatt-i-Humayun, which 

"granted equality of civil status to Christian subjects, guaranteeing freedom of conscience and speech." [Tibawi, p 115]

This equality of dhimmis was a radical departure from past Islamic law and practice. Hence, it is no surprise that we are told by the Arab historian, A L Tibawi that

". . . the proclamation of the Hatti Humayun caused much resentment at Nabulus and Gaza ." [Tibawi, p 130]

Not only at Nablus and Gaza but among Ottoman Muslims generally. The Arab and other  Muslims [Tibawi was apparently a Christian] in the Empire hated this decree mightily. Sixty years later, during WW One, Ottoman Muslims slaughtered Armenians, fellow Ottoman subjects, some of whom were calling for Armenian autonomy or independence.  Muslims resented the demands for independence or merely autonomy among the non-Muslim subject   peoples.

Does this account, these facts, tell us any lessons for Israel.? Isn't Israel seen as an "uppity Jew" by the Arabs and other Muslims?

By the way, you can be sure that this decree was often honored more in the breach than in the observance.

MAIN SOURCE
A L Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine, 1800-1901 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1961)

More on Arabs Refuting the Big Lie of "Israeli apartheid"

We have already shown [here] photos of Arabs rubbing shoulders with Jews in a Jerusalem shopping mall, enjoying the amenities of the mall and the joy of shopping, a favorite activity of mankind in the 21st century. Shopping is a joy for Arabs as much as for any other people, if not more so. The shopping mall in Dubai is reputed to be the biggest, the grandest, the most splendid in the world. Here are a few more photo shots of Arabs enjoying shopping in Jerusalem. While doing so, unconsciously or not, they are disproving the Big Lie of "Israeli apartheid," a favorite of the fanatic Judeophobes in the West and of those whose minds have been "bent," so to speak. These Arabs are refuting the Big Lie, arguing with their feet, as it were. The lie itself is most likely an invention of Western psychological warfare agencies and experts, probably British.

Here are two Arab-Muslim women in the full headgear and robes sitting in a restaurant in the mall and eating. One is caring for a baby. A Jewish waitress is seen at left.

Arab women are seen happily shopping, going through piles of clothes in a shop. Look at the back of the store and to the left. Arab-Muslim women are most easily identified by their distinctive garments.

Two happy shoppers leaving a store. Actually, the younger woman on the left seems quite happy and satisfied, the older woman not so much. Note the Hebrew writing on an advertising poster to the left of the younger woman.

Here is empirical evidence that these Arab women are not suffering "apartheid" in Israel. Nevertheless, the fanatic true believers in the West in inherent Israeli evil, the heirs of 17 centuries of Judeophobic indoctrination, of the demonization and dehumanization of Jews, will probably not be swayed by mere empirical facts. We bear in mind that most of those groups and individuals called "Left" or "leftist" in the world today share that destructive Western mental heritage. Most of the "Left" today in countries like Britain, the USA, Sweden and Norway, as well as some other Western countries and some Eastern and African countries under Western cultural-intellectual influence (especially British), is a manipulated body of public opinion. Despite Marx and Engels' claim that they were devising a "scientific socialism," they could not or would not shake the rigid influence of Kant and Hegel, particularly the Judeophobia of these two philosophers. Many of Marx and Engels' self-described followers today are incapable of logical reasoning, of empirical induction, or of rational thought. They believe more in comfortable slogans that they have indoctrinated [or inoculated?] with than in the evidence of their own eyes.
Psychological warfare techniques and mass psychological manipulation are dominant tools in shaping contemporary public opinion.

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For more on this topic, see here.

The Bolsheviks for Jihad & Genocide -- Stalin's Appeal to MUSLIM Workers in Russia & the East

UPDATING 2-22-2009see at bottom

Why does most or much of the "Left" today support Islamic Jihad? After all, the "Left" is supposed to stand for equality, whereas Islam --even in moderate forms-- rejects equality. Indeed, that "left" that supports Islamic Jihad is demonstrating that it is in fact AGAINST equality. Without pretending to give a full and total answer to the question, here is some evidence to consider.

In late 1917, shortly after the Bolsheviks took power in the Russian Empire, Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities issued an: Appeal to the Muslim Toilers of Russia and the East . This was an extraordinary document. It was an appeal to a particular religious group, whereas supposedly the Bolsheviks were against religion. Further, the Muslim Ottoman Empire was perpetrating the first genocide of the 20th century at the time --with the help of course of its German and Austro-German allies. The Appeal mentions none of this. Instead, it rejects promises by the Western allies to give the Armenians a state and to remove Armenian territories from the Ottoman Empire. It tells the Armenians to wait for their self-determination, while their national territory was to stay under Ottoman control. The Armenians were guaranteed self-determination after "military operations are brought to an end." Yet, the parts of their national territory under Ottoman control were areas where the massacres had taken place. Other parts had been under Russian imperial control since the 19th century. Whereas the Appeal was issued in late November-early December, several months later, in March 1918, the Bolsheviks, possibly under German pressure, agreed not only to withdraw from Ottoman territories --parts of historic Armenia and Georgia occupied during WW One-- but from historically Armenian and Georgian areas conquered from the Ottomans long before. The promise of self-determination for Armenians was not respected for those areas, whereas Soviet weapons were given to the new Turkish nationalist movement which rose out of the Ottoman Empire's defeat, but was no less anti-Armenian than the Empire. In 1922, the Turkish nationalists drove the Greek population out of Smyrna [now called Izmir], while massacring the Armenians there.

The Appeal is "a brilliant piece of political demagogy," as Serge Zenkovsky has noted [in Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1967), p 161]. It disregarded "all the atheistic and internationalist elements of Marxist and Leninist teaching," as well as the supposed working class principles and loyalties of the Bolsheviks, "and appealed to the Moslems' religious and national feelings."

At least three different translations of all or parts of this manifesto are available in English. For clarity's sake we quote from more than one version, depending on which version was clearest for the passage quoted.

SOVIET APPEAL TO THE MUSLIM TOILERS OF RUSSIA AND THE EAST
Comrades! Brothers!
. . .

The rule of the plunderers, exploiting the peoples of the world, is trembling.
. . .

The world of violence and oppression is approaching its last days. A new world is arising, a world of the toilers and the liberated. At the head of this revolution is the Workers' and Peasants' Government in Russia. . .

The toiling masses of Russia burn with the single desire to achieve an honest peace and help the oppressed people of the world to win their freedom.
. . . we appeal to you, toiling and dispossessed Muslim workers in Russia and the East. . . all those whose mosques and shrines were destroyed, whose beliefs and customs were trampled under foot by the tsars and oppressors of Russia! Henceforth your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions, are free and inviolable. . .

Muslims of the Orient, Persians, Turks, Arabs. . . all those whose lives and property, liberty and land, the greedy robbers of Europe have bartered for centuries -- all those whose countries the plunderers who started the war wish to divide!

Here there are no Muslim empires (such as Persia or the Ottoman Empire). Muslim states are not guilty of oppression of the non-Muslim subject peoples or even of their fellow Muslims of the working class. Only Europe is guilty. Without whitewashing Europe, we know that the Ottoman Empire chose to join Germany and Austria in World War I; in fact the Ottomans initiated the alliance in which Germany and Austria assisted them in the Armenian massacres during the war.

Further, in this manifesto, the Communist Soviet Union announced its favoritism for Muslims against non-Muslim subject peoples --called dhimmis or ra`ayahs.

To be sure, the manifesto, prepared by Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities, also asserted the right of peoples to self-determination, but gave the national-territorial claims of Muslim peoples pride of place over those of non-Muslims. Consider:

Constantinople must remain in the hands of the Muslims. . .

The Ottoman capital probably had a Greek majority at the start of WW I, and if not, other non-Muslims (Bulgars, Jews, Armenians, etc.) certainly made up a majority together with the Greeks. Consider next:

We declare that the treaty for the partition of Turkey and the wresting from her of Armenia is null and void. As soon as military operations are brought to an end, the Armenians will be guaranteed the right to decide freely their political destiny. Not at the hands of Russia and her revolutionary government does slavery await you [Does the "you" refer to Armenians or to Turkish Muslims?], but at the hands of the marauders of European imperialism, of those who converted your fatherland into their ravished and plundered "colony."

Hence, the Armenians had the right of self-determination too. But they should not exercise their rights against Turkish (Muslim) claims of sovereignty. They should wait till the end of "military operations." The treaty promising removal from Ottoman control of Ottoman-ruled parts of Armenia was "null and void." Further, not only did the Bolsheviks leave the areas in question to the Ottoman Empire, but after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), the Bolsheviks ceded to the Ottoman Empire large areas of historic Armenia and Georgia which the Russian Tsars had conquered in the nineteenth century, thereby exposing Armenian subjects of Russia to a continuation of the mass murder perpetrated by the Muslim Ottoman Empire against its own Armenian population during WW One. Additional massacres naturally ensued.

Some observers saw Brest-Litovsk --with its territorial concessions to Germany and the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally-- as Bolshevik compensation to the German Empire for helping the Bolsheviks take over the rival Russian Empire. Article IV of the Treaty states:

Russia will do all in its power to ensure the rapid evacuation of the eastern provinces of Anatolia and their restoration to Turkey. Ardahan, Kars, and Batum will be evacuated without delay by Russian troops.

The article does not mention Armenia or Georgia by name. So much for Bolshevik devotion to self-determination. This episode, like the Nazi-Soviet Pact, is one of those that Communists avoid discussing or are unaware of. Instead of bemoaning the lethal results of Brest-Litovsk, the Communists habitually advocated --in practice-- devotion to Muslim militant demands over the rights of dhimmis. We do not intend to explain why the Bolsheviks took this position. Were they acceding to pressures by the German Empire which had helped Lenin take over the Russian Empire and take it out of the war? Were they opportunists who noted the huge Muslim population in the world, at that time, compared with the small numbers of Armenians whose numbers had been halved by the massacres during the war? Did they think that the warlike nature of the Muslim peoples could be harnessed to help them fight the Western imperialists, and thus the rights of small peoples like the Armenians could be disregarded?

As said above, slightly different translations of the title and of the text as a whole or in part are available.
1) Soviet Russian Imperialism in the Anvil series edited by Louis Snyder for Van Nostrand Co., pp 118-120. [This edition presents only excerpts]
[reprinted from J Bunyan and HH Fisher, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1918 (Stanford Univ Press, 1934); we have not seen this edition]
2) JC Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record: 1914-1956, v. II (NY: Van Nostrand, 1956), pp 27-28 [this gives the full text]
3) Serge A Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1967), pp 161-162 [only excerpts]
Furthermore, three different dates are given for the Appeal:
20 November 1917 by Zenkovsky
3 December 1917 by Hurewitz
7 December 1917 by Bunyan and Fisher
However, all three versions are translations of the same document. The differences in date may derive from differences between the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar, still in use in Russia at that time.

Moreover, the Bolsheviks tolerated the presence in their state of Jemal Pasha and Enver Pasha, leaders of the Young Turk party, the Committee for Union and Progress, who ruled the Ottoman Empire during WW One and were, therefore, guilty in the Armenian massacres.

Note the convergence of Western and Bolshevik [Communist] policies --mentioned above-- in support for the Turkish nationalists of Ataturk by 1922.
The Western support for the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks and Armenians from Smyrna, on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea, is indicated in the following two books:
George Horton, The Blight of Asia (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1926)
Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair
UPDATING 2-22-2009
see Seth Frantzman's article, "Islamism's Accidental Midwives", Jerusalem Post, 2-22-2009 [print version -- full version with comments]. This article tells about support by both the BritishEmpire and the Communists which built up Arab nationalism and Islamic jihad fanaticism, in Israel, Sudan, India, and elsewhere.
See post "What Do Left & Right Mean Today?" of 2-11-2009.
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More on the repercussions of the Greek uprising of the 1820s in the Land of Israel -- the account of NeoPhytos