Anti-Semitic acts are experiencing a significant surge in France. One month after 7 October, 1,159 anti-Semitic acts had been recorded « three times as much than in 2022», according to Gérald Darmanin. It is naturally appropriate to deduct from the total those perpetrated by provocateurs in order to deliberately implicate «Arabs» or «Muslims», or those organised by an imperial power at war wishing to see French society disintegrate.
Anti-Semitism is a creation of the European far right, imported late into the Arab world, which provoked a sharp reaction from religious or reformist Zionists.
Anti-Semitism was born in Europe and was theorised by Europeans, between the middle and end of the 19th century. It was only subsequently that it was imported into the Arab world. Everyone acknowledges that Jews living under Arab and then Ottoman rule enjoyed a more enviable status than those living in numerous European states. Anti-Semitism was the preserve of the European and French far right and simultaneously, though less well known, there existed a hatred on the part of extremist or revisionist Zionists towards that very same far right. This reciprocal detestation was still alive in France just a few years ago.
The multiple convictions of Jean-Marie Le Pen for antisemitism and his recurring remarks about the Shoah are irrefutable proof of this. The converse is true. Thus, on 8 May 1988 in Paris, Betar engaged in an act of extreme violence against the traditional demonstration paying homage to Joan of Arc. Several people (including children) were beaten with iron bars, sometimes in the face. About ten Zionist activists were then arrested with weapons in hand, amongst whom Meyer Habib. The latter was sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence and three years' probation for assault, intentional violence and rebellion against law enforcement. This sentence was reduced to a one-year suspended sentence by the Paris Court of Appeal and upheld by the Court of Cassation in 1992. The eight victims will be compensated by the guarantee fund against acts of terrorism.
The influence of American neoconservatives and evangelicals radically changed the game in the early 2000s
A profound shift occurred in the early 2000s. The convergence between the far-right and radical right internationals regarding the conflict in the Middle East began at the turn of the 2000s under the impetus of American neoconservatives and evangelicals: all united in a pro-Jewish movement hostile to everything Arab. The Arab has now replaced the Jew (for how long?) as the source of all evil. Thus, this same Meyer Habib, who became an MP, is today pleased to see his enemy of yesterday, the National Rally (certainly not reducible to the FN of the time) taking part in «The march against antisemitism».
Meyer Habib and others whose priority is exclusively the defence of Israel's interests have found a more than sympathetic ear with many French politicians (including French diplomacy, within which a faction originating from the Socialist Party, of an Atlanticist-neoconservative persuasion, is rife, constantly ridiculing France's foreign policy). Especially since many are content, in order to form their opinion on the issue, with all-inclusive propaganda trips. Much less tedious, it is true, than reading recognised historians and delving into the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has won the communications battle with leaders.
They acted as the travelling salesmen for Israel as a «democratic state, the vanguard of the West» against «Islamist barbarism», the vanguard of «democracy» against «authoritarian regimes». An error into which only those can fall who have not noticed the worrying evolution of the State of Israel over the last thirty years.
THE DISTORTION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL BY THE NETANYAHU GOVERNMENTS
Massive Russian immigration to develop the settlements and kill the peace process, the unabashed emancipation from the rules of international law, the desire to undermine institutions such as the Supreme Court or opposition newspapers such as Haaretz.com, the disappearance of bipartisan political life, Benjamin Netanyahu's privileged relationship with Vladimir Putin, the US alliance having become more strategic than affective, the massive political and military support given to the Azerbaijani dictator Aliyev in the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh while Armenia, the cradle of Christianity, is itself threatened. In Jerusalem, the repeated threats and assaults by settlers (with the assistance of the security forces) against the Armenian Patriarchate bear witness to the global nature of this scandalous policy (through a kind of schizophrenia, some are sometimes the same people who support both the Armenian cause and Israel without realising the contradiction). Do we know of a democracy where the leader has been in power for 27 years with, admittedly, a few periods of interruption? The Hebrew State retains only elections from the attributes of a Western-style democratic state. It is highly likely that Israel's solidarity with Europeans would be open to question in the event of a confrontation with «authoritarian empires».
The death of the Labour Party, that of the Founders of the State of Israel, traded for a place in government by Ehud Barak and simultaneously, the stated desire of the Israeli right and far-right that succeeded it in power to make Israel no longer an Israeli nation-state but a «Nation-State of the Jewish people» (law of 19 July 2018), and ultra-religious influence in government, have fuelled antisemitism. Indeed, the resulting complete conflation of «Israel» and «Jew» means that the actions of the State of Israel are considered no longer as attributable to a foreign State but to Jewish communities the world over.
THE SIMPLISTIC EQUATION «JUDAISM» – »JEW« – »ISRAEL« – »NETANYAHU” – RELIGIOUS/REVISIONIST ZIONISM IS DANGEROUS
This distortion of the State of Israel, contrary to the vision of its founding fathers, endorsed by most members of the international community, amounts to holding Jewish communities in their respective countries responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, without them taking the slightest part in them. However, while anti-Semitism cannot be tolerated, condemning or opposing the policy of the State of Israel, whether that of Netanyahu, religious Zionism or revisionist Zionism, is of course entirely acceptable. and, for some, a moral duty, given that it constantly violates international law and humanitarian law by considering Arabs as second-class human beings whose lives are in reality of only relative importance.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Erwan Davoux is a graduate of the Paris IEP and INALCO
Former project officer at the Presidency of the Republic, he has advised numerous right-wing political figures internationally
French 
English 
Chinese 
Arabic