Manuel Valls insists anti-Zionism is the first step toward antisemitism.
Neftali Bennet, the Israeli Economy minister and the leader of the religious Zionist party Baith Yehudi, insisted last Sunday in Paris that Diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews « were one people », and had an equal share in the Jewish future. A guest of Consistoire, the national union of French synagogues, Bennett was attending a « solidarity service » – marking the closing of the Gedaliah fast – at the Don Isaac Abravanel synagogue, which had been targeted by Muslim rioters last July, while holding a similar service.
Then days earlier, on September 18, an even more imposing Rosh Hashanah greetings ceremony had been held at the Paris Great Synagogue in presence of the socialist French prime minister Manuel Valls. An unprecedented move : it is customarily the minister of the Interior’s part, as the custodian of religious organizations in France, rather than the prime minister’s, to be the Great Synagogue’s guest on such occasions.
Speaking from the Rabbi’s pulpit, Valls forcefully observed that « the fact that Jewish French citizens leave France, and do it out of fear, is a worrying signal France cannot ignore ». He confirmed that antisemitic violence and harassment grew by 91 % in one year, and added that it was ludicrous to distinguish between « anti-Zionism and antisemitism » : clearly, « denying Israel’s right to exist and questioning its future » is « a first step toward antisemitism ». While acknowledging that freedom of opinion and demonstration was a basic tenet of democracy, he stressed that antisemitism was not « a legitimate opinion but an offence », and that his government had been right, throughout the summer, to ban rallies lapsing in anti-Jewish rethorics or violence. Conversely, he regreted that comparatively few citizens demonstrated against antisemitism : « As long as you are French and love France, how can you stay iddle and not take the street ? »
According to him, the involvement of about « one thousand French citizens or residents of France » in jihadist activities in the Middle East, and the eventual return to France of many of them, was « a major threat » to the nation’s security, « much more so that any similar challenge in the past ».
Replying to Valls, Joel Mergui, the chairman of Consistoire – who achieved during last summer’s events a new status as the Jewish community’s mouthpiece – remarked that Jews have been part of Europe and France for two thousand years. « All French Jews want », he said, « was to lead a fully French and Jewish life, without apologizing for eating kosher food and performing circumcision… They just want to wear a yarmulke if they so wish and not be harrassed… They would love not to turn their synagogues and community centers into bunkers… » While praising France’s determination to fight jihadism in the Middle East or Africa, he made clear that not to support Israel in its seldefence fight against the same foe was sheer strategic and ethical nonsense.
The jihadist global threat to France to which both Valls and Mergui alluded at the Great Synagogue ceremony materialized on the ensueing days, when Hervé Gourdel, a 55 years French hiker, was abducted and beheaded in Algeria by Jund al-Khalifa (the Caliph’s Army), a group linked to Daesh (the Syrian-Iraqi Islamic State organization). As a result, support for military operations against Daesh soared from 53 % to 69 % in the French public opinion.
Some French Muslim leaders, including Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of Paris Great Mosque, and Hassan Chalghoumi, the head of the progressive Conference of French imams, rejected jihadist « barbarity ». However the « patriotic Muslim » demonstrations they attempted to stage failed to attract more than a few hundred coreligionists, in marked contrast with last summer’s pro-Hamas rallies.
Concern about the spread of jihadism among Muslim immigrants is likely to have political consequences. Valls’ brave stand notwithstanding, most voters may switch to the Right or even to the Far Right. While the conservatives won back the Senate last Sunday (in an indirect and partial election), Marine Le Pen’s Front National was awarded with two seats for the first time ever.
© Michel Gurfinkiel & The Jewish Chronicle, 2014