(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) - Gaza, the French support for Israel and the Palestinian liberation struggle (frt)

 [machine translation]

Echoing and to go further (see also here and here ), two useful contributions (Mona 
Chollet and Sophie Bessis) that extend the reflection back on some essential information 
about the colonial character of the State of Israel and reaffirm the political issues and 
the harmful effects of justifications made here in France of the Israeli attack on Gaza. 
---- Solidarity with the Palestinians and the denunciation of Zionism as a political 
ideology and reality of segregation and colonialism should not help reflecting 
simultaneously, to specify what is meant by that; what liberation struggle is it, what 
Zionism does one speak, what political project beyond the assignments identity and 
nationalist insularity.

________

[28/07/14] Easy Recipes for a civil war

The "song of love for Israel," Francois Hollande, and its consequences

by Mona Chollet

"We, too, love life when we can afford it.

We dance between two martyrs and lilac them
we build a minaret or a palm tree.

We too love life when we can afford it.

The silkworm, we steal a thread to build a sky
belonging to us and enclose this migration.

And we open the garden gate for the jasmine
so in the streets like a beautiful day.

We too love life when we can afford it.

Where we elect notice, we cultivate plants
perennials and reap the dead.

In the flute, we blow the color of more distant
on the sand of the parade, we draw the neighing

And we write our names, stone by stone. You lightning
clarified for us the night so thinned a bit.

We too love life when we have the means... "

Mahmoud Darwish , "We, too, love life" (1986)
The earth is our close and Other Poems ,
translated from Arabic (Palestine) by Elias Sanbar
Gallimard NRF Poetry, 2000.


In Le Monde Diplomatique in July, Peter Harling describes the reasons for the breakup of 
Iraq. He explains how the Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, lantern character brought to 
power "because he did not threaten anyone," actively worked to exacerbate divisions within 
society. He discriminated and persecuted Sunnis; he established a Shiite axis with 
Damascus by siding with Bashar Al-Assad, and "opening its borders to the Shiites who 
volunteered to fight in Syria."

This mode of governance, says Harling, is not isolated in the region, Assad, or Marshal 
Sissi in Egypt, there were also used. "Diets do even bother to overcome existing divisions 
within their societies (...). They invest these fault lines, and looking exacerbate the 
conflict. Radicalizing part of their society, they have consolidated their position in 
another, and make the economy of any constructive program is the fear of what might 
replace them enough to keep them in power. "

I'm embarrassed to admit it, and then compare an honorable French head of state to an 
ordinary Oriental despot (1), but it is in this article that I thought by discovering, on 
July 9, the statement Elys?e on the situation in the Middle East, while there were already 
dozens of Palestinian casualties and no Israeli casualties: "The President had a telephone 
conversation this evening with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He expressed his 
solidarity of France against rocket attacks from Gaza. He recalled that France firmly 
condemns these attacks. It is the Israeli government to take all measures to protect its 
population to threats. "

France has taken over
Israel's denial
of the value of an Arab life

Whatever disgust aroused by its policies in all areas, I am well aware (I'm not crazy) 
remains to Fran?ois Hollande a tad margin before becoming as hateful as Sissi, Maliki and 
Assad. The fact remains that this release has alarmed many observers, and it carries 
enormous divisions in French society. After the "love song" in respect of a right-wing 
government led by the President during his official visit to Israel in November 2013, we 
probably would have been expected; but it was assumed that the death toll and the simple 
status of forces would command a minimum of shades. Except not. Not a word for civilian 
victims: the omission reflected the resurgence of an abysmal contempt colonial, archaic, 
uninhibited. The France resumed its consideration denial by Israel of the value of an Arab 
life - propaganda calls constantly asking "what we would do" if rockets were falling on 
London or Paris, but she never envisaged that we can get on with the establishment of a 
Palestinian and imagine, for example, the eleventh district of Paris reduced to a 
moonscape littered with corpses.

Of course, this attitude of show empathy with the occupier and the occupied overwhelm, to 
stigmatize for his aggressiveness, has long existed in both the political class and the 
media (2). As noted by the journalist Akram Belka?d "media coverage in France about Gaza 
reveals an unconscious racist who wants a Palestinian life (Arabic?) Is worthless." But 
whether formulated as clearly at the highest level of the state is bound to have a 
devastating impact in a country with a relatively large population that descends itself 
colonized former lives. That is to administer all these people a slap in the face. For 
years already - since September 11, 2001, as if they had anything to do with terrorists in 
New York and Washington - it insists on putting them under the ban of the national 
community, to signify their they are unwanted in their own country, that basically they 
are responsible for everything that goes wrong in France. This release represents a kind 
of culmination.

In 2001 (before September 11), Sophie Bessis, in his book The West and others , was 
perfectly describes the process already at work. It noted the recent popularity of the 
term "Judeo-Christian", which allowed both clear itself of centuries of anti-Semitism, 
"censor the historical existence of Eastern Judaism "and expel Islam from the Western 
history by making him "the third excluded from the Abrahamic revelation." For fifteen 
years, France played very clearly one of its minorities against one another, Jews against 
Arabs. And it does so in reference to Israel for ideological convergence, because it 
assumes - rightly or wrongly - that the vast majority of the Jews of France supporting 
Israeli policy and therefore share the general mistrust of Arabs, seen as a indistinct and 
fanatical mass of those there and those here together.

While his predecessor, Theo Klein, he has not been spared criticism, demonstrating that 
another policy would have been possible, Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative 
Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) during critical years (2001 to 2007, and 
again since 2013), chose to lend to this game, and led to his suite organized community. 
He tried to present the Jews of France as "good performers" of the Republic, even fayoter 
shamelessly. "We, the Marseillaise , we do not whistle, we sing, "and we heard in the 
demonstrations of CRIF in support of Israel in 2002 - which did not prevent some serious 
hiccups: a policeman stabbed in the procession , Arab bystanders chased... Occasionally 
Cukierman do not hate either push the dunces: April 22, 2002, in the Israeli daily Haaretz 
, he played the lead of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round the French presidential 
elections as a "message to Muslims telling them to be quiet."

"The French"... and others

Despite their similar positions on support for Israel, Richard Prasquier, president of 
CRIF between 2007 and 2013, did not let him take it, it (3). In an article in the World 
(18 March 2011), he wrote lucidly: "The Muslim has taken the position held by the Jewish 
yesterday, Arabic or immigrated frontist dialectic. Make no mistake: those who talk about 
the Islamization of France are guided by the same xenophobic obsession that those who 
denounced the Judaization of our country in the 1930 "In fact, the similarities between 
the treatment he n 'Not so long to Jews and Muslims that given today are striking. On 22 
July 2014, on iTV , Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, First Secretary of the Socialist Party, 
said that if the demonstration for Gaza was banned, it was because the government wanted 
"security for the French security for protesters". One thinks about equally revealing 
Raymond Barre, then Prime Minister, after the attack against the synagogue on Rue Copernic 
in Paris, October 3, 1980: it was called "full of indignation" to the attack "heinous "" 
come and smite the Israelites on their way to the synagogue "and that struck" innocent 
French. "

1980 is not old... The Twitter account "Humor Right" summed up a bit abruptly on July 27: 
"Let the Jews do not come at too many ideas: one supports only because more hate Arabs. 
"In other words we do contends that insofar themselves fear and hate the Arabs as we are. 
Talk about a disgusting market... According to Le Nouvel Observateur July 24, during the 
protest for Gaza at Barbes, "the police were in the crosshairs, one of the organizers of 
the parade, the French Jewish Union for Peace". Deny the market persist to show solidarity 
with the minority stigmatized, often in keeping with his own story (choice made in Israel 
people like Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and Michel Warshawski ) is to remain a wog, with all 
the risks involved.

Community responsible for all the sins
to better purify the rest of society

It has taken the last few days a new threshold in the formation of the so-called 
"Arab-Muslim" population scapegoat for the French company. Literally, the scapegoat is a 
goat that is responsible for all the sins of a community to purify it. It refers by 
extension "a person on which dampened faults of others." Through this process, no member 
of the community is no longer accusing guilty of sin, while all members of the community 
are accused. Magic! In this case, in recent years, white France was able to absolve both 
of his sexism and his anti-Semitism. I already mentioned this magazine article she devoted 
to mixed couples (November 5, 2010) in which Irina, married to Samir, a French of Algerian 
origin, said of him: "It's very French on the issue of equality men and women. "" French 
", really? French as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bertrand Cantat, Eric Zemmour and countless 
supporters? French as Eric Raoult, who is responsible for the mission on the full veil in 
the National Assembly in 2010, said he was alarmed by "the establishment in our country of 
cultural traditions or ideologies that attempt impose a man-woman relationship based on 
domination, pressure and even the threat, which is totally unacceptable, "before being 
placed in police custody in 2012 following a complaint from his wife for domestic 
violence, and accused of sexual harassment in early 2014 after sending more than fifteen 
thousand SMS to a collaborator?

Until recently, I heard an anti-racism activist, a descendant of North African immigrants, 
who has long frequented socialist circles, telling that in some social events, her friends 
from the same origin took refuge with him and ask him to pretend to be their companion, 
hoping that the notables present cease to believe allowed to grope. He who had never 
considered especially feminist had been surprised to discover that occasion rather evolved 
and respectful alongside these guys behaved, he said, "like pigs".

Same for anti-Semitism. Palestinians have become the scapegoats of a European crime with 
which they had nothing to do; and in France, the caricature of the "young suburban 
anti-Semitic" allows you to forget a long history of hatred, murder and oppression in 
which all sectors of society were involved - that we only think of ambiguities the father 
figure of the Socialist Party, Francois Mitterrand. Now the franchouillard Semitism is 
even perceived as harmless folklore for which one almost of affection shown by the 
indulgence, if not friendship, Alain Finkielkraut or Ivan Rioufol for Renaud Camus.

I remember my amazement the first time I heard the word "antisemitism" about raised in 
France at the beginning of the second intifada in late 2000 My naivete at the time, which 
seems exotic tensions with decline, reflecting the fact that we were at a tipping point, 
we were changing period (even bewilderment, a year later, when he heard for the first time 
speak of "French Muslims" for people before we did not point ever by their religion). I 
could not believe how could they assimilate anger over a precise racial hatred 
geopolitical context? Obviously, I did not see (yet, since I have seen) that anger in some 
cases could reactivate the old stereotypes of racial hatred and lead to sweeping 
generalizations, unbearable attacks. However, if the "Muslims" were inherently 
anti-Semitic, then Sarcelles should have known tensions and skirmishes before the outbreak 
of the second Intifada. My own neighborhood in Paris, where a nearby Jewish school with a 
mosque, should be ablaze with year-round (and he did not even now).

"Do not import
the conflict in the Middle East "
actually means
"Do not defend
the rights of the Palestinians "

It is unacceptable to equate Judaism and Zionism, one hears hammering everywhere. "Amalgam 
between Israeli and Jew is tempting and encouraged to break the Jewish" and denounced 
Roger Cukierman in June 2010 "It will be recalled, for all practical purposes, confuse 
Jews and Israelis in the same condemnation is the same principle of anti-Semitism, which 
in France is punishable by law ", asserts Bernard-Henri Levy this week. We can only agree. 
But in this case, why do we tolerate a representative of the Israeli army is holding a 
recruitment session at a Paris synagogue, as was the case last May? Why politicians 
invited to the annual dinner of the CRIF did they not rise to leave the room when the host 
took the opportunity to request that France recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? 
Julien Salingue in an open letter to striking Cukierman (July 23), he is charged to 
"maintain the dangerous confusion that continues to denounce." As for BHL, he declared the 
end of 2011 , after his disastrous equipped Jamahiriya, "participating as a Jew" to this 
"political adventure": "I wore my flag in fidelity to my name and my loyalty to Zionism 
and Israel. "On his return to France, Arno Klarsfeld, he published a book about his 
military service in Israel.

Worse rummaging through my archives, I found at least two cases where a French Jew who 
publicly dissociated policy of Israel, Rony Brauman, had himself called a 'traitor' and 
challenge his Jewishness. On Paris Premi?re, in October 2001, Claude Lanzmann said of him: 
"This man was born in Israel. There are traitors to their country. "In December of the 
same year, called a" Picture Perfect "(then on Fifth) with Roger Cukierman, Brauman start 
a sentence with," I'm Jewish... "The president of CRIF immediately interrupted him: "Well, 
it does not show much! "

In short, when we are told: "Do not import in France the conflict in the Middle East" 
really means: "Do not defend Palestinian rights in France. "In 2003, the League against 
Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) had requested - and received - deprogramming Mohamed 
Bakri's film Jenin, Jenin , which was to go on Arte. A few days earlier she had felt, 
however, that holding a gala to benefit the Association for the Welfare of the Israeli 
soldier in Levallois-Perret did not have to be canceled. She saw this association 
supporting an occupying army a "humanitarian" organization. And she called for "a little 
more restraint, moderation, tolerance and respect for everyone."

"The war in Syria? "

Since this statement from the Elysee July 9, I feel spent in the fourth dimension, or work 
in a book by George Orwell - but of course, the Israeli rhetoric, since it is capable to 
claim the Nobel Peace Prize for IDF finds a way to recover even Orwell. The horrors 
succeed in Gaza, and they seem to have no limits: whole families decimated, the murdered 
children while they were playing on the beach or on the roof of their home, a UN school 
under attack, whole neighborhoods razed and dozens of their buried under the rubble... 
Every time people, we hope that finally, the event will tear the veil of ideology and open 
the eyes of commentators as political leaders, leaving up the situation in his unbearable 
nudity. I think that's what explains why so many people, despite the protests persist in 
water the social networks of pictures of children in her skull, charred body: and they 
hope to force the entry of consciousness ( 4). But the veil seems to resist all, and the 
killing continues imperturbably under the eyes of the world, without creating anything 
other than soft protests. Do we measure well the devastating impact of this injustice by 
freewheeling never seems to find resolution?

Like many people around me, I'm depressed, on edge. Unable to let me go to the carefree 
days of summer, I spend my time track information; at times I feel crazy. We must not only 
bear the sight of what is meted out to the Palestinians, but also speeches that say more 
or less openly that these people had it coming, and who try to demonize those who defend 
them. We must endure the insulting insinuations parrot Israeli propaganda asking why war 
in Syria does not arouse the same indignation as she does more deaths - implying, of 
course, "You're obsessed with the Jews, just take a look elsewhere, it is still the wild 
Arabs kill more Arabs. " As if the place occupied by a conflict depends only on the number 
of his victims (if that's the case, then forget Syria: only talking about the Congo!), And 
not as its symbolic dimensions: a colonial war, intimately linked the history of Europe, 
has for Europeans another litter a civil war, especially in a country with significant 
Jewish and Arab communities. Moreover, we do not live in a country where political 
leaders, intellectuals and columnists tell us all day that Assad is our friend, he is 
defending civilization and deserves our support enamored. That zealous telegraph Tel Aviv 
continue to peddle the most impudent lies, spread their racism at every opportunity, and 
we may be able to devote more of our attention to Syria, instead of having no continually 
counter their outrageous speech.

The "syndrome of Tom and Jerry"
and obsession with "balance"

And then there are those who look at you with a puzzled and suspicious eye. The outbreak 
of political passions aroused by the events thwarts. See around them to look at what is 
happening in the world, and even - how distasteful - defend opinions, puts them on the 
verge of panic attack. This disrupts their ideal of life, which is to listen to the 
Benabar and watching reality shows competing witty comments until dead. Others, again, 
deign to go to their small tear, about how "it is very sad that these people are killing 
endless when they could be friends," "peace and love guys," but stating clearly that it is 
certainly not for them to "look yet again the culprit of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
that depletes our lives" - to do so would consider reading books, consult the resolutions 
of the UN, in short, it will be understood that it is really not possible. Better hide 
behind concern for the "balance" , and perpetuate that Julien Salingue called "syndrome 
Tom and Jerry". While some still deign issue lip Review on Israeli actions, they will 
hasten to add that they "do not contend Hamas" - a reflex in which the Egyptian-Dutch 
feminist Sara Salem reason to see the "greatest victory of Israeli communicating."

If, for some inexplicable malfunction, they forget that clarification, someone quickly 
apparent to them the everlasting Hamas charter calling for the destruction of Israel. 
Whatever she has no chance of being implemented to address a state with the most 
sophisticated and supported by the leading world power armaments malicious intentions 
busy, and animosity quite worrying he shows towards the occupier, are more severe than 
what actually undergoes the Palestinian population. Similarly, the threat of rockets, 
which rarely reach their goal, is considered more serious than the deluge of fire on Gaza, 
with its dead and destruction. As summarized a Palestinian (I can not find the source): 
"They, they are afraid; us, we die. "(Read more on this site, "War of stones, war of words." )

The danger of depriving relay
legitimate anger

What are the French media that remain impervious to the "talking points" Israeli? Le Monde 
Diplomatique, The Huma, Mediapart, Still images, Politis (maybe I forget, and I hope that 
I forget). What are the political parties who still defend the rights of the Palestinians? 
The New Anti-Capitalist Party, the Left Front, the Greens... All this does not weigh 
heavily against the dominant big machines. The consequence is that there are fewer and 
fewer relays for the huge anger at. And the banning of demonstrations that comes complete 
suffocation. It is not interested in that to enclose even more "Muslim Arabs" in their 
anti-Semitic caricature; to track down a few morons, although embedded in rallies of 
thousands of perfectly peaceful people, soon become the emblem. Protesters are addressed 
with a more or less subtle malice. And explains to those who continue to take to the 
street to avoid unpleasant neighborhoods, they would do better to permanently abandon the 
field.

Depriving relay legitimate anger, bias and lock information is playing a terribly 
dangerous game. Is to abandon greenfield whole sections of the population and create 
confusion conducive to any abuse. In this context, pro-Palestinian activists many, even 
amid insults, racism, the arbitrary , maintain composure and lucidity remarkable. But 
that's saying that it sways. We would like to boost audience Soral and Dieudonn? than was 
otherwise not take. Recently, I saw people around me - perfectly white and "integrated" 
way - flipping, get to relay or soraliens conspiracy sites, or become enthusiastic fans of 
Dieudonn?. Many times, though, through my job, I'm supposed to navigate with greater ease 
than the average in the mass of information available, I found myself lost in the general 
cacophony, struggling with conflicting news. I seem to be on board a runaway train, in a 
series of cars that the mechanic would have detached from the convoy and that passengers 
would be shaken in all directions.

May be objected that France, in this situation, had no choice but to disallow its 
minorities. Except not: allow a plurality of views, remind Israel of international law, 
denounce war crimes for what they are, obviously does not amount to denying the humanity 
of the Jews of France - unless, again, Jewishness and Zionism confusing. Hear the anger, 
give an official outlet would only reduce tension. Instead, we multiply the staggering 
initiatives. On July 22 and learned that Fran?ois Hollande had "received at the Elys?e 
representatives of Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist and Orthodox, who 
appeared together to denounce" anti-Semitism"." Or when the secular Republic 
confessionnalise a political issue... The Palestine Network Marseille reminded forcefully: 
"The war in Gaza is a colonial war. It's a massacre committed by an army of occupation 
against a people. This war is neither racial nor religious nor communal. Support the 
Palestinians in Gaza is to defend the right! "

Unfortunately, years of hype Islamophobic made that impossible path to tread. It remains 
to hope that we do not pay too much.

Mona Chollet

___

Notes:
(1) ** ** Irony (for these days, you better specify)
(2) On the invisibility of violence against Palestinians, read on this site "Ota Benga the 
Palestinian" (February 2003) and text Amira Hass "They do not make the connection" 
(September 2001).
(3) read Dominique Vidal, "Those who speak on behalf of the Jews of France" , Le Monde 
Diplomatique , July 2011.
(4) Site Humanize Palestine took the opposite of this.

___

Text published on http://www.peripheries.net/