This revolting story , it now appears, was faked.
To my and many others' chagrin, the subject of this story faked the attack. However, in the face of the news that this attack was faked, French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope had this to say:
"The explosion in the number of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in our country these past few years is a reality that we must fight,"
The article that quotes Monsieur Cope also states that,
"The number of such incidents recorded in France -- home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities -- soared in the first half of the year, according to interior ministry figures."
While I officially retract the original story alleging an attack by French Muslims, I still wish to call attention to what is still a very real problem facing the French government: An alarming rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks during this, and recent, years.
Mark D. Firestone
Posted by Mark D. Firestone at July 11, 2004 01:08 PM | TrackBackYes, i've read about all this in the French press. Take it from someone who spent three years in Paris: the anti-semitism referred to in the report is an entirely Muslim affair.
Posted by: do at July 11, 2004 07:13 PM (Permalink)Mr. Orland - Your statement, unfortunately, is an unfair generalization. I did not post this article as an inference that Muslims were to blame for all the anti-Semitism in France. By the way, I , too, have lived in, and traveled extensively around Europe. But it does not mean I have cornered the market on the knowledge of what particular group is solely to blame for bigotry of any type on that continent. Further, I am hard pressed to understand where the Muslim involvement in the Dreyfus affair was to be found. Anti-Semitism exists all over this world. It can be found in Ivy League schools as well as Muslim countries. The point of this post is that French anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise once again, but I do not hold that it is solely the work of one ethnic group.
Posted by: Mark D. Firestone at July 11, 2004 07:51 PM (Permalink)The Dreyfus Affair? Gee, and I thought you were talking about 2004, not 1904. I'm afraid that this is a bit like a French blogger drawing an equivalence between the Texas death penalty and Jim Crow era lynching.
You write: "The point of this post is that French anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise once again, but I do not hold that it is solely the work of one ethnic group. "
This is strictly true but misleading. Anti-Semitism in France is indeed on the rise. The question is, is it specifically French anti-Semitism? No doubt some very small proportion of the recent surge in European anti-Semitic incidents has been the work of far right groups. However, I contend that the vast majority of it is the work of Muslim youth gangs (10% of France's population is today Muslim, compared to around 1% for Jews).
Don't believe me? Well then consider this from yesterday's Le Monde:
"Six hommes ont violemment agressé, vendredi matin dans le RER D, entre Louvres et Sarcelles (Val-d'Oise), une jeune femme de 23 ans qu'ils croyaient juive, avant de lui dessiner des croix gammées sur le ventre, a-t-on appris samedi 10 juillet de sources policières.
Les six agresseurs, d'origine maghrébine et armés de couteaux, ont coupé les cheveux de la jeune femme, accompagnée de son bébé de 13 mois, puis ont lacéré son tee-shirt et son pantalon, avant de dessiner au feutre noir trois croix gammées sur son ventre, a-t-on indiqué de mêmes sources."
( http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-372294,0.html)
I will translate if, despite your many travels, you somehow still don't read French:
"Police sources on Saturday reported the violent assault, Friday night, by six men of a 23 year old woman who they mistook for Jewish on the RER [the train that runs from Paris to its suburbs] between Louvres and Sarcelles (Val d'Oise region). After assaulting her, the men drew swatiskas on her belly.
The six North African aggressors, armed with knives, cut the young's woman's hair -- she was accompanied by her 13th month old child -- and then sliced open her T-shirt and pants. According to the same sources, the perpetrators drew three swatiskas on her stomach with a black felt-tip pen following the assault."
Yes, yes, I know, it's only an anecdote. So consider this [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/01/wsemit01.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/04/01/ixportal.html]:
"Jewish leaders accused the European Union yesterday of covering up the true scale of anti-Semitic violence carried out by Muslim youths, reigniting a controversy over Europe's failure to confront Islamic extremism at home.
[...] The headline findings contradict the body of the report. This says most of the 193 violent attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher shops, cemeteries and rabbis in France in 2002 - up from 32 in 2001 - were 'ascribed to youth from neighbourhoods sensitive to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, principally of North African descent.
'The percentage attributable to the extreme Right was only nine per cent in 2002,' it said.
The report on Belgium said most of the fire-bomb and machine-gun attacks on Jewish targets were the result of a spillover from the Palestinian intifada.
The European Jewish Congress accused the EU watchdog of twisting data from the 15 member states to suit its own ideological bias, describing the report as a catalogue of 'enormous contradictions, errors and omissions'."
This comports, not just with my experience, but with that of every European I know. There is certainly strong anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe, particularly on the Left. As I said, however, the violent stuff is almost exclusively the work of young Muslims.
Perhaps it's time for you to take another vacation.
Posted by: do at July 11, 2004 09:07 PM (Permalink)"The anti-Semitism ....is an entirely Muslim affair", and "the violent stuff is ALMOST exclusively the work of young Muslims" do not convey the same thing. Had you phrased your initial comments as you did in the second go around I might not have been so quick to chastise you for what is undeniably a post with racist overtones. Further, I cited the Dreyfus affair to indicate that anti-Semitism in France has not been, historically speaking, STRICTLY a Muslim affair. As to your condescending and insulting demeanor, je m'en fou.
Posted by: Mark D. Firestone at July 11, 2004 09:41 PM (Permalink)"Had you phrased your initial comments as you did in the second go around I might not have been so quick to chastise you for what is undeniably a post with racist overtones. "
And had YOU phrased your initial comments in a less reactively silly way, I would not have had to chastise YOU. Everyone knows that the recent wave of European anti-semitism in France is an expression of resurgent Muslim "communitarianism". If you don't believe me, I can prove it. Just say the word.
As for YOUR post (which I suggest you reread): given what I've already pointed out, am I wrong to suggest that this is a bit of silly anti-French alarmism? I claimed that most recent anti-semitic incidents have been perpetrated by Muslims (a claim supported by every recent study of the phenomenon, by the way). You respond by asserting that such a claim has "undeniably racist undertones". Er, really? Well, I deny it -- and so, too, does the European Jewish Congress, the better part of the European press, and almost everyone who lives in France.
Really, it's not such a big deal. If I said "entirely" in my first post, excuse me. I meant, as I explain, "almost entirely". As for yourself, I suggest that you stop blaming "les gens de la France" -- on ne dit pas ca, mon vieux, on dit "les Francais" -- the problem is at once more complicated and more simple than that.
Posted by: do at July 11, 2004 11:28 PM (Permalink)Oh, and don't you think it's significant that, according to the EU study I cite above, of the 193 violent attacks against French Jews in 2002, only 9% were committed by French ethnics (francais de souche)? That means that fully 91% were committed by Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims only constitute, at best, 11% of the population.
All of a sudden, it should seem less "racist" to suggest what I do in my first post: "French anti-semitism" is a Muslim problem.
Posted by: do at July 11, 2004 11:41 PM (Permalink)But enough of that. Sorry for the peremptory tone. I think that we can agree on *most* of this.
Posted by: do at July 12, 2004 12:31 AM (Permalink)Funny -- I would see Muslim anti-semitism in France as a French problem.
Posted by: McGehee at July 12, 2004 05:08 AM (Permalink)Sort of the way I see it as well, McGehee. But hey, what the hell do I know? I haven't lived in Paris for three years, so I'm not the resident "expert". I guess my time spent traveling extensively around France and living in North Africa and Europe (as well as a good part of the rest of the world), and my personal experiences with anti-Semitism, do not make me as qualified to speak to the issue as the esteemed Mr. Orland.
Posted by: Mark D. Firestone at July 12, 2004 05:49 AM (Permalink)And I guess I'm a racist because I allowed myself to write "entirely" rather than "almost entirely" in my first respone to Mr. Firestone's post.
McGehee: It's possible that I misunderstood -- but very unlikely. Since when, after all, do you "accuse" someone of having a "problem"?
Posted by: do at July 12, 2004 08:50 AM (Permalink)I've just received your email. I reproduce my response below:
Mr. Firestone,
I actually am sorry to have commented at all. Apparently, I mistook you. Indeed, it is unlikely that I would have insisted had you not suggested that I was possibly speaking as a racist. It escalated from there, as these things do.
We can agree, I believe, that:
i.) Not all Muslims are anti-semitic nor are all anti-semitic Muslims violently so (I've not been to North Africa but I have spent time in Turkey, and my experiences are similar to the ones you report). You will probably also allow that Muslim anti-semitism is very often a pathology of the Muslim diaspora.
ii) In France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe (in both absolute and relative terms), most recent anti-semitic incidents have been perpetrated by North African youth.
iii) Americans on the right have badly misunderstood the French.
Veuillez accepter mes excuses.
David.
Posted by: do at July 12, 2004 09:14 AM (Permalink)Meryl actually wrote about the woman on the train, today. I agree with her that it's far worse that they are now looking at this seriously considering the attack was made on someone who was not Jewish. What is this, the reverse of the boy who cried wolf? Is that what it takes for them to consider anti-Semitism an increasingly serious issue?
Posted by: Linda at July 12, 2004 08:05 PM (Permalink)What other problems do you have besides being unemployed, a moron and a dork?
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