Odeh Bisharat France’s hypocrisy on ‘anti-Semitism’
A new peak in European hypocrisy, which was also a new nadir in its moral wretchedness, was recorded last week when France’s National Assembly approved a bill stating that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. This continent is clad in slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity, but unlike the East, which it describes in monstrous terms, it has abused its Jews for generations. Yet it’s this continent that’s now coming to teach us moral values.
In the seventh century, the second caliph, Umar Ibn al-Khattab, persuaded 70 Jewish families from Tiberias to return to Jerusalem, which was then under Muslim rule, according to Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book “Jerusalem: The Biography.” But in the 20th century, at the end of World War II, Europe turned its back on masses of Jewish refugees. And to emphasize the point, let us recall – again according to Sebag Montefiore, who cites the Armenian bishop Sebeos – that the first governor of Arab Jerusalem was a Jew.
Moreover, after all the horrors of Auschwitz and annihilation, this treacherous continent refused to pay the price of its crimes against the Jews. As the late author Amos Kenan put it, “The free world effortlessly saddled the Arabs with the debt it owes the Jews.” Consequently, most of the Palestinian people were expelled from their homeland to Arab countries, and even today, 70 years later, they are still living in refugee camps under shocking conditions.
The State of Israel has become part of hypocritical Europe in every field – economics, music and sports. And it’s also part of the white continent in terms of its diplomatic conduct. On one hand, it boasts of the loftiest human values, while on the other it rains disasters down upon the peoples of the Middle East. See, for instance, Algeria with regard to France and the Nakba with regard to Israel.
Now along comes the white continent, with its stinking freight of morality, and demands, with tremendous gall, that the Palestinians – the victims of its victim – shut up about the injustices that have been done to them in the course of Zionism’s implementation: expulsions, demolitions and discrimination. The Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawab, in a similar situation, cried out, “How will you remain silent, you who have been raped?” Yes, let’s see you, members of the French parliament, being expelled from your homes and then being told to praise the expellers.
It’s important to remind the French that fighting anti-Semitism doesn’t necessarily mean toadying to the government of a state that has the fifth strongest military in the world, a government that conducts passionate love affairs with political leaders who embody dictatorship, anti-Semitism and racism – Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Jair Bolsonaro and others.
Instead, fighting anti-Semitism means changing the reality in which Jews still live under regimes that incite against them. So here’s how to fight it: Stand up to the wave of anti-Semitism in the United States, which has surged since the election of Donald Trump, the best friend of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Moreover, anyone who raises the banner of fighting anti-Semitism on its own, without linking it to racism against other ethnic and religious groups like Muslims, Mexicans and blacks, is collaborating with true anti-Semites, whose daily bread is incitement and division.
Finally, let’s note that the French decision bolsters those Israelis who rule out forming a governing coalition with Arab parties. So here you have a paradox. The Arabs can’t not oppose Zionism, which was catastrophic for them, yet most Israeli Jews define themselves as Zionists – each to his own Zionism, with some favoring the Zionism of the entire Land of Israel and others favoring two states for two peoples. And nevertheless, from this imbroglio, seeds of cooperation between Jews and Arabs have sprouted in recent years, on the basis of universal principles, without anyone inquiring too closely about who is a Zionist and who isn’t. This is keeping Israeli extremists awake at night.
But for now, help has come from the French right. “Birds of a feather flock together,” the Arabs say. You should be ashamed, my dear French, of your racist new fans.
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