"Protecting the Jews"
Israel Shamir • June 25, 2019 •Justify your actions by the need to protect the weak and vulnerable. This is the first rule of political rhetoric. If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do
not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember:
you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want
your protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles
to look at the cameras and repeat a short text. With all my dislike for
R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can’t possibly blame the
allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
This thought came to my mind during my recent visit to France for the publication of my new book In The Name of Christ.
France is going through a rapid shrinking of freedom. All the nations
experience that, but France leads. For years they had laws that banned
things displeasing to Jews; and now they expand these laws punishing not
only saying or writing but also thinking, implying or winking. The bill
criminalising anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism may be voted on very soon.
As the law voted in 2015 (after the Charlie Hebdo attack),
against the “apology of terrorism”, the new law will allow the
government to seize anyone, just for a tweet or a post on Facebook, and
send a person for 18 months to “preventive imprisonment”, even before he
comes to a court. The judge will sanction him on the basis of “intimate
conviction” of his “hidden intentions”.
This
fight against alleged antisemitism has become – like in the UK – a
powerful tool of the ruling elites against the people. It is used
against the Gilets Jaunes (the Yellow Vests), and against the
opposition in general. The authorities apply the R2P principle to
assault French freedom, that is they allegedly protect the Jews, as if
Jews need protection, and in the name of Jews they steal freedom of all.
With a
certain poetic license, one can proclaim the Jews are innocent of this
assault, like the Aleppo kids are not guilty of bombing Syria and Afghan
women are not guilty of American occupation. The Jews have been used as
proverbial victims, but so were children and women. The guilt and
responsibility is of those who use them as a pretext.
You
may argue that the comparison is forced, for the French Jewish bodies
actively participate in this campaign against French freedom. Yes,
that’s true, but these organisations are voluntary self-appointed
guardians of Jewish interest. Jews didn’t vote for them, didn’t elect
them. The government was free to disregard them saying they do not
represent their Jewish citizens. Actually, that was the traditional
French approach, refusing to deal with Jewish organisations saying the
French Jews are French and they do not need an intermediary. If the
government preferred to listen to them, it is only because they say what
the government wants to hear.
In
Annecy, one of France’s prettiest medieval towns I had met Maître
Viguier, the lawyer for Mr Alain Soral, and over the pot of cheese
fondue the place is famous for he told me an amazing story.
In
the course of their demo, the Yellow Vests had burned a picture of a
French TV personality, Bernard Henri Levi (BHL for short), and of some
other worthies. This event had been depicted in a jolly video clip that
you can watch with pleasure and the clip had been uploaded on a website
associated with Alain Soral.
The
CRIF (or/and LICRA and other bodies) had accused Mr Soral of
antisemitism, a criminal offence, on the strength of this fact, and
demanded 2 years of prison + 30,000 euros, requested as punishment +
82,500 as compensations for the “victims”. The Maître said the elites
try to unite the Jewish people against Gilets Jaunes and against
ordinary French people. Other supporters of the GJ, Jean Bricmont and M.
Chouard are the next on the list, after Soral.
The CRIF said that the
rap was in coded language. The burned picture of BHL suggests a great
fire to burn every Jew. “Between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis called the
Jews ‘vermin’ and ‘parasites’ that should be exterminated”, they say.
And that’s why the word “parasites” in the clip necessarily refers to
Jews that should be exterminated. A very weak logic; Socrates would
send these CRIF sophists back to the holes they usually hide from
sunlight. Whatever the Nazis said, they have no copyright on the word
‘parasites’. In the Soviet Union after the October 1917 Revolution, when
Jews occupied quite a prominent place in the society, the most popular
revolutionary song said the parasites have no right to rule the land.
Parasites
are those who do not toil but consume; and this is not a specific
Jewish feature. By claiming that Jews are the parasites, the
self-proclaimed Jewish organisations indulge in vile antisemitism, I
told them.
What’s
wrong in burning a picture of BHL? BHL is a French citizen who is
entitled to his views. However, none of his views could or should be
accepted as “the Jewish position”. The French Jews, and certainly the
Jews of the world, hold a wide variety of views, some of them agree with
BHL in some points and some disagree, sometimes disagree strongly. Mr
BHL had been a fervent supporter, or even an instigator of the NATO
attack on Libya in 2011 that had made this rather prosperous North
African country a failed state ruled by Islamist armed gangs. Mr BHL had
been a fervent supporter or an instigator of the Kiev 2014 coup that
deposed the legitimate president of the Ukraine and had brought
followers of the Nazi Quisling Stepan Bandera to power. Mr BHL had tried
to ignite the ire of his French compatriots against the GJ. These and
other strong views of Mr BHL had caused indignation of some French
citizens who expressed their indignation by burning his photo. These
acts by Mr BHL and his adversaries are perfectly legitimate within the
limits of free public discourse.
What
is not and can’t be legitimate is an attempt by the CRIF to create a
false impression as if those opinions and acts by Mr BHL were an
expression of the Jewish position. This is an obnoxious anti-Semitic
lie. The Jews of France, of Israel and of the world didn’t necessarily
wish Libya to be bombed or Kiev upturned; the Jews have no united single
political position on French elections or on French political
movements. Some French Jews support the GJ, and some reject them. Some
vote for Mr Macron and some for Mme Le Pen or Mr Soral.
It’s
only vicious anti-Semites who claim that all Jews follow and support
BHL. This nasty claim had been upheld by a self-proclaimed “Jewish
organisation” CRIF.
Let
me reiterate: the body called CRIF does not represent French Jews, for
it was not elected by French Jews. Its leadership is not accepted by
French or any other Jews. It is a political organisation with its own
goals; its goals do not coincide with those of majority of Jews in
France or elsewhere.
While
it is possible to argue that in some cases CRIFF acts in the interests
of the Jews by fighting anti-Jewish prejudice, in this particular case
the CRIF acts against the Jewish interests, as this action is likely to
enforce the anti-Jewish prejudice of all Jews acting together for some
dubious goal like break-up of Libya or Ukraine or for other
controversial goal.
The Jews qua
Jews have no position on these topics. Mr BHL is neither an elected
representative nor a spiritual authority for the Jews in France or
anywhere else. He does not dress as an observant Jew, he does not
observe Jewish laws and customs; his family famously includes apostates;
his actions were always those of a free agent; he never consulted with
Jewish authorities, spiritual or temporal.
He
is perfectly entitled to his views and opinions; however he may not
claim he acts in the Jewish interests or represents the Jews. Even less
so CRIF may present a protest against BHL as an act against Jewish
people as the whole; as an act of anti-Semitism. If somebody is
anti-Semitic it is CRIF that suggest that an attack of BHL is an attack
on the Jewish people. If this would be a case, should we consider a
condemnation of the Black comedian Mr Dieudonné – an act of anti-black
racism?
It
is perfectly legal to burn the image of BHL in Israel; and I intend to
do it tomorrow in Tel Aviv on the Gordon Beach, I told them. No court in
Israel would accuse me of anti-Semitism if I burn his picture; or a
picture of Mr Netanyahu who is anyway an elected representative of the
Jewish state of Israel. While Israeli flag is protected from
desecration, an image of a person of a Jewish origin is not. It is free
to burn or despoil it in any way you like.
I am
certain that French citizens are not less free than Israeli citizens,
and I hope that the French court will reject the frivolous claim of the
self-proclaimed Jewish body called CRIFF against Mr Alain Soral. It
would be good if Mr BHL would find courage to support Mr Soral against
CRIF by affirming that he was not and is not acting as a legitimate
representative or spiritual authority of the French Jews. It would be
even better if the French Republic would accuse CRIF for encouraging
anti-Jewish prejudice by frivolous claims.
If
the French Republic finds it necessary to condemn Mr Alain Soral for
whatever reason, let her do it without pretence of acting for the Jewish
cause. Keep Jews out of this polemics! The Jews have enough troubles of
their own without being used as a sort of supreme argument in an
intra-French dispute.
This is what I said to the French lawyer, and he produced my argument in the French court. You can read all this argumentation here in French
or just watch a conversation (in English with French translation) I had
with a popular French presenter Jean-Michel Vernochet and the charming
poet, political thinker and my translator Mme Maria Poumier:
The
Jewish stories keep you forever busy, and I am glad that I could be of
help to the besieged French while defending the Jews. God knows, Jews
have enough sins of their own without having to bear and defend sins of
the French establishment.
It
would be sad and unwise to conclude this piece on such a sombre note,
while glorious summer delights our eyes. Let us cross the Channel, where
the indomitable 93-year-old Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir
Mohamad, or just Dr M for short, spoke to English students in the
Cambridge Union debating society on Sunday (Jun 16). Cambridge audience
had been tickled pink by Dr M’s scintillating wit, a newspaper reported.
“I
have some Jewish friends, very good friends, they are not like the other
Jews, that’s why they are my friends,” – said Dr M causing wave of
laughter. I hope he counts me among his friends since he invited me to
his Kuala Lumpur 15 years ago and I duly reported about Malaysia and about him, the man who had fought Soros and IMF and won. Read here how he did it.
Many
times he called Israel ‘the force behind all the woes of the Middle
East’. Nor was he ever scared to be labelled antisemitic. And still this
great man (whose very name horrifies Jewish activists and jerks the
Cambridge University Labour Club to declare its “solidarity with British
Jews”) ruled his country over 40 years, and recently had been
re-elected as the candidate of the opposition party. He is well over
ninety, and still going strong.
So
be of good cheer, my friends and readers! Follow the example of Dr M
and don’t be afraid of being called youknowwhat. This is not the end of
the world. The voice of the Jews is powerful only when it goes in unison
with real powers, and when their opponents are meek and weak-kneed.
Strong-minded men can sail through their opposition as easily as they go
through market-women’s squabble.
Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
This article was first published at The Unz Review
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