Reflections on the Recent
Paris Massacre and Zionism
By Uri Avnery
January 18, 2015 "ICH"
- The three Islamic terrorists
could have been very proud of themselves, if
they had lived to see it.
By committing two attacks
(quite ordinary ones by Israeli standards)
they spread panic throughout France, brought
millions of people onto the streets,
gathered more than 40 heads of states in
Paris. They changed the landscape of the
French capital and other French cities by
mobilizing thousands of soldiers and police
officers to guard Jewish and other potential
targets. For several days they dominated the
news throughout the world.
Three terrorists, probably
acting alone. Three!!!
For other potential
Islamic terrorists throughout Europe and
America, this must look like a huge
achievement. It is an invitation for
individuals and tiny groups to do the same
again, everywhere.
Terrorism means striking
fear. The three in Paris certainly succeeded
in doing that. They terrorized the French
population. And if three youngsters without
any qualifications can do that, imagine what
30 could do, or 300!
Frankly, I did not like
the huge demonstration. I have been in many
demonstrations in my time, maybe more than
500, but always against the powers that be.
I have never participated in a demonstration
called by the government, even when the
purpose was good. They remind me too much of
the late Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and
worse. Not for me, thank you.
But this particular
demonstration was also counterproductive.
Not only did it prove that terrorism is
effective, not only did it invite copycat
attacks, but it also hurt the real fight
against the fanatics.
To conduct an effective
fight, one has to put oneself first into the
shoes of the fanatics and try to understand
the dynamic that pushes young local-born
Muslims to commit such acts. Who are they?
What do they think? What are their
feelings? In what circumstances did they
grow up? What can be done to change them?
After decades of neglect,
that is hard work. It takes time and effort,
with results uncertain. Much easier for
politicians to march in the street in front
of the cameras.
Andwho marched in the
first row, beaming like a victor?
Our own and only Bibi.
How did he get there? The
facts came out within record time. Seems he
was not invited at all. On the contrary,
President Francois Hollande sent explicit
messages: please, please don’t come. It
would turn the demo into a show of
solidarity with the Jews, instead of a
public outcry for the freedom of the press
and other “republican values”. Netanyahu
came nevertheless, with two extreme rightist
ministers in tow.
Placed in the second row,
he did what Israelis do: he shoved aside a
black African president in front of him and
placed himself in the front row.
Once there, he began
waving to the people on the balconies along
the way. He was beaming, like a Roman
general in his triumphal parade. One can
only guess the feelings of Hollande and the
other heads of state – who tried to look
appropriately solemn and mournful – at this
display of Chutzpah.
Netanyahu went to Paris as
part of his election campaign. As a veteran
campaigner, he knew that three days in
Paris, visiting synagogues and making proud
Jewish speeches, were worth more than three
weeks at home, slinging mud.
The blood of the four Jews
murdered in the kosher supermarket was not
yet dry, when Israeli leaders called upon
the Jews in France to pack up and come to
Israel. Israel, as everybody knows, is the
safest place on earth.
This was an almost
automatic Zionist gut reaction. Jews are in
danger. Their only safe haven is Israel.
Make haste and come. The next day Israeli
papers reported joyfully that in 2015 more
than 10,000 French Jews were about to come
to live here, driven by growing
anti-Semitism.
Apparently, there is a lot
of anti-Semitism in France and other
European countries, though probably far less
than Islamophobia. But the fight between
Jews and Arabs on French soil has little to
do with anti-Semitism. It is a struggle
imported from North Africa.
When the Algerian war of
liberation broke out in 1954, the Jews there
had to choose sides. Almost all decided to
support the colonial power, France, against
the Algerian people.
That had a historical
background. In 1870, the French minister of
justice, Adolphe Cremieux, who happened to
be a Jew, conferred French citizenship on
all Algerian Jews, separating them from
their Muslim neighbors.
The Algerian Liberation
Front (FLN) tried very hard to draw the
local Jews to their side. I know because I
was somewhat involved. Their underground
organization in France asked me to set up an
Israeli support group, in order to convince
our Algerian co-religionists. I founded the
“Israeli Committee For A Free Algeria” and
published material which was used by the FLN
in their effort to win over the Jews.
In vain. The local Jews,
proud of their French citizenship, staunchly
supported the colonists. In the end, the
Jews were prominent in the OAS, the extreme
French underground which conducted a bloody
struggle against the freedom fighters. The
result was that practically all the Jews
fled Algeria together with the French when
the day of reckoning arrived. They did not
go to Israel. Almost all of them went to
France. (Unlike the Moroccan and Tunisian
Jews, many of whom came to Israel.
Generally, the poorer and less educated
chose Israel, while the French-educated
elite went to France and Canada.)
What we see now is the
continuation of this war between Algerian
Muslims and Jews on French soil. All the
four “French” Jews killed in the attack had
North African names and were buried in
Israel.
Not without trouble. The
Israeli government put great pressure on the
four families to bury their sons here. They
wanted to bury them in France, near their
homes. After a lot of haggling about the
price of the graves, the families finally
agreed.
It has been said that
Israelis love immigration and don’t love the
immigrants. That certainly applies to the
new “French” immigrants. In recent years,
“French” tourists have been coming here in
large numbers. They were often disliked.
Especially when they started to buy up
apartments on the Tel Aviv sea front and
left them empty, as a kind of insurance,
while young local people could neither find
nor afford apartments in the metropolitan
area. Practically all these “French”
tourists and immigrants are of North African
origin.
When asked what drives
them to Israel, their unanimous answer is:
anti-Semitism. That is not a new phenomenon.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of
Israelis, they or their parents or
grandparents, were driven here by
anti-Semitism.
The two terms –
anti-Semitism and Zionism – were born at
almost the same time, towards the end of the
19th century. Theodor Herzl, the
founder of the Zionist movement, conceived
his idea when he was working in France as a
foreign correspondence of a Viennese
newspaper during the Dreyfus affair, when
virulent anti-Semitism in France reached new
heights. (Anti-Semitism is, of course, a
misnomer. Arabs are Semites, too. But the
term is generally used to mean only
Jew-haters.)
Later, Herzl wooed
outspoken anti-Semitic leaders in Russia and
elsewhere, asking for their help and
promising to take the Jews off their hands.
So did his successors. In 1939, the Irgun
underground planned an armed invasion of
Palestine with the help of the profoundly
anti-Semitic generals of the Polish army.
One may wonder if the State of Israel would
have come into being in 1948 if there had
not been the Holocaust. Recently, a million
and a half Russian Jews were driven to
Israel by anti-Semitism.
Zionism was born at the
end of the 19th century as a
direct answer to the challenge of
anti-Semitism. After the French revolution,
the new national idea took hold of all
European nations, big and small, and all of
the national movements were more or less
anti-Semitic.
The basic belief of
Zionism is that Jews cannot live anywhere
except in the Jewish State, because the
victory of anti-Semitism is inevitable
everywhere. Let the Jews of America rejoice
in their freedom and prosperity – sooner or
later that will come to an end. They are
doomed like Jews everywhere outside Israel.
The new outrage in Paris
only confirms this basic belief. There was
very little real commiseration in Israel.
Rather, a secret sense of triumph. The gut
reaction of ordinary Israelis is: “We told
you so!” and also: “Come quickly, before it
is too late!”
I have often tried to
explain to my Arab friends: the anti-Semites
are the greatest enemy of the Palestinian
people. The anti-Semites have helped drive
the Jews to Palestine, and now they are
doing so again. And some of the new
immigrants will certainly settle beyond the
Green Line in the occupied Palestinian
territories on stolen Arab land.
The fact that Israel
benefits from the Paris attack has led some
Arab media to believe that the whole affair
is really a “false flag” operation. Ergo, in
this case, the Arab perpetrators were really
manipulated by the Israeli Mossad.
After a crime, the first
question is “cui bono”, who benefits?
Obviously, the only winner from this outrage
is Israel. But to draw the conclusion that
Israel is hiding behind the Jihadists is
utter nonsense.
The simple fact is that
all Islamic Jihadism on European soil hurts
only the Muslims. Fanatics of all stripes
generally help their worst enemies. The
three Muslim men who committed the outrages
in Paris certainly did Binyamin Netanyahu a
great favor.
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