by Ben Cohen
“I say to the people in general who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish compatriots, that this time [antisemitism] cannot be accepted.”
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced antisemitism in a
searing speech to the National Assembly. Photo: Screenshot |
Valls was speaking following the funerals of seven of the victims of last week’s Islamist terrorist attacks in France, in which a total of 17 people, including four Jews trapped in Friday’s siege at the HyperCacher market in eastern Paris, were murdered in cold blood.
Though his speech covered a wide range of issues, and included an emotional plea to recognize that France is “at war with jihadism and terrorism…not against Islam and Muslims,” Valls was determined to highlight the threat posed by antisemitism, declaring: “I say to the people in general who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish compatriots, that this time [antisemitism] cannot be accepted.”
The address brought to mind the impassioned “J’Accuse” letter, penned by the great French writer Emile Zola in 1898, in response to the antisemitism displayed by the French government during the infamous trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish military officer who was convicted and publicly humiliated on fabricated charges of treason. In that letter, Zola spoke with disgust “of the hunting for the ‘dirty Jews,’ which dishonors our time.”
When Valls asked with anger, “How can we accept that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can be heard on the streets?” the echoes of Zola’s words were unmistakable.
In his speech, Valls was explicit that the “first question that has to be dealt with clearly is the struggle against antisemitism.”
“History has taught us that the awakening of antisemitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force,” Valls said. Recalling a series of antisemitic outrages in France in recent years, such as the abduction, torture and murder of the young Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi in 2006, the murder of three small children and a rabbi by an Islamist gunman at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, and the rape of a young Jewish woman during an antisemitic assault on a Jewish home in the Paris suburb of Creteil in December 2014, Valls asserted that these and other incidents “did not not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.”
“How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred [during the Nazi Holocaust] 70 years ago, that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can be heard on the streets?” Valls asked, the indignation in his voice steadily rising. “How can we accept that French people can be murdered for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a Tunisian citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be safe, is killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat?”
Valls observed that there “is a historical antisemitism that goes back centuries.” But, he added, “there is also a new antisemitism that is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite dishes, against the backdrop of loathing of the State of Israel, which advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews.”
Implored the French Prime Minister: “It has to be spelled out – the right words must be used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism.”
Valls emphasized an additional point that he has made repeatedly over the last few days: that a France shorn of its Jewish community would no longer be France. “This is the message we have to communicate loud and clear,” he said. “How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked, ‘who is your enemy,’ the response is ‘the Jew?’ When the Jews of France are attacked, France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget that.”
The speech was also an opportunity for Valls to directly confront Dieudonné M’Bala M’bala, the anti-Semitic French provocateur infamous for devising the “quenelle,” an inverted Nazi salute, as well as for his frequent mocking of the Holocaust. Yesterday, the French authorities confirmed that Dieudonné, along with 53 other defendants, had been arrested for offenses including hate speech, antisemitism, and glorifying terrorism.
Refusing to mention the self-styled comedian by name, Valls spoke of “the indignity of a serial hater having a full house on Saturday night, when the country was mourning for what happened [at the HyperCacher market] in Porte de Vincennes.” As the National Assembly rose in a standing ovation for the Prime Minister, Valls thundered, “Let us never pass over these matters in silence, and let justice be implacable with those who preach hate. And I say that emphatically here at the National Assembly.”
Valls ended his speech by examining the difference between blasphemy and hate speech, a particularly pregnant theme in France in the wake of the massacre carried out at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. “When a young man or woman, a citizen, has doubts and approaches me or the Minister of Education with the question: ‘But I don’t understand, how come you want to silence this comedian, and you put the Charlie Hebdo journalists up on a pedestal,’ there is a fundamental difference,” he remarked. “There is a fundamental difference between the freedom to be insolent – blasphemy is not a crime and never will be – and antisemitism, racism, excusing terrorism and Holocaust denial, which are crimes that the courts must punish with ever greater severity.”
Just as striking as the raw emotion which characterized the Prime Minister’s address was the lack of media attention, certainly in the English language, given to his comments about antisemitism and the future of French Jews. Leading outlets, among them the BBC, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail and English-language broadcaster France 24, either made no mention of the sections of Valls’ speech that dealt with antisemitism, or buried them deep in their reports.
An indication, perhaps, that the lack of outrage which so incensed the French Prime Minister will continue for as long as journalists and reporters fail to acknowledge that hatred of Jews lies at the core of Islamist ideology, just as it did among the nationalists and xenophobes whom Emile Zola confronted more than a century ago.
Be sure to watch these excerpts from the address of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to the National Assembly. The Algemeiner is also pleased to provide a translation of his remarks on antisemitism as a service to our readers.
Following is a translation of the remarks on antisemitism delivered by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to the National Assembly on January 13, 2015:
…The first question that has to be clearly dealt with is the struggle against antisemitism. History has taught us that the awakening of antisemitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force. Since Ilan Halimi in 2006, after the crimes of Toulouse, antisemitic acts in France have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the gestures, the shameful attacks, as we saw in Creteil a few weeks ago, which I mentioned here in the Chamber, and which did not not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.
There is a huge level of concern, that fear which we felt at the HyperCacher at Porte de Vincennes and in the synagogue de la Victoire on Sunday night. How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred 70 years ago, how can we accept that cries of “death to the Jews” can be heard on the streets? How can we accept these acts that I have just mentioned? How can we accept that French people can be murdered for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a Tunisian citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be safe, is killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat because he is Jewish? This is not acceptable and I say to the people in general who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish compatriots, that this time it cannot be accepted, that we must stand up and say what’s really going on.
There is a historical antisemitism that goes back centuries, but there is also a new antsemitism that is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite dishes, against the backdrop of the loathing of the State of Israel, and which advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews. It has to be spelled out, the right words must be used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism.
( …) Without its Jews France would not be France, this is the message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We haven’t shown enough outrage. How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked “Who is your enemy” the response is “the Jew?” When the Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it.
And to how to accept the indignity of a serial hater having a full house on Saturday night, when the country was mourning for what happened in Porte de Vincennes? Let us never pass over these matters in silence, and let justice be implacable with those who preach hate. And I say that emphatically here at the National Assembly.
And to finish my remarks, Ladies and Gentleman, when someone, a young man or woman, a citizen, has doubts and approaches me or the Minister of Education with the question: “But I don’t understand, how come you want to silence this comedian, and you put the Charlie Hebdo journalists up on a pedestal?” There is a fundamental difference – and this is the battle that we have to win, educating our young people – there is a fundamental difference between the freedom to be insolent – blasphemy is not a crime and never will be – there is a fundamental difference between that liberty and anti-Semitism, racism, excusing terrorism and Holocaust denial, which are crimes that the courts must punish with ever greater severity.
Ben Cohen
Source: http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/14/we-havent-shown-enough-outrage-french-pm-issues-blistering-denunication-of-antisemitism-video/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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