Despite some favorable periods, throughout much of
the history of modern Zionism, France has acted in an unsympathetic and
even hostile manner towards the Jewish state and Zionism. Some of the more
flagrant examples of this are when the popular French daily Liberation
called the brillant and life-saving Entebbe rescue mission in 1976
“Israeli terrorism”. In the same period the then Prime Minister of France,
Jacques Chirac made provisions to supply Saadam-Hussein’s Iraq a nuclear
reactor which was destroyed in 1981 by the IDF.
Little has changed as the French media and
politicians frequently berate the beseiged Jewish democracy. While the
French Jewish community produced – and continues to do so – some laudable
Jewish nationalists, it has, as well, contributed individual Jews and
organizations that have led the way in attacks on Israel and Zionism. This
tendancy was noted early by Theodore Herzl who polemicized against the “Alliance
Israelite” and other elements of French Jewry. More recently a good
number of French Jewish intellectuals have lambasted Israel and the
Zionist ideology, which only encourages non-Jews to follow in their path.
