The Jews of France have been deeply
involved in “the War of Human Bombs” since October 2000; first of all,
emotionally. The vast majority have been very involved in the cause of
defending Israel.
They have been politically involved
too. Their institutions (particularly the CRIF, the Representative
Council of Jewish Institutions of France) and their press have stood up
against the disinformation of the media, and against the favoritism of
French governments (both right and left) for the Palestinian Arabs.
However, even more than this, the
involvement of the French Jews has been physical. Since the beginning of
the “Intifadat al-Aqsa”, anti-Israel demonstrations have
proliferated. They have been accompanied by anti-Jewish violence. Shouts
have been heard in the streets of Paris; not only “Down with Sharon!”,
but “Death to the Jews!” as well. Hundreds of incidents of anti-Jewish
violence have occurred, in Paris as well as in the provinces,
anti-Semitic graffiti and insults, schools and synagogues burned down,
an attempt to murder a rabbi, etc. The term “Intifada of the
Suburbs” emerged spontaneously, in view of the coexistence in the same
Paris suburbs of significant Jewish communities and communities of North
African origin.
The reaction of the authorities and
the media at first consisted of almost completely ignoring the
phenomenon. Little by little, in view of its magnitude, public opinion
and the government began to take it seriously. Nevertheless, both
communities were urged to abstain from violence; the community from
which Judeophobic violence was coming, and the Jewish community which
had suffered this violence. Likewise in play was the unjust equivalence
asserted by Europe in the Middle East between the violence of the
Palestinian terrorists and Israel's legitimate acts of self-defense.
This equivalence was even more out of place in France where not one
single “anti-Arab” act was committed by the Jews.
