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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: So...who feels like writing a guest entry in early August? I need five entries for while I'm on vacation in San Francisco. Write me and let me know. "dufus origin" "the history on rap" "tritium and transportation of watches" "crazy Phoenix driving" "fuck the Cubbies" "Superman fuck hump" "fattest band" "Mandingo cocks" |
07.19.2004
Well, here's something amusing in the daily news: Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has urged all Jews living in France to leave immediately and move to Israel. Now, while immigration (and emigration) is always a hot issue, we all know why the leader of a nation would call upon people to come to his country, right? It's because he honestly and sincerely wants to see them build a better life for themselves, to prosper and succeed in a safe and peaceful atmosphere. HA HA! No, no, I'm kidding, of course. It's because he wants something. But what exactly does he want? That's the interesting question here. The obvious answer, as in almost any political position taken these days, is money: any Jews who leave France (which is, after all, a prosperous first-world nation) and come to Israel would immediately become taxpayers, and more money in the Israeli coffers would mean more bragging rights for Sharon's fiscally shrewd Likud party. But, lest I be accused of stereotyping a Jew of being money-grubbing, there is also the much less tangible but much more important issue of politics. Any French Jew who allowed him- or herself to be swayed by Sharon's hysterical arguments would almost certainly be the sort of Jew who would be sympathetic to the ultraconservative fearmongering of the Likud party -- they would, in other words, be a Sharon voter. But what is Sharon's argument, anyway? It's hard to tell; the French government is so unsure (or is pretending to be, anyway) that they have made it clear that Sharon is no longer welcome in France until he explains himself. This, of course, is just a bit of dramatic posturing by he French; it's quite clear the argument that Ariel is making. "Altogether I have to advocate to our brothers in France: move to Israel as early as possible," said the PM Sunday. "That's what I say to Jews all around the world, but there I think it's a must. They have to move immediately." For what reason? Well, it's pretty much a tenet of Zionism that all Jews should move to Israel p.d.q. (which is exactly the excuse Sharon is using now using to weasel out of the fix his big mouth has gotten him into; spokesman Avi Pazner said the Israeli leader was "misunderstood", and, reversing the clauses that Sharon actually used, claimed that the prime minister "concluded that French Jews, but also those of the entire world, belong in Israel"). There's also the traditional demographic argument that if more Jews do not come to Israel, the Palestinians will soon outnumber the Jews, just like they did before there was an Israel in the middle east -- and that could be a real problem if the government ever gives them the right to vote. But the real reason has been tied by everyone commenting on the case to a very real growth in anti-Semitic activity in France. Acts of anti-Semitism are up this year in France; while Sharon praised the French government for taking action against it, he nonetheless pointed to the increase as evidence of why French Jews should beat it to Israel posthaste. (Hate crimes against Muslims are also on the increase, but oddly enough, Sharon did not mention this.) While Sharon is too politically savvy to come right out and blame the whole thing on Muslims -- perhaps he learned a valuable public relations lesson at Sabra and Shatila -- he did say that the French government is "struggling against the impact of the growth of the Muslim community". The fact that one of the most common hate crimes, the desecration of graves with swastikas, has been committed as often against Muslims as Jews is of no consequence; blame must be laid, however subtlely, at the feet of the Mahometan. So the obvious solution for one of Europe's largest Jewish populations is: come home. Come home to Israel. Come to where you belong. Did the French prime minister call anti-Semitism a "disgrace" and speak out against "intolerable racism"? Did he rail against the "indifference to violence" that plagues French society? Has President Jacques Chirac demanded the full weight of the law be brought to bear against anti-Semites (going so far as to exclude racist crimes from the traditional Bastille Day clemency) even after one of the most notorious attacks was shown to be a hoax? Has the French government in toto shown an eagerness to condemn and combat acts of racist violence by its own people that is frustratingly lacking in the Israeli government? No matter. Come home. France is no place for you. Come to Israel. Strangely, the Jews of France have not leapt to embrace the beloved leader's comments. "These comments do not bring calm, peace and serenity", said Patrick Gaubert, president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism; "I think Mr. Sharon would have done better tonight to have kept quiet." The poor fool obviously doesn't understand the crisis situation he is in. Theo Klein, another delusional French Jew who somehow wormed his way into the position of president of the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France, said that Sharon should let the French Jews take care of their own problems and that "it's not up to him to decide for us". Richard Prasquier, a member of the executive committee of that same organization, accused Sharon of "fanning the flames in an unacceptable way", and even dared to claim that his claim "doesn't reflect the reality of things". How soon these self-hating ingrates forget how, in 1982, Ariel Sharon showed the world how to deal with anti-Semitism once and for all! "We see the spread of the wildest anti-Semitism (in France)," said Sharon. The high Muslim population leads to "a different kind of anti-Semitism, based on anti-Israel feelings and propaganda." Now, what reason would Muslims have for being anti-Israel? It must have its origins in anti-Semitism, right? I mean, there can't be any rational explanation as to why a Muslim would bear a grudge against the government of Israel. And there's no arguing the statistics: there have been eight more acts of vandalism, arson, assault or attempted assault against French Jews so far in 2004 than in all of 2003. Just one question, though. I ask in all earnestness, because I, after all, am not a Jew. Indeed, I am half-Arab, and therefore genetically an anti-Semite. If you were a Jew, where would you feel safer? In France, where in the face of rising anti-Semitism (which, though ugly, has yet to take a single life), the government is responding in the strongest possible terms in an attempt to forestall widespread racist violence before it even begins, and where the leaders daily speak out against the evils and horrors of race hatred? Or in Israel, where millions of people are systematically disenfranchised by virtue of their race, and where they often respond with horrendous, murderous terrorism, causing the death of hundreds a year -- and where the government responds by increasing its oppression of the disenfranchised and by turning a blind eye to retaliatory violence by its own people? If you were a Jew, or indeed if you are a Jew, where would you feel safer with an Arab sitting right next to you -- in a cafe in Paris, or on a crowded bus in the West Bank? Come home. Come home and be safe. Come, o Jews of France, to your Israel. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success." (William Saro) |