Monday, Nov. 24, 2003

What's Causing the Anti-Semitic Attacks?

By JAMES GRAFF

When French president Jacques Chirac learned on Nov. 15 that a Jewish school had been set ablaze in the Paris suburb of Gagny, he sounded the tocsin. Officials flocked to the scene of the fire, and, 48 hours later, Chirac summoned his closest advisers to the Elysée Palace to brainstorm new ways to fight anti-Semitism. "When one attacks a Jew in France, it's France in its entirety that is attacked," he told reporters. "Anti-Semitism is contrary to all the values of France."

Chirac has said that before. But this time, something was different. When a wave of anti-Semitic attacks grabbed headlines last year, he downplayed the problem. Now, against the deadly background of the Nov. 15 synagogue bombings in Turkey, he showed a sense of urgency that, for many French Jews, has been far too long in coming. Statistics show a marked rise in anti-Semitic acts from the autumn of 2000 to late 2002, and a considerable dip over the last year or so. There's been better security at Jewish institutions. And, until recently, fewer people speaking up. "People felt there was no response from the government, and even stopped reporting attacks because it led nowhere," says Pauline Bebe, a rabbi in Paris' 18th arrondissement. "Now they feel there's a will to stop this." Chirac is determined to swing the full weight of the French state at the problem. Good for him. But he may find that it lies beyond his reach.

The same day Chirac announced his program to improve security for French Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suggested he might not have bothered. "The best solution to anti-Semitism is immigration to Israel," Sharon said on a visit to Italy. "It is the only place on earth where Jews can live as Jews." It's the classic Zionist argument, familiar to Paris rabbi Tom Cohen, who insists that "Jews have not only the right, but an obligation to be outside Israel. Israel needs a strong diaspora."

Sharon promotes immigration to counter the demographic threat that Jews will become a minority in Israel and the occupied territories. In doing so, he points to the link Chirac avoids: just as Jews are connected to Israel, some attacks on Jews are linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That link is of special importance in France, which has the E.U.'s largest population of both Jews (600,000) and Muslims (5 million). Chirac, the political survivor, doesn't talk about the agents of anti-Semitism in France. "France is supposed to be one big happy family," says Emmanuel Weintraub, spokesman for the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). "When Chirac beat Le Pen, there were lots of Algerian and Moroccan flags flying in the crowd at Place de la République. That's his constituency and he doesn't want to hurt their feelings." In a televised debate last week, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy rejected any link between Israel and anti-Semitic attacks in France. "Anyone who explains the resurgence of anti-Semitism by the Middle East conflict is saying something wrong," he said. "Anti-Semitism existed before the existence of Israel."

That's true, but what does it prove? As haunted as they are by the Continent's traditional anti-Semitism, European Jews say what they experience now is something else. "Everyone knows that today's anti-Semitism in France is coming from young Muslims," says Bebe. Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident who is now an Israeli minister, sees a "new anti-Semitism" as a cocktail of the traditional hatred, anti-Israeli feeling among Muslims, and anti-Americanism. "We used to keep out of commenting on these attacks," says an Israeli diplomat in Europe. "But our approach has changed because of the link between anti-Semitism and Israel."

It ought to be simple to distinguish between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israeli policies. Yet some of the most rancorous polemics in France in recent months have been over precisely where to draw that line. Many argue that the French media are systematically skewed against Israel. Others complain that criticizing Sharon quickly leads to charges of anti-Semitism. The fierceness of the debate augurs poorly for Europe's relations with Israel. Israelis blame Europe for being pusillanimous and pro-Palestinian; Europeans blame Israel for being harsh and inhuman. Yet their ties are inextricable. "Israel is a product of the Shoah, and the Shoah is a product of Europe," says Rony Brauman, former president of Médecins sans Frontières and a fierce Jewish critic of Israel. Chirac's initiative on anti-Semitism may help tear down one obstacle to better relations between Europe and Israel. But a new one is going up in the form of the security fence in the West Bank.