France, the Jews and Israel

Douglas at Last of the famous international playboys posts two long excerpts in translation from Le Monde, the first by Yonathan Arfi, President of the Jewish Students' Union of France, the second by Serge Klarsfeld. Yonathan Arfi:

Don't... tell us yet again that since the authorities are aware of the situation we can rest reassured. That is just what is so frightening: they're doing their jobs and it's obviously not enough.

On November 17, 2003, in a metro station, a young boy was repeatedly kicked in the stomach because he had been seen opening a Hebrew prayer book. On November 22 in Nice, two children were beaten and had to suffer hearing "Dirty Jews, we'll burn you!"

On November 24, when school let out in Pavillon-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis), two children were chased by people shouting "Dirty Jews!" The same day, a mother in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, got a letter that concluded with the following words: "Sixty years back, your sons would have kept out of sight, their tails between their legs and yellow stars on their hearts." On December 8, on a commuter train platform, a young girl was punched because she let a necklace with a Hebrew letter on it slip out over the collar of her shirt.

You were saying, Noam? (See Simply breathtaking - old normblog site, December 4).

Serge Klarsfeld:

It is worth noting that from the Revolution to Liberation, France was a consistent adversary of the Jewish nation: "Grant the Jews nothing as a nation, everything as individuals" (Clermont Tonnerre, December 23 1789).

The Zionist enterprise, more or less supported by the German empire before 1914, was opposed before and after the First World War by French foreign policy and by the greater part of French Israelites. There was only a window of 20 years (1946-1967) that witnessed a crisis between France and the Arab world and support for the new Jewish state.
.....
If there is a mistrust between the majority of French Jews and the successive governments of France, this is because the latter have implemented a deliberately pro-Arab policy to which the public assented.

Read both of Douglas's translated excerpts in full.

(Updated at 12.20 AM on January 13: see the corrections now made to this post here.)