Former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner says “France has always been antisemitic.” Has it really? “‘France has always been antisemitic,’ former French foreign minister says,” by Mathilda Heller, Jerusalem Post, October 22, 2024:
Kouchner lamented a lack of knowledge of Jewish history: “We talk about colonization, about hatred, about territorial expansion, about genocide. But we talk about genocide without knowing what it really means.”
What Kouchner ought to be said is something much stronger and to the real point: when people now accuse Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, they do not understand what “genocide” means. Israel is making every effort to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas is doing everything it can to maximize them. There has been no mass murder of Gazans, no gas chambers, no portable killing wagons, no shots to the back of the head with the victims then toppling one by one into huge pits.
He did, however, add that, with the war, many might find it hard “not to be antisemitic when you see the destruction caused by the Israeli army in Gaza.”
Really? This is a strange and outrageous remark, “explaining” and, in a way, justifying, antisemitism, trying to “understand” the upsurge in antisemitism, seeing it as a legitimate reaction to “the destruction” in Gaza. Kouchner should have said the very opposite. He should, that is, have said this: “The destruction in Gaza is a result of Hamas’ deliberately placing its combatants and weapons in civilian areas. And people ought to understand that when Hamas uses the people of Gaza as human shields, it is not always possible for the IDF to prevent civilian casualties. But it does its best. By March, the IDF had already dropped nine million leaflets, sent fifteen million text messages, made sixteen million robocalls. How many millions more, of all three kinds, has the IDF sent since March?” Kouchner, who is clearly afraid to stand up for Israel, should have said “only antisemites ignore all the ways that Israel is trying to keep the number of casualties low, and all the ways that Hamas is trying to keep them high.”
Kouchner’s “understanding” of antisemitism not as a pathological condition, but as a perfectly understandable reaction to all he things he is blaming Israel for — “war, devastation, and destruction” — is disturbing.
Again, what Kouchner should have said is that the mainstream media’s coverage of the war in Gaza is filled with an anti-Israel animus. Many of the reporters in Gaza are Palestinians themselves, while the European reporters covering Israel and the Palestinians, like those working for the BBC, have long taken the side of the Arabs, and have filled the airwaves with highly tendentious accounts of the fighting in Gaza, on the “war, devastation, and destruction” that Kouchner thinks explains, and even seemingly justifies, antisemitism. They report on “schools” and “mosques” and “hospitals” and “apartments” in Gaza that have been bombed, without explaining that those schools, mosques, hospitals, and apartment houses are places where Hamas stores weapons, and rocket launchers and hides its fighters.
Bernard Kouchner does not dare to mention, much less discuss at length, the fact that the steep rise in antisemitism in France, as elsewhere in Europe, is the result of the increase in the Muslim population. For Muslims are taught that Jews are “the strongest in enmity to the Muslims,” that Jews poisoned Muhammad, that Jews are constantly scheming against the wellbeing of Muslims.
Robert Spencer had made a useful compendium of Qur’anic verses that describe the Jews: the Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the well-being of the Muslims. The Jews in the Qur’an are called the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they claim that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); they love to listen to lies (5:41); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13). They are disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more. They are under Allah’s curse (9:30), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29).
What does Bernard Kouchner make of those verses? Is he willing to admit that they might explain why most Muslims think so badly of Jews? And why did he, in his discussion of antisemitism in France, leave out all mention of the Muslims who are the main carriers of the virus, and inflict so much casual violence on inoffensive Jews at the present time?
Ray Jarman says
I would like to be given the opportunity to ask Bernard Kouchner if he thinks that the allies in WWII should not have destroyed Dresden which hastened the end of the conflict, thus saving thousands of lives. Maybe he would have rather had thousands of Americans and some allies be killed rather than nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Israel has bent over backwards to prevent harm to incontestable beings that would kill every Jew were the shoe on the other foot.
I never heard one peep from the likes of Kouchner or other Jewish bashers when Hamas and Hezbollah lobbed missiles into Israel. They have no concept it is to live in constant fear that one’s neighbors will kill him/her with an explosion after all it was only a few Jews killed. Even within their own countries, they live above the fray of the person working and living in apartments within the cities.
gravenimage says
France’s Former Foreign Minister Doesn’t Understand Antisemitism As Well As He Thinks He Does
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Important analysis from Hugh Fitzgerald.
Jacob Kovalio says
Dr. Kushner’s remarks are a typical display of SINISTERISM (my neologism for Leftism from the Latin SINISTER, for LEFT). History teaches that Jew-hatred exists in larger or smaller “pockets” in all societies (without exception) , including Israel ( among Leftists – Miko Peled, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim etc.- and on the right, the ultra-Orthodox). You , Mr. Fitzgerald , have given one of the best examples reinforcing the “pocket theory” : the split in French society during the Dreyfuss crisis. The most virulent post-October 7, Jihadi-Lefist anti-Zionist [politically antisemitic] tsunami centered in our universities is the direct result of the lack of appropriate Conservative reactions to the nasty activism of what I call SAIDSKYITE [Said/Chomsky] academic activism over the past 4 decades (although Said died in 2003). Said’s Orientalism drew all of its fraudulent anti-Western, anti-American and antisemitic ideas from the work of fellow Egyptian and Jihadi propagandist – Sayyd ‘Qutb. Columbia became the core of Jihadi/Leftist anti-Americanism and antisemitism after October 7 thanks to the prep work of Said’s disciples: Khalidi/Dabashi/Massad. Chomsky’s crass radical Leftist anti-Westernism, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism need no introduction. I am a subscriber
Skeptiker says
Mr. Fitzgerald hat wie immer den Nagel auf den Kopf getroffen. Seiner Analyse kann ich zu 100% zustimmen. Ich frage mich nur, ist das Unwissenheit, mangelnde Bildung oder Bösartigkeit, dass führende Politiker diesen geistigen Spagat vollführen, um ihr Versagen in der Migrationspolitik zu kaschieren.
Ihre Erklärungsversuche bleiben im Vagen und lavieren um den heißen Brei herum. Für mich ein Totalausfall der westlichen Politik und für die Zukunft nichts Gutes verheißend.
abu taleb says
He is trying to whitewash the incapability of the France government to curb the antisemitism by saying it is French culture to be antisemitism
Left Coast says
Anti-semitism has been driven in Europe by the Roman Church since before the Crusades. The Crusaders killed many J*ws in their middle east adventures. Standard practice for the last 1000 years in Europe as various Popes called them Christ killers.
Many haters & Replacement Theology pushers today are followers of the current Pope . . . who is a perfect candidate for the False Prophet of Revelations.
As the plans seem to be coming together for the construction of the 3rd Temple . . . the stage is set ! ! !