David at The Debate Link links to a column by Mark Steyn about Jews being murdered by Muslims in France.
The article is stirring, but I need more evidence to be persuaded, and so should David. Steyn himself isn’t a reliable source – for instance, Steyn once endorsed the homophobic myth that being gay leads to an early death (From Steyn’s review of a play about Matthew Shepard: “Maybe Matthew Shepard would have died anyway, not at twenty-one but at twenty-five or thirty, not because he was gay and someone killed him but because he was gay and it killed him”).
The evidence in Steyn’s article is entirely anecdotal. Has anyone done an empirical study of the annual rate of violent anti-Semitic incidents in France and in other countries over the past 10 years, for instance?
Some of the statements in Steyn’s story seem amazing and are not attributed.
It’s disgusting that “every public official” in France denying antisemitism – or it would be disgusting, if it were true. From a BBC story about Halimi’s murder:
Among those at Sunday’s rally were members of the government and the opposition, Jewish and anti-racism campaigners, and leaders of the Jewish and other religious communities. […] France’s Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who was at Sunday’s march, said earlier in the week that greed was the main motive.
“But they believed, and I quote, ‘that Jews have money’,” he said. “That’s called anti-Semitism.”
Contrary to Steyn’s claim, it’s clear that at least some prominent public officials are calling this murder antisemitism. Note as well that the “Jews have money” quote that Steyn attributes to a police detective, presumably to imply that French police are antisemites, was (if Sarkozy’s statement was accurate) actually said by the murderers. That’s an appalling error for Steyn to make.
Given these errors, I don’t think it’s justifiable to take any of Steyn’s unattributed statements at face value.
Also, Steyn’s implication that anyone who thinks Israel is the leading threat to world peace must be “to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews” is similar to saying criticism of Israel is antisemitism. It’s hard to say for certain without knowing exactly how the survey was worded.Why couldn’t someone simultaneously oppose antisemitism, but also believe that the most likely hotspot to directly or indirectly cause WW3 is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank? The two views are not mutually exclusive.
I don’t doubt that antisemitism is a serious problem, including in France. But I’m not sure that the incendiary tone and lack of rigor in Steyn’s column is a useful approach to the problem (although it delights France-bashers, I’m sure). I’d recommend reading the “France” section of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s report on antisemitism, instead.
Some interesting tidbits:
* The French Jewish community, at 600,000+, is the largest Jewish community in Europe. “In reaction to the anti-Semitic mood the number of the French Jews who immigrated to Israel in 2002 doubled to 2,566, the highest number since 1972.” At that rate, it doesn’t seem likely that a huge portion of France’s Jews will be immigrating to Israel, as I’ve heard some commentators predict.
* Antisemitic violence peaked in 2000, apparently set off by the Palestinian Intifada. At the time this report was issued, in 2003, violent incidents appeared to be dropping.
* France keeps excellent records of antisemitic incidents, compared to most European countries. This fact should be accounted for – or at least noted – in any country-to-country comparison of incidents.
* “The perpetrators [of antisemitic violence] were only seldom from the extreme right milieu, coming instead mainly from non-organised Maghrebian and North African youths. After interrogating 42 suspects, the police concluded that these are ‘predominantly delinquents without ideology, motivated by a diffuse hostility to Israel, exacerbated by the media representation of the Middle East conflict (…) a conflict which, they see, reproduces the picture of exclusion and failure of which they feel victims in France.”
* Nonetheless, a survey of North African youth in France found that:
* On the other hand, North African youth were more likely than other French youths to think that Jews have too much influence.
(Curtsy to this comments thread at Volokh, which is where I found virtually all the links and info used in this post.)
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The French Jewish community, at 60 million…
Erm, the first line of your link says that 60 million is the entire population of France.
Jews in France (total population: 60 million) ““ the biggest such community in Western Europe (600,000-700,000, half of them living in the Paris area)…
See?
[Geez, that’ll teach me to write late at night when I’m tired! Thanks for pointing out the error – I’ve fixed it. –Amp]
I listen to RFI’s Journal en Français Facile nearly every day. The recent anti-Semitic murder was the lead story for several days and took up about half of the news cast for multiple days. Jacques Chirac went to the funeral of the guy killed.
Officially, the response was about 21764782391649 times what you’d see to a hate crime in the US.
Anti-Semitism used to be a major problem in Europe and it’s not entirely stamped out in France, but it’s only tiny fringe groups that promote it and they run the risk of going to jail. The major problem now is anti-arab prejudice. Ironically, the arguments in favor of this prejudice is that all those arabs are anti-Semitic. You know, all of them.
Les,
Please tell me that you’re not saying that a commitment against Jew hatred leads to hatred of Arabs?
Amp,
While I don’t think your critique is necessarily off, I think it that statistics can’t always tell the whole story. The fact is, for example, that Israel even at the height of the intifada was a very safe place, and there was only one week where a person had a higher chance of being injured in a terrorist incident than a car accident. However, sports teams refused to travel there, tourists stopped coming, downtown areas and clubs hit massive slumps and the economy was shattered. So what’s the truth? The statistics or how they are experienced? And how many individual anecdotes/feelings equal a phenomenon? I’m afraid that your approach to measuring the effects of hate would lead to pooh-poohing racism and bigotry everywhere.
Also, just to note, Israel is not the only place to which French Jews emigrate. The United States and Canada (especially Montreal) are also popular destinations.
” Steyn himself isn’t a reliable source – for instance, Steyn once endorsed the homophobic myth that being gay leads to an early death ”
Steyn also has a history of using any blunt weapon available to thump Islam – in this case, it’s the possibility of an increase in anti-Semitic attacks. I somehow doubt that he would have been quite as interested if Christians were the potential perpetrators. It’s a bit like Bush suddenly discovering a “feminist” side when talking about the Taliban’s misogyny.
BTW, that doesn’t mean I’m dismissing the possibility of a rise in anti-Semitism in France – just that I would want a less slanted source.
MURDER OF FRENCH JEW NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
BY: FERN SIDMAN
The gang that kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered Ilan Halimi, 23, had threatened several prominent businessmen, lawyers and a well-known humanitarian activist, a French newspaper reported Saturday. The daily Liberation reported that the group behind the murder, which authorities have linked to anti-Semitism, tried to extort money from a founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. Also targeted were the director of the Arte TV channel, a Paris lawyer and the head of a supermarket chain, the newspaper reported, citing police officials.
Police investigating the murder of Halimi earlier this month have made several arrests. The suspected gang leader, was arrested Wednesday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and France is seeking his extradition. Fourteen people have been placed under investigation – a step short of being charged – in the case, and two more people were detained Friday for questioning.
[…]
This may be the first act of Hamas terrorism directed against a Jew outside of Israel, but clearly it won’t be the last. Everyday, we are being saturated with the anti-Semitic diatribes of an Iranian President named Ahmadnajed, of Hamas leaders and leading intellectuals. We can no longer deny it. Anti-Semitism is in full swing. It can only get worse.
[The original post quoted the entire article, in full, without making any other comments. I’ve cut out most of the article, and added a link to the full article. –Amp]
“Also, Steyn’s implication that anyone who thinks Israel is the leading threat to world peace must be “to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews” is similar to saying criticism of Israel is antisemitism. ”
I don’t think that is very similar to Steyn’s point at all. That is a fair criticism of many unfair statements about antisemitism, but not this one. If you truly believe that Israel is THE LEADING threat to world peace you have a warped view of the world–and your error probably has to do with antisemitism.
When ever I read about crimes like this, I get a stabbing feeling in my stomach that says “It’s happening again”.
Then I read how these crimes against Jews are used to justify the dreadful policies of the Israeli government and that’s a different pain.
I do believe that anti-semitism is on the rise in the world but one crime does not justify another. And Jew does not = Israeli.
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“Please tell me that you’re not saying that a commitment against Jew hatred leads to hatred of Arabs?”
Nononono. There are people who already hate arabs and they’re looking for excuses and justifications.
I live in France right now, but I’m not really integrated into French society, um, at all, so my impressions could be partially in error. My impression is that a lot is done on an official level to combat anti-semetism and these efforts seem to be successful.
It is also my impression that darn little is done on an official level to combat anti-arab and anti-african prejudice and some politicians are prone to calling the residents of the burbs “scum.” Arab rioting was officially blamed on rap music, not on police harassment, prejudice or anything else the rioters invoked. As an american, there were several things that struck me about the riots last november. One was the very low number of injuries and death, it was almost all limited to property destruction. Another was the “native” french I talked to saying “they are born in france, they are french” which was 100% sincere and which I support, but this same logic is applied to preventing government statistical research or affirmative action programs, while meanwhile people with arab-sounding names don’t get calls back when they apply for jobs. The final interesting thing was the rioters saw themselves as part of a proud french tradition of dissent. We are the new 1968, they said. So both the rioters and the “native” population saw them as entirely french.
The government here did NOTHING to address their concerns, as far as I could tell. Those riots were secular, btw.
I’m bringing this up because I think arabs and africans in France are really getting shafted. And when people talk about anti-semetism, they’re pointing at these shafted folks. People tell them to integrate, but won’t give them jobs. Stories circulate about scary arab and african youths on the metro with pitbulls. Someone very seriously told me that they will throw their pitbull at you. Yeah right. It’s all bogus.
Anti-semetism is completely wrong, of course and should be stopped. However, I feel like some folks in attempting to address that end up scapegoating an already marginalized community. Arabs are the alien other.
Sebastian:
Not quite right — Amp’s statement was more nuanced and skeptical that what you quoted, since this followed directly on your snip above:
“…It’s hard to say for certain without knowing exactly how the survey was worded.Why couldn’t someone simultaneously oppose antisemitism, but also believe that the most likely hotspot to directly or indirectly cause WW3 is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank? The two views are not mutually exclusive.”
Just sayin’
Amp:
Ihave an unfortunate habit of looking in on Indegayforum.org now and then — one of their commenters solemnly intoned, on this very issue, that Leftists need to end their love affair with Radical Islam…
Funny, are there any pictures of leftists holding hands with Saudis?
“Why couldn’t someone simultaneously oppose antisemitism, but also believe that the most likely hotspot to directly or indirectly cause WW3 is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank?”
Because the irrational Arab hatred of Jews and Israel predates the occupation of the West Bank. The occupation or non-occupation of the West Bank hasn’t changed the destruction surrounding countries try to rain down upon Israel.
Lets turn it around. If I said that Muslims (unmodified by hedging or limiting factor) were the leading threat to peace in the world today, it would theoretically be possible to parse that in a way that didn’t indicate prejudice. It would also be somewhat more accurate than suggesting that Israel were the leading threat. But on a statistical basis you would be a fool to do so. A vast majority of people who would say that aren’t being so sharp-knife-edge nuanced. Which is Steyn’s point. In theory you could find a person who would say that Israel was the leading threat to world peace who was not also anti-semitic. But almost all of the people who would actually say that are. It is probably possible in theory to find someone who might say that blacks are statistically less intelligent than whites (which by the way I am offering by example only, not because I believe the statement to be true) who was also not racist. But if you heard someone say that you could suggest that they were racist and you wouldn’t get any argument from me. I certainly wouldn’t spend time making up hypothetical ways for them to get off the hook from that statement.
Sebastian: Woulda been nice to include his qualifier — now you’ve got your position as, ‘well that nuance does not matter. ‘
But it does.
Especially since Steyn is reliable f*cking liar, and Amp was saying that maybe we’d need to see the actual survery question.
That’s all.
Don’t Godwin the discussion, please, with ‘blacks are less intelligent’ comparisions. The point Amp made was simple — Israel is a ‘terrorist threat’ vs. ‘hotbed of conflict’ — not a minor quibble at all.
My “threat construction” trackback addresses why even the “hotspot” analysis really doesn’t validate naming Israel as the biggest threat to world peace (even if one buys that the WB is the most dangerous hotspot). There’s a bunch more steps you’d have to take before you could arrive at the conclusion that Israel is the threat–in fact, if I did think that the the West Bank conflict is the most likely to spark WW3, then I’d probably answer that Iran is the greatest threat to world peace, because they’re the entity most likely to move the conflict from a regional battle to a global war.
I am an American Jew who emigrated to France in 1978. Those of you who call for palpable facts about alleged French anti-Semitism are right to do so. I wish that more Americans were so intelligently cautious about what they read. The U.S. media and American Jewish leaders have distorted the situation (and the latter have been lambasted for their hysteria by French Jewish activists). So here goes, in no special order:
A survey made in May 2005 found 95% of French non-Jews willing to consult Jewish doctors, 92% ready to work for a Jewish boss, 87% amenable to welcoming a Jewish son-in-law or daughter-in-law into the family, and 81% prepared to elect Jewish presidents (France has had two, and a Jewish prime minister, since 1936; one Jewish president, Léon Blum, served twice).
In a poll taken circa 2001, 91% of French Jews declared themselves “happy” or “very happy” to live in France. The CRIF (French Jewry’s political arm) believes that fear of anti-Semitism is NOT the primary motive behind emigration to Israel (aliyah). If the present pace of aliyah were maintained, France would be depopulated of Jews only in 222 years.
A two-year survey(2003-2005), funded in part by the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and conducted by twelve sociologists who fanned out all over France, reached these conclusions: that French anti-Semitism
is “fragmented” and shallow, that it stems mainly from the far-right (Le Pen), that Jews are the best-protected French minority, and that when their socio-economic needs are met, French youths of North African extraction renounce anti-Semitism. (Those of you who read French may wish to consult this study, titled La Tentation Anti-Sémite, by Michel Wieviorka).
Guillaume Weill-Raynal, a French-Jewish lawyer and author of Une Haine Imaginaire? [Are French Jews REALLY Hated?], draws the following conclusion from his meticulous examination of French mainstream reporting: “French media have neither ignored nor excused violence against Jews in the slightest manner.” In their books and interviews, Elie Barnavi, Israel’s ex-ambassador to France, and Shlomo Ben Ami, the former Israeli former minister, give almost uniformly high marks to French mainstream media coverage of issues affecting Israel.
For perspective, the albeit gruesome murder of Ilan Halimi needs to be set aside the recent killings of Alan Berg and Yankel Rosenbaum by American anti-Semites. In its 2005 survey, the B’nai Brith finds one in seven Americans blatantly anti-Semitic. Thirty-five per cent of all hate crimes in New York City are directed against Jews. That is roughly double the percentage of anti-black, anti-Latino, and anti-gay crimes committed in NYC. Reluctant to rake the anti-Semitic muck nearest them, the American mainstream media fail to report the firebombings of U.S. synagogues and the Indiana Holocaust Center. The non-Jewish U.S. press is silent when the president of the theological seminary of American Protestantism’s largest denomination pronounces Judaism a “tumor”. Instead, U.S. reporters fixate on France, and paint the French anti-Semitic. That is both a lie and a smear.
U.S. reporters also slander the France of the past, by omitting bottom lines. Defended by the Left, Dreyfus was ultimately freed, and promoted. Only one Frenchmen in two hundred actively collaborated with the Nazis. An astounding 74.6% of French Jewry survived the German occupation. The historian Asher Cohen (in his book Persécutions et Sauvetages) has established that the rescued owe their lives to the heroism of French non-Jews.
France has long supported the State Of Israel. During the Suez War, French fighter pilots helped to destroy Egypt’s air force. “While Americans were serenading Arab potentates”, writes the French journalist Eric Dior of that period, “French Leftists were exalting Zionist pioneers”. From 1958 to 1981, however, successive Gaullist régimes rebuffed Israel. But since 1981, French left-wing governments and even the heirs to the Gaullists (like Chirac) have mainly smiled upon the Jewish state.
A word about French minorities. In a study of four countries, the Jewish anthropological historian Emmanuel Todd has shown that France integrates its immigrants more swiftly and thorougly than America, Britain and Germany. The current difficulties in French immigrant enclaves are chiefly the product of unemployment reaching forty per cent. Radical Islam has little influence on French North African youths, few of whom frequent mosques.
Thank you for your patience with my outpourings. I hope that you have found them useful.
I was skeptical too, at the outrageous stories I’ve bern hearing. I googled Anti-Semitism in France and found an article, written by a NY Times staff writer, “Anti-Semitism at ground level in France.” It’s the black French Muslims who are actually doing the attacking, but, as usual, the French government is turning a blind eye. Just thought you’d like to know what I found out. Please looking and please reporting. This must not be allowed to happen to ANYONE.
P.S. To my post – the article I wrote about was written just 3 months ago.