If it were not so said, it would make an addition to my "Theatre of the Absurd" collection (JPost repeats here the information provided by LeFigaro):
"A man engaged in a shoot-out with French police on Wednesday, suspected of killing four people at a Jewish school this week, claims to be linked to al-Qaida, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaida," Gueant told journalists at the scene of the siege.
He also said the man had been in Afghanistan. "He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," Gueant said."
My comment:
Sadly, I am pretty sure that most of the readers see nothing unusual about this claim. Yet, think for a moment about the links between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Al Qaida, on the other hand, and France and Palestinian children on the other. However outraged you may be about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, you will have hard time connecting it to the events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Al Qaida without accepting some kind of "global Jihad" point of view or taking a point that all of the World's troubles are faults of Israel and the Jews.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Is antisemitism dead, Ms. Ashton?
Catherine Ashton unwittingly has made a very charged statement:
"Speaking in Brussels at a meeting with Palestinian youth, Ashton said that "When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what happened in Norway last year, we know what is happening in Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and other places- we remember young people and children who lose their lives," she said."
Two comments:
1. What happened in Toulouse resembles what happened in Norway - these were both deliberate attacks against children on the basis of the political convictions/religious beliefs of their parents. Syria and Gaza hardly belong to the same category - the deaths that happened there resulted from war, and even though these deaths are no less tragic, putting all four events in the same line diminishes the significance of Ms. Ashton's condemnation of the hatred that motivated attacks in Toulouse and Norway.
2. It is not clear from Ms. Ashton statements which particular deaths in Gaza she meant - those caused by the Israeli reprisals or those that result from the not infrequent explosions in the terrorist workshops, routinely located in densely populated neighborhoods, and the crude rockets launched towards Israel, which sometimes fall while still over Gaza. In general, there are many things that she did not say explicitly, while allowing her statement to fit easily with widespread anti-Israeli and antisemitic stereotypes.
3. Ashton seems to imply that attacks against Jews are somehow justified by the Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. In doing so she however risks crossing the boundary between supposedly legitimate criticism of Israel as a country, and blaming all Jews for the Israeli actions, just because most of the Israelis are Jewish. In short, her statement has clear antisemitic connotations.
It is worth contrasting Ms. Ashton's statement with the ones made by the UN Secretary General and the US, which withheld unhelpful comparisons and stuck to mentioning only what is relevant to the case: the country where it happened and the community which was targeted:
"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Toulouse attack. In a statement released late Monday, Ban stated that he "condemns in the strongest possible terms this act of violence and expresses his sincere condolences to the victims' families and the Jewish community, as well as to the government and people of France."
The US also added its condemnation over the attack, as State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stated Monday that the US was "shocked and saddened to learn of the horrific attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. We join the Government of France in condemning this unprovoked and vicious act of violence.""
Later update:
1. Obviously, I was not the only one who found the statement discussed above antisemitically charged: Baroness Ashton has eventually apologized for it.
2. French, on the other hand, have honorably showed today that they will not justify any kind of killing.
"Speaking in Brussels at a meeting with Palestinian youth, Ashton said that "When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what happened in Norway last year, we know what is happening in Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and other places- we remember young people and children who lose their lives," she said."
Two comments:
1. What happened in Toulouse resembles what happened in Norway - these were both deliberate attacks against children on the basis of the political convictions/religious beliefs of their parents. Syria and Gaza hardly belong to the same category - the deaths that happened there resulted from war, and even though these deaths are no less tragic, putting all four events in the same line diminishes the significance of Ms. Ashton's condemnation of the hatred that motivated attacks in Toulouse and Norway.
2. It is not clear from Ms. Ashton statements which particular deaths in Gaza she meant - those caused by the Israeli reprisals or those that result from the not infrequent explosions in the terrorist workshops, routinely located in densely populated neighborhoods, and the crude rockets launched towards Israel, which sometimes fall while still over Gaza. In general, there are many things that she did not say explicitly, while allowing her statement to fit easily with widespread anti-Israeli and antisemitic stereotypes.
3. Ashton seems to imply that attacks against Jews are somehow justified by the Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. In doing so she however risks crossing the boundary between supposedly legitimate criticism of Israel as a country, and blaming all Jews for the Israeli actions, just because most of the Israelis are Jewish. In short, her statement has clear antisemitic connotations.
It is worth contrasting Ms. Ashton's statement with the ones made by the UN Secretary General and the US, which withheld unhelpful comparisons and stuck to mentioning only what is relevant to the case: the country where it happened and the community which was targeted:
"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Toulouse attack. In a statement released late Monday, Ban stated that he "condemns in the strongest possible terms this act of violence and expresses his sincere condolences to the victims' families and the Jewish community, as well as to the government and people of France."
The US also added its condemnation over the attack, as State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stated Monday that the US was "shocked and saddened to learn of the horrific attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. We join the Government of France in condemning this unprovoked and vicious act of violence.""
Later update:
1. Obviously, I was not the only one who found the statement discussed above antisemitically charged: Baroness Ashton has eventually apologized for it.
2. French, on the other hand, have honorably showed today that they will not justify any kind of killing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)