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Against Racism, for Antisemitism: The Message of a March in Paris
Youths take part in the occupation of a street in front of the building of the Sciences Po University in support of Palestinians in Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Paris, France, April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
JNS.org – Thousands of people marched through Paris at the end of March in what was billed as a protest against racism. It was another display of the long-standing alliance between the far left and Islamist groups, exemplified by the numerous Palestinian flags dotted alongside the red banners deployed by the organizers.
The march illustrated how the term “racism” has been appropriated by parts of the left to describe measures aimed at combating the spread of Islamism. Many of the demonstrators lashed out at Bruno Retailleau, the French interior minister, for his allegedly racist statements about Algeria, a French colony until its independence in 1962, and his support for a ban on the wearing of the Islamic veil—a rule that is imposed on women alone—in French institutions of higher education.
Yet closer inspection of both issues reveals that Retailleau has not uttered racist comments on either. On Algeria, Retailleau’s complaint is that the authorities in Algiers have consistently refused to accept Algerian nationals slated for deportation by France, including one man who carried out a deadly terrorist attack in the city of Mulhouse in February, leading him to warn that a 1968 agreement facilitating Algerian immigration to France would be reviewed unless that position is reversed. On the veil, he has eschewed bigoted language about “Islam” and “foreigners,” arguing instead that the “veil is not merely a piece of fabric; it is a banner for Islamism and a symbol of the subjugation of women to men.”
Once upon a time, that was an assertion made by the left.
But perhaps the most egregious aspect of the demonstration was its contemptuous approach to the problem of antisemitism, which has risen precipitously in France, as elsewhere in Europe, in the 18 months that have elapsed since the Hamas mass atrocities in Israel. There were no banners, no chants, no signs condemning the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust and its consequent unleashing of antisemitic rhetoric and violence against Jewish communities across the globe.
Indeed, the entire event suggested that in order to combat racism, the French far left—a large bloc that won 182 parliamentary seats in last year’s legislative elections—has embraced Jew-hatred as a strategy. A poster publicizing the march urged attendees to “fight the extreme right, its ideas and its networks.” To accentuate its point, the poster was dominated by an image of Cyril Hanouna, a right-wing pundit of Tunisian Jewish origin.
Hanouna was displayed in extreme close-up with his eyes narrowed in hostility and a curving, beak-like nose protruding over a snarling mouth. You don’t have to be an antisemitism expert to trace the lineage of an image like this one. In the French context, it is painfully reminiscent of the crude propaganda aimed at Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish army officer falsely convicted of espionage in 1894 amid a wave of bestial antisemitic violence.
It also brought to mind the Nazi demonization of the Jews and, more recently, social media memes like the “Happy Merchant,” an antisemitic caricature much loved by semi-literate, far-right delinquents like the American Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
The offending image of Hanouna was eventually withdrawn but not before the guilty party here—the far-left “La France Insoumise” (“France Rising”)—angrily voiced its outrage at the accusation of antisemitism (a routine tactic whenever someone has the temerity to suggest that the far left is hostile to Jews qua Jews.) The party’s leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, visibly lost his temper when asked about the image during a television interview, bellowing the words “Enough is Enough!” at news anchor Francis Letellier.
Yet for all of Mélenchon’s protestations, this is exactly what we have come to expect from him. Mélenchon has ventured into antisemitism several times in his career. Random highlights include his 2013 statement accusing the then-Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, who is Jewish, of no longer “thinking in French but thinking in the language of international finance.” More recently, he leapt to the defense of his comrade Jeremy Corbyn, the antisemitic former leader of the British Labour Party, declaring that “Corbyn had to endure without help the crude accusation of antisemitism from the chief rabbi of England and the various Likud networks of influence.” He then added that Corbyn, “instead of fighting back, spent his time apologizing and giving pledges. (…) I will never give in to it for my part.”
Along with the various Islamist associations present in France, La France Insoumise has been a key transmitter of antisemitism in the wake of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, at the same time dismissing outright, much as Corbyn did in Britain, the concerns of the Jewish community. French President Emmanuel Macron alluded to this in a speech on April 2, when he presented an award on behalf of LICRA, a long-established French organization that combats racism and antisemitism. “The antisemitic poison consists of only one ingredient, hatred … a hatred born on the far right, which has prospered on the far right and has managed to spread beyond the far right,” Macron stated. “Today, unfortunately, it has reached certain ranks of the far left and the left, for whom anti-Zionism serves as an alibi for the expression of antisemitism.”
While these sentiments are laudable, the historical record shows that the far left has often trafficked in the hatred of Jews with the same enthusiasm as the Nazis and ultranationalists on the facing side of the horseshoe. As I wrote last year, anti-Zionism in our time has undergone a process of Nazification to the point where, in my view, we should remove the hyphen from this term to underline that what is presented as political opposition to the Zionist movement is more properly understood as a full-blown antisemitic conspiracy theory with the State of Israel at its core.
The unmistakable message delivered by the Paris march against racism, along with satellite marches in other French cities, was this: Jews are not allies; Jews fabricate claims of bigotry and discrimination against them; and Jews are guilty of perpetrating a “genocide” against Palestinians rooted in “Zionist ideology.” In the ultimate irony, the implication here is that to be a good anti-racist, it helps if you are an antisemite.
The post Against Racism, for Antisemitism: The Message of a March in Paris first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says Iran Must Give Up Dream of Nuclear Weapon or Face Harsh Response
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Monday he believes Iran is intentionally delaying a nuclear deal with the United States and that it must abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon or face a possible military strike on Tehran’s atomic facilities.
“I think they’re tapping us along,” Trump told reporters after US special envoy Steve Witkoff met in Oman on Saturday with a senior Iranian official.
Both Iran and the United States said on Saturday that they held “positive” and “constructive” talks in Oman. A second round is scheduled for Saturday, and a source briefed on the planning said the meeting was likely to be held in Rome.
The source, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the discussions are aimed at exploring what is possible, including a broad framework of what a potential deal would look like.
“Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Asked if US options for a response include a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said: “Of course it does.”
Trump said the Iranians need to move fast to avoid a harsh response because “they’re fairly close” to developing a nuclear weapon.
The US and Iran held indirect talks during former President Joe Biden’s term but they made little, if any progress. The last known direct negotiations between the two governments were under then-President Barack Obama, who spearheaded the 2015 international nuclear deal that Trump later abandoned.
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No Breakthrough in Gaza Talks, Egyptian and Palestinian Sources Say
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the defunct Gaza ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said on Monday.
The sources said Hamas had stuck to its position that any agreement must lead to an end to the war in Gaza.
Israel, which restarted its military campaign in Gaza last month after a ceasefire agreed in January unraveled, has said it will not end the war until Hamas is stamped out. The terrorist group has ruled out any proposal that it lay down its arms.
But despite that fundamental disagreement, the sources said a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya had shown some flexibility over how many hostages it could free in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel should a truce be extended.
An Egyptian source told Reuters the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages. Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Army Radio on Monday that Israel was seeking the release of around 10 hostages, raised from previous Hamas consent to free five.
Hamas has asked for more time to respond to the latest proposal, the Egyptian source said.
“Hamas has no problem, but it wants guarantees Israel agrees to begin the talks on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” leading to an end to the war, the Egyptian source said.
AIRSTRIKES
Hamas terrorists freed 33 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees during the six-week first phase of the ceasefire which began in January. But the second phase, which was meant to begin at the start of March and lead to the end of the war, was never launched.
Meanwhile, 59 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of the terrorists. Israel believes up to 24 of them are alive.
Palestinians say the wave of Israeli attacks since the collapse of the ceasefire has been among the deadliest and most intense of the war, hitting an exhausted population surviving in the enclave’s ruins.
In Jabalia, a community on Gaza’s northern edge, rescue workers in orange vests were trying to smash through concrete with a sledgehammer to recover bodies buried underneath a building that collapsed in an Israeli strike.
Feet and a hand of one person could be seen under a concrete slab. Men carried a body wrapped in a blanket. Workers at the scene said as many as 25 people had been killed.
The Israeli military said it had struck there against terrorists planning an ambush.
In Khan Younis in the south, a camp of makeshift tents had been shredded into piles of debris by an airstrike. Families had returned to poke through the rubbish in search of belongings.
“We used to live in houses. They were destroyed. Now, our tents have been destroyed too. We don’t know where to stay,” said Ismail al-Raqab, who returned to the area after his family fled the raid before dawn.
EGYPT’S SISI MEETS QATARI EMIR
The leaders of the two Arab countries that have led the ceasefire mediation efforts, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met in Doha on Sunday. The Egyptian source said Sisi had called for additional international guarantees for a truce agreement, beyond those provided by Egypt and Qatar themselves.
US President Donald Trump, who has backed Israel’s decision to resume its campaign and called for the Palestinian population of Gaza to leave the territory, said last week that progress was being made in returning the hostages.
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Iranian Foreign Minister to Visit Moscow Ahead of Second Iran-US Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks as he meets with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, in Baghdad, Iraq October 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Saad/File Photo
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.
Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Oman on Saturday, during which Omani envoy Badr al-Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.
Both sides described the talks in Oman as “positive,” although a senior Iranian official told Reuters the meeting “was only aimed at setting the terms of possible future negotiations.”
Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Araqchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held “soon” in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.
Tehran has approached the talks warily, doubting the likelihood of an agreement and suspicious of Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran if there is no deal.
Washington aims to halt Tehran’s sensitive uranium enrichment work – regarded by the United States, Israel and European powers as a path to nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian energy production.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araqchi will “discuss the latest developments related to the Muscat talks” with Russian officials.
Moscow, a party to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, has supported Tehran’s right to have a civilian nuclear program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on vital state matters, distrusts the United States, and Trump in particular.
But Khamenei has been forced to engage with Washington in search of a nuclear deal due to fears that public anger at home over economic hardship could erupt into mass protests and endanger the existence of the clerical establishment, four Iranian officials told Reuters in March.
Tehran’s concerns were exacerbated by Trump’s speedy revival of his “maximum pressure” campaign when he returned to the White House in January.
During his first term, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic regime.
Since 2019, Iran has far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on uranium enrichment, producing stocks at a high level of fissile purity, well above what Western powers say is justifiable for a civilian energy program and close to that required for nuclear warheads.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised the alarm regarding Iran’s growing stock of 60% enriched uranium, and reported no real progress on resolving long-running issues, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi will visit Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an attempt to narrow gaps between Tehran and the agency over unresolved issues.
“Continued engagement and cooperation with the agency is essential at a time when diplomatic solutions are urgently needed,” Grossi said on X on Monday.
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