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When Fighting Antisemitism, You Can’t Pick and Choose
Posters in Paris broadcasting the plight of Israeli hostages in Gaza covered over with pro-Palestinian messages. Photo: Reuters/Magali Cohen
JNS.org – It was one of those incidents that you never expect will happen to you, but when it does, it changes your life irrevocably.
On June 8, 2023, a Thursday, a 67-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman whose name was reported as “Sarah” was driving to her home in Créteil, a suburb in the southeastern outskirts of Paris. As she drove, a group of traffic cops who were sitting at a nearby gas station noticed that she was speeding. They duly pulled her over.
Clearly flustered and nervous as she sat talking to the police officers, who informed her that she was driving dangerously, Sarah accidentally released the brake on her car, backing into a police motorcycle that was parked behind her. Thinking that she was trying to flee the scene, the cops promptly arrested her and brought her to the police station in Créteil.
Absolutely terrified by this point, Sarah said in a later media interview that she lost consciousness. When she came around, she discovered that she was lying prostrate on the police station floor, handcuffed to a bench. When she realized that her wig, which she had worn since she married at the age of 18, according to the custom of Orthodox Jewish women, had been removed, she panicked.
An amateur video of the incident was shared with the French news website Mediapart, which posted it last week. It shows Sarah’s ordeal to its full, harrowing extent. “I’m a Jew!” Sarah declares with an ear-splitting scream. “I want my wig! My wig! My wig!” she continues, writhing helplessly on the floor as a policeman stands imperiously over her, sandwiching her legs between his feet.
The video also shows a disturbing level of contempt from the police officers. One of them describes Sarah as a feuj, an insulting French slang term for “Jew.” When a male officer finally returns with her wig, an exasperated female officer is then heard telling Sarah: Allez, putain (“Come on, bitch”).
From the police station, Sarah was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital, where her husband came to collect her. A doctor who examined her noted that she had suffered both bruising and psychological trauma. Nevertheless, on March 4, Sarah will go on trial, charged with “endangering the lives of others” due to her allegedly careless driving.
Sarah has herself now gone on the offensive, telling investigators from the General Inspectorate of the police that the removal of her wig represented the “ultimate humiliation” for an observant Jewish woman. She has also filed a complaint against the police, charging them with “sexist, antisemitic” violence towards her. “Créteil police know the city, they know that there is a sizable Jewish community, so they cannot claim to be unaware of what a wig means,” her lawyer, Arie Alimi, told the media.
Sarah’s case is significant for two reasons—one of them uncomplicated, the other far more complicated.
The uncomplicated reason is simply that the behavior of the French police was clearly antisemitic. The video suggests that they rather enjoyed having a vulnerable Jewish woman at their mercy, whom they essentially dehumanized. In a democracy, the police are accountable for their actions, and in this case, one can legitimately ask whether the officers who attended to Sarah at the police station should continue to serve on the force, particularly as they are in regular contact with other members of the Jewish community in Créteil.
The other reason is complicated because it involves overtly political considerations.
It is striking that Sarah’s case has been taken up by important swathes of the French left—a left that is normally at loggerheads with the Jewish community because of its consistent demonization of Israel. Counter-accusations of antisemitism are both frequent and hotly denied, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, which has triggered a vicious wave of antisemitism in France and other countries, frequently deploying progressive, anti-colonial messaging to camouflage what is—and what has always been—a deeply reactionary and backward form of prejudice.
Yet Sarah’s case has been reported on sympathetically and in detail in many organs of the French left, including L’Humanité—the daily paper of the French Communist Party, which once had the unenviable reputation of being the most slavishly pro-Moscow of all the European Communist parties affiliated with the late, unlamented Soviet Union.
Sarah has also won the support of parliamentarians from the far-left group La France Insoumise (or LFI, translated as “France Rising”), which occupies 75 of the 577 seats in the French National Assembly. In a social-media post, Mathilde Panot, who heads LFI’s parliamentary grouping, denounced “the sexist and antisemitic” treatment meted out to Sarah by police officers who had behaved with “dishonor,” and who should now be the subjects of a “rapid investigation and sanctions.”
While Sarah’s case against the police deserves the full backing of her fellow Jews, it behooves us to look critically at her other sources of support. When Panot and three of her LFI comrades turned up at last week’s memorial ceremony in Paris for the 42 French citizens who were among the more than 1,200 people murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, pro-Israel demonstrators on the sidelines barracked them, shouting, “LFI, Hamas thanks you.” Panot’s explanation for her attendance was her desire to call attention to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, whom LFI falsely believes, in common with much of the left globally, are undergoing a “genocide.”
On a human level, it’s hard to understand how someone could be moved (and understandably so) by the cries of a frail, elderly Jewish woman in police custody, yet dismiss the horrors of Oct. 7—the slaughter, the mutilation, the rape of untold young woman at a music festival—as so much “Zionist propaganda.” As long as that remains the case, politicians on the left who intervene only in those incidents of antisemitism are unconnected to Israel will never win the trust of the Jewish community.
Simply put, if you are going to fight antisemitism, you cannot pick and choose which incidents you focus upon on the basis of your ideological convictions. And since the far-left is not, for the foreseeable future, going to accept the contention that its attacks on Zionism and Israel’s legitimacy are forms of antisemitism, one has to probe the political price of acknowledging their support in cases like those of Sarah.
Because if Sarah had been a resident of the West Bank instead of Créteil, and if she had been pulled over by Palestinian Authority officers and then detained, facing treatment even worse than her humiliation by French police officers, LFI and those who share its worldview would have, at best, remained silent. Such hypocrisy would never pass muster on the left when it comes to racism against members of the black community, Muslims or any other minority. But Jews, as we have painfully learned yet again over the last four months, are different.
The post When Fighting Antisemitism, You Can’t Pick and Choose first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Federal Workers Hit with Second Wave of Emails Demanding Job Details
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X/Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
The Trump administration sent out a second round of emails on Friday evening demanding all federal employees summarize their work over the past week after the first effort fizzled amid a wave of confusing directives.
The emails from the government’s human resources arm, the US Office of Personnel Management, were sent to multiple agencies, Reuters has confirmed, and asked workers to list five things they accomplished during the week.
The move marks a renewed effort by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team to assess the performance of government employees as the administration looks to engage in mass layoffs to dramatically trim the federal footprint.
“The President has made it clear that this is mandatory for the executive branch,” Musk wrote on X. “Anyone working on classified or other sensitive matters is still required to respond if they receive the email, but can simply reply that their work is sensitive.”
Musk attempted a similar tack last week, along with a threat that noncompliant workers could be fired, but he was stymied when some agencies such as the State and Justice departments told their employees to stick to the chain of command.
Ultimately, OPM informed agencies that responding to the emails was voluntary.
But Musk, with President Donald Trump’s backing, continued to press for the emails as a means they said to hold workers accountable. Both men suggested that some federal employees on the payroll don’t exist.
The second round of emails do not include any threat of retaliation for noncompliance but say workers are expected to send responses at the beginning of each work week.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed Pentagon workers to comply, according to media reports, but the State Department again told their employees to hold off, according to a directive seen by Reuters.
The acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, also told workers in his office to comply, according to a message seen by Reuters.
Reuters was able to confirm the emails were also sent to employees at the Internal Revenue Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institutes for Health. Those agencies have all been targeted by DOGE for layoffs.
Musk’s team last week instructed agencies across the government to submit plans by March 13 for a “significant reduction” in staffing across the federal workforce.
Already, about 100,000 workers have taken buyouts or been fired after DOGE was dispatched by Trump to gut federal staffing and spending. There are about 2.3 million federal employees in all.
The layoffs have occurred in such haphazard fashion that some agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration have been forced to recall key personnel in order to ensure public safety.
Most recently, the Trump administration has pulled the plug on a team of tech savvy civil servants that helped build the IRS’ free tax filing service and revamped websites across government.
In an email sent overnight to employees of the US General Services Administration (GSA) and seen by Reuters, the GSA’s Director of Technology Transformation Services Thomas Shedd said the team — known as 18F — had been identified as “non critical.”
Formed at the tail end of the Barack Obama administration, the unit acted as an internal tech consultancy within government, ferreting out duplication and waste, streamlining bureaucratic processes, and making public-facing websites more user friendly.
Questions about Musk’s role and DOGE are at the heart of multiple lawsuits seeking to block them from accessing government systems and confidential data. The suits allege that Musk and DOGE are violating the Constitution by wielding the kind of vast power that only comes from agencies created through the US Congress or appointments made with confirmation by the US Senate.
Musk’s actions have also caused some tension and confusion among Trump’s White House aides, although Trump himself is said to be wholly on board with the effort.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is not a Cabinet-level official and did not face US Senate confirmation. The Trump administration has been evasive about exactly what role he plays within DOGE.
The post Federal Workers Hit with Second Wave of Emails Demanding Job Details first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey to Repeat Offer to Host Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks at London Summit
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during a press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov (not pictured) in Ankara, Turkey, February 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Cagla Gurdogan/File Photo
Turkey’s foreign minister will reiterate at Sunday’s meeting of European leaders in London an offer from Ankara to host peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Saturday.
NATO-member Turkey hosted initial talks between the sides months after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, helping secure a deal for the safe passage of grain exports in the Black Sea. It has said any future peace talks must include both countries.
While repeatedly calling for a ceasefire since 2024, Ankara has welcomed the US initiative to end the war, which was derailed by a public argument between the presidents of Ukraine and the United States in Washington on Friday.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will brief European leaders on Turkey’s efforts to find a “fair and lasting peace” to the war, the source said, adding he will also affirm Ankara’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Fidan is expected to “underline that Turkey, which hosted direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022, is ready to take up this role in the coming period,” and emphasize that all parties must jointly focus on lasting regional security and stability, as well as economic prosperity, in negotiations, the person added.
A Black Sea littoral state like Ukraine and Russia, Turkey has maintained good ties with both since the start of the war. It has provided Kyiv with military support, while refusing to participate in Western sanctions against Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Turkey last month, on the same day US and Russian representatives met for talks – without Kyiv’s participation – in Riyadh aimed at ending the war.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also held talks in Ankara. On Saturday, Fidan and Lavrov discussed the latest developments around the Ukraine-Russia war in a phone call, the source said, marking the third contact between them in the past two weeks.
On Thursday, delegations from the United States and Russia met in Istanbul for talks aimed at addressing bilateral issues regarding the operations of their respective embassies.
Zelensky said last week that he saw Turkey as an important security guarantor for Ukraine.
The post Turkey to Repeat Offer to Host Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks at London Summit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli PM Netanyahu to Hold Security Meeting After Delegation Returns from Cairo
Palestinians walk past the rubble of buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold consultations with security chiefs and ministers on Friday after an Israeli delegation returned from Cairo with no agreement on extending the Gaza ceasefire, two Israeli officials said.
A Hamas official confirmed that Israel had sought to extend the 42-day truce agreed as a first stage in the ceasefire agreement through the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend. But he said Hamas wanted to move on to negotiations over the second stage, opening the way to a permanent end to the war.
“We are committed to the agreement,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators asked for some time over the next few days to resolve the impasse over the ceasefire, which is due to expire on Saturday, the officials said.
The agreement reached last month halted 15 months of fighting, allowing the exchange of 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and was meant to lead to subsequent talks to build on the truce.
Israeli officials have previously said Israel was ready to resume fighting in Gaza if all its remaining hostages are not returned.
However, Israel and Hamas remain far apart on key issues and each has accused the other of violating the ceasefire, casting doubt over the second phase of the deal meant to include releases of additional hostages and prisoners as well as steps toward a permanent end of the war.
There is no sign of agreement, either among or between Israelis and Palestinians, or between Western and Arab governments, over Gaza’s future. That uncertainty is complicating efforts to negotiate a lasting resolution.
Hamas called on Friday for the international community to press Israel to immediately enter the second phase without delay. It is unclear what will happen if the first phase ends on Saturday without a deal.
A senior official of the Palestinian Authority, State Minister of Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian, also said on Friday that she would like the ceasefire phases to move ahead as originally planned.
“I doubt anyone in Gaza will want to go back to war,” she said in Geneva.
The Cairo talks are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar with U.S. support. US President Donald Trump said on Thursday there were “pretty good talks going on.”
Asked whether the ceasefire deal would move into the second phase, Trump said: “Nobody really knows, but we’ll see what happens.”
The Gaza war is the latest confrontation in decades of conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
It began on Oct. 7, 2023, when fighters from the Islamist group Hamas stormed border defenses from Gaza and attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
CEASEFIRE
The ceasefire has mostly held during its first six weeks, although both sides have accused each other of breaches, particularly in the treatment of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees, and in the handling of releases.
Hamas has staged shows of strength during hostage releases, parading them in front of cameras. Israeli authorities have made released detainees wear clothes bearing pro-Israeli slogans.
Israel is now negotiating to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal by 42 days, according to the Egyptian security sources.
Israeli government officials said earlier this week that Israel would attempt to extend the initial phase with Hamas freeing three hostages a week in return for the release of Palestinian detainees.
Discussions on an end to the war are complicated by the lack of any agreement over basic questions such as how Gaza would be governed, how its security would be managed, how it could be rebuilt, and who would pay for that.
Trump proposed this month that the US should take over Gaza and redevelop it as a “Riviera of the Middle East” with its population displaced into Egypt and Jordan.
Arab countries have rejected that idea but have yet to announce their own plan.
European countries have also rejected the displacement of Palestinians and say they still support a two-state solution to the conflict.
The post Israeli PM Netanyahu to Hold Security Meeting After Delegation Returns from Cairo first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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