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Paris March Against Antisemitism Divides France’s Political Parties
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right National Rally (RN) in France, lays a wreath at the monument to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Photo: Attila Husejnow /SOPA Images/Reuters
i24 News – French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has set off a cacophony of criticism over her plans to attend a weekend march to protest rising antisemitism in France. Critics say that her once-pariah party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy.
France’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, numerous political parties and citizens are to attend the Sunday march called by the speakers of the country’s two houses of the parliament. Le Pen has said that she and her National Rally party also will be there, in what some see as an attempt to leverage the Israel-Hamas war to make herself more palatable to mainstream voters.
Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father, was convicted repeatedly of antisemitic hate speech and played down the scope of the Holocaust. For one, back in 2016, he was fined €30,000 ($34,000) over denying the Holocaust while speaking to the French broadcaster BFMTV.
His daughter Marine — runner-up in the last two presidential elections and likely a top contender in 2027 — has worked to scrub the party’s image, kicking her father out and changing its name from National Front to National Rally.
Le Pen has recently criticized the amount of aid France provided to Gaza stating that: “France has spent millions on the water network in Gaza. I am for international cooperation but I also understand the anger of the Overseas France when they see that once again, they have come second in directing international aid!”
On a appris que la France avait dépensé des millions pour le réseau d’eau à Gaza. Je suis pour la coopération internationale mais comprenez la colère de nos compatriotes d’Outre-mer lorsqu’ils voient qu’une nouvelle fois, ils sont passés après l’aide internationale ! pic.twitter.com/TiaVFDYcDY
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) November 6, 2023
Meanwhile, the hard-left La FranceUnbowed Party (LFI) is said to boycott the march. However, the LFI MP Aurelie Trouve stated that “We will be present at all initiatives which combat all forms of racism, hatred, discrimination , but without the extreme right, it is a principle for us.”
The Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Green European Party have all confirmed their participation in the “great civic march.”
The march comes as France finds itself among the countries where the number of antisemitic incidents has skyrocketed since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7. Earlier in October, Jewish homes in Paris were marked with Stars of David, while a teenager with a knife was arrested near the Strasbourg synagogue.
The post Paris March Against Antisemitism Divides France’s Political Parties first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.