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Jonathan Eric Lewis is a New York-based journalist and political analyst specializing in the history of ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. A strong advocate for Israel, his work has appeared in such publications as the "Wall Street Journal"; New York Sun"; "Middle East Quarterly"; and "Pakistan Today."
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By Jonathan Eric Lewis
November 28, 2003
Much has been written on the 'new anti-Semitism' and rightfully so. Looking back several years, it is almost astonishing that the Jewish people are now being subject to an orchestrated campaign of hatred and violence that has not been around since the Second World War. From Internet chat rooms to the synagogues of Istanbul, Jews have been attacked both verbally and physically. Celebrities warn of 'Straussian cabals' and the nefarious deeds of 'neo-conservatives,' while human rights groups ignore Sudanese barbarism and put every Israeli action under a microscope. Jews are once again struggling to understand the hatred against them.
Some anti-Zionists, in their frenzied rage against the Jewish State, have even hinted that Israel's very existence is the cause for the new anti-Semitism. Yet, upon closer inspection, it appears that the 'new anti-Semitism' isn't that new after all. Indeed, one only needs to look to Paris thirty-six years ago to begin to understand the fact that the 'new anti-Semitism' has been around for quite some time and may have its origins in the ill-chosen words of one of Europe's best-known statesmen.
Following the stunning Israeli in the Six Day War and the inability of France to influence events in the region, French President Charles DeGaulle deliberately ushered in a new era of anti-Semitism on November 28, 1967, when he asserted in a press conference that Jews, through the ages had been, "an elite people, self-confident, and domineering" and alleged that the Jewish people had been responsible for "provoking ill-will in certain countries and at certain times." This, of course, was a political ploy designed to gain France the sympathy of an Arab world seething with anger and disbelief at stunning Israeli military victories that cost them east Jerusalem, the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. It was not the first time in twentieth-century French history that anti-Semitism would be exploited for political gain. Given DeGaulle's first-hand knowledge of Vichy France, he should have known better. But, in an attempt to win friends in the Arab world, he chose expediency over principle.
Perhaps the most insightful comment in reaction to DeGaulle's speech came from Joel Marcus, the European correspondent for Haaretz who asserted, that the "real cause of DeGaulle's anger was the realization forced on him by the Six Day War that France had no influence over world events." With this statement is hyperbolic, the failure of DeGaulle's hope that France would gain influence on the world stage by acting as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli crisis may have led to his decision to invoke classic anti-Semitic canards as a means of masking France's own political failures.
President DeGaulle's comments did not go unnoticed by the French Jewish community. Indeed, Raymond Aron, a French-Jewish intellectual who had previously been sympathetic to DeGaulle, wrote that "to call the people of the ghettos 'self-assured and domineering' still seems to me today to be as ludicrous as it is hateful." Aron went on to assert, correctly in my estimation, that "General DeGaulle knowingly and deliberately initiated a new phase of Jewish history."
DeGaulle's sentiments would, in the decades ahead, be echoed by the European chattering classes. Despite numerous Israeli plans to return land in exchange for peace and recognition throughout the 1970s, many European intellectuals gradually came to subscribe to President DeGaulle's view of Jews as a 'domineering' people that needed to be resisted. Such sentiments contributed to widespread support for the Palestinian cause among left-wing European intellectuals, for it was the Palestinian people who were fighting on the front lines against alleged Jewish 'domination.' European intellectuals, of course, have never much cared about the plight of the long suffering Palestinian people; they have, however, expressed great, irrational fears about Israel's military might. Such thinking has now permeated into the fabric of European public life. The recent European Union poll demonstrating that a majority of Europeans see Israel as a major threat to world peace is a result of this line of thinking.
DeGaulle, in my estimation, simultaneously broke the post-Holocaust taboo against anti-Semitism in France and introduced a new anti-Jewish discourse that would, slowly but surely, be but one component of the anti-Semitic rhetoric engulfing the world today. Indeed, it was such thinking that led many French politicians and the French security services to initially downplay the wave of anti-Jewish violence that erupted in Paris and other French cities following the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations in 2000. Thus, rather than viewing mobs of uneducated Muslim men burning synagogues as hate crimes, the French elite initially viewed these acts of hate as being provoked by (allegedly unjust) Israeli responses to Palestinian terror. In other words, the Jews themselves were responsible, as DeGaulle's said, for 'provoking ill-will.'
Such is the world in which we find ourselves today, where attacks on Jews in France are blamed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and where European intellectuals from Amsterdam to Athens freely spout off nonsense about the Middle East. Much like in 1967, anti-Semitism is being used and excused as a political weapon, this time by some Europeans who view anti-Semitism as useful means to divide Europe from the United States. Whether they realize it or not, however, these 'new' anti-Semites are taking a page from DeGaulle's playbook.
France, of course, once again finds itself increasingly isolated in the world and unable to influence events in the Middle East to its liking. Despite the bluster of French diplomats, Paris was neither able to prevent the American/British liberation of Iraq, nor was it able to shape a post-war strategy for the international community. More to the point, France no longer has a friend in Iraq in the guise of Saddam Hussein and will not likely be looked at favorably by the Shi'a and Kurdish dominated government that is likely to emerge in mid-2004. France is losing influence and support in both the Ivory Coast and Mauritania, two Francophone countries that may shift their foreign policies closer to the United States in the years ahead. As French influence fades, anti-Semitism resurfaces.
The 'new' anti-Semitism, particularly in France, thus must not be seen merely as an imported ideology from North African Muslim immigrants, but also as a product of both the French Left's anti-Zionism and the political repercussions of DeGaulle's fateful speech. In 1967 as in 2000, French anti-Semitism was a response to the inability of French diplomacy to influence the Middle East.
This, of course, begs the question: between the Six Day War and Operation Iraqi Freedom, has that much changed in France when it comes to anti-Semitism among the French cultural and intellectual elite? President Jacques Chirac, to his credit, has condemned anti-Semitism. He will likely never admit, however, that the 'new' anti-Semitism that currently being promulgated by French elites is, in many ways, the bastard offspring of DeGaulle's hateful speech uttered in the face French diplomatic failure in 1967.
Views expressed by the author do not
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