Media Manipulation
March 30, 2012
The murder by an Islamist fanatic of seven people including three children in the French towns of Toulouse and Montauban last week contained some of the most atrocious anti-Jewish violence seen in Europe since World War Two.
The assassin told police he was taking revenge for the killing of Palestinian children in the Israeli occupied territories. The Arab-Israeli conflict has become a divisive issue in France, which is home to both Europe's biggest Muslim and Jewish communities. In the aftermath of the Toulouse massacre, some French-Jews claim anti-Israeli propaganda, relayed in the media, is turning them into targets.
Memories don't fade
Many people who live in Paris' Marais district - the Jewish district where thousands were deported and sent to death camps during WWII - have stories to tell about everyday anti-Semitism in France today. Over the last ten years there have been a number of firebomb and other attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools. Such as in the Rue des Rosiers, a street in the center of the Jewish quarter where memories remain of when a Palestinian group threw a grenade into Goldenberg's restaurant and machine-gunned the lunchtime crowd in 1982. French Jewish leaders say the perpetrators of acts of anti-Jewish violence, big and small, habitually make reference to Israel in justification of their attacks.
President of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, Richard Prasquier, is outraged by Baroness Ashton, the EU high representative on foreign affairs comment which seemed to equate the Toulouse killing with the deaths of Palestinian children in the Israeli Occupied Territories. He believes such insinuations created the climate which made the Toulouse massacre possible.
"There were some French children who were killed when the allies bombed France in 1943 and '44. When there's bombing there is always going to be some children among the victims. It's horrifying but this is the way it goes. It is different to have children as the victims of bombing, whatever the reason of the bombing, than to shoot in cold blood - cold blood!" said Prasquier.
Media condemnation
However, the murder of children last week came as a huge shock, says Sylvie, manager of a non-profit café in the Marais. But, in a way, she argues that Toulouse could have seen it coming. While Israel is certainly not without its faults, the criticism she hears on the streets here is virulent and blanket condemnation: "We were waiting for something like that (the Toulouse killings), just the atmosphere, what you see on the internet, there is so much misinformation in the papers and on the television. Everybody always wants Israel to be guilty, guilty, guilty."
Some argue the Arab-Israeli conflict in France is being heightened by the country's politicians and media. "The problem is the internet", said one Marais resident. "The propaganda on the internet works really well and this is the continual danger" he added.
In the wake of the killings, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to crack down on extremist indoctrination, saying he would ensure legal action was pursued against people who regularly consulted jihadist websites or who travelled abroad for indoctrination. Also claiming he wanted to stop French jails being a breeding ground for extremism.
"Henceforth, any person who habitually consults Internet sites which praise terrorism and which call for hatred and violence will be punished under criminal law," he said in a televised address. Anyone travelling abroad for "indoctrination into ideologies which lead to terrorism" will likewise face prosecution, he said.
Dangerous words
Waging an uphill battle for re-election in upcoming elections, Sarkozy said internal security had now become a major campaign issue. Sarkozy also defended France's decision to bar some Muslim preachers from entering the country, saying: "We don't want people who advocate values contrary to the republic on our territory."
But one thing that Sarkozy is perhaps not willing to see is that huge numbers Muslims are happily integrated into French society and have uncomplicated relations with people of other faiths. This is something many French-Muslims are willing to see. And many Jews too.
It seems the French president is prepared to sacrifice a measure of his people's civil liberties and even a little more of their religious freedom in the hope it will stop the likes of Mohamed Merah, but at what cost?
Author: John Laurenson / jw
Editor: Gabriel Borrud