print:Who benefits from "Anti-semitism" ? -- (a sad story) | Letters from France |Axisoflogic.com

October 23, 2004 -- A respectable lady went into a Bordeaux supermarket and stuck labels on dates which had come from the "State of Israel", on which it was pointed out that the state of origin of the fruit was founded on racist principles and asking customers to boycott anything coming from there. This strategy was well-known and popularly supported by people protesting against the apartheid of the former South African r�gime.

The Manager of the supermarket called the Police and the lady was arrested and taken to the Police Headquarters on a charge relating to racial discrimination.

After a time, she was released, and later the same day the Police called at her home and re-arrested her, following which she had to spend the night in a cell despite her wish to return home to her husband.

After further interrogation, she was charged with an offence in no way connected with racial discrimination, but alleging that she had damaged the goods on display. As a retired lawyer, I have asked to see the exact wording of the charge, since it is hard without seeing this to know what is likely to happen next. Many of us across France are watching with interest.

The lesson of all this sad story is that this lady is the victim of a campaign whereby certain Zionist organisations are trying as hard as they can to accuse anyone who opposes Zionism (such as this lady and many other law-abiding citizens including myself) of being "anti-semitic". As we know, Mr Ariel Sharon accused our country of being "anti-semitic" because, in the majority, we are willing to express our support for the sufferings of the Palestinians, and he further invited our Jewish fellow citizens to join him and his like in the Zionist expansion, with particular emphasis on the illegal colonies in Palestine. Happily, leading spokesmen for our national Jewish community reacted immediately by saying publicly that Mr Sharon should stay out of our internal affairs, which did not concern him.

Obviously all forms of racism are evil. This lady did absolutely nothing in any way to promote, or to encourage, "anti-semitic" feeling, but she certainly did express her objections to the rampant racism of the Zionist state, established by conquest in Palestine with the connivance of the victorious powers after the Second World War to assuage their guilty consciences.

I write "anti-semitic" because (as I have written many times before) many more Semites speak Arabic than Hebrew, and the word "semitic" relates to a group of languages spoken by people of all colours of skin. The idea of a "semitic race" arises from the racist theories of Theodor Herzl who invented the "Jewish race" as a basis for his political aim of Zionism. If anyone looks at a dark-skinned Jew from Harlem (New York) or from Ethiopia, he or she does not in my view have any close resemblance to a white-skinned Jew from Europe. I still think of a Jew as being a person who tries to live his or her life in accordance with the tenets of Judaism, a religion for which I, as a Christian, have the deepest respect.

In contrast with this attitude, the Nazis used Herzl's theories as a convenient excuse for persecuting the Jews, and decreed that anyone with a Jewish grandparent was thereby of "Jewish race". Rather than following Rabbinic rules as to who is a Jew, the founders of the Zionist state followed Herzl and used exactly the same formula as the Nazis when deciding who should have the absolute "right" to settle in Palestine under their auspices. This same racist principle is currently used to limit the number of indigenous Arabs living within the borders of the "State of Israel" and, furthermore, to give them a lower status as second-class citizens of their state.

The good lady in Bordeaux has not made any claims to racist superiority or suggested any action against Jews, but the hysteria, whipped up by certain Zionist circles, surrounding any anti-Jewish actions in our country (which are admittedly very unpleasant) has apparently led some officials and Police officers to over-react by trying to crack-down on a form of "racism" which has never existed. Curiously enough the principal genuine anti-semitism in this country (i.e. discrimination against those whose families had traditionally spoken a semitic language) concerns our brothers and sisters of North African origin and has nothing to do with Jews.

The only ones to benefit from spreading a belief in the dangers of what is known as "anti-semitism" are the proponents of Zionism, as envisaged by Herzl in the 19th Century, but established in Palestine in the 20th.

*Robert Thompson is a columnist on Axis of Logic. His writings can be found in "Letters from France". He is a French citizen, is a retired Avocat (Trial Lawyer) at the Boulogne-sur-Mer Bar, living with his wife in a small village in Northern France. He was born at Leek (North Staffordshire, England) in 1931, and, after reading Jurisprudence at Oxford University, he became an English Solicitor. He later went to work at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. There he was Director in charge of the Legal Department and also Secretary General of the Court of Arbitration, the most important international commercial arbitration centre on the world. While there, he became the I.C.C. Director in charge of relations with the Arab states, where he travelled for professional reasons, and he worked towards legal cooperation with the countries then within the Comecon.