Mireille Knoll was brutally murdered in her Paris apartment on March 23. She was 85 years old with a disability and a Holocaust survivor. Police suspect anti-Semitism may have motivated the attack upon her; all prompting an emotional outpouring.
A mass silent procession known as a “White March” was called for March 28, the same date as the national day of mourning for Arnaud Beltram, the gendarme (military police) who died after substituting himself for a hostage during a terrorist attack on a supermarket in the town of Trebes.
However, the solemnity of the occasion was undermined by a crass declaration from Francis Kalifat, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Organisations (CRIF). Kalifat declared that La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) movement leader Jean-Luc Melenchon and its other members of parliament were not welcome at the march.
His rationale was that the far left promotes “hatred of Jews” and “hatred of Israel”. Kalifat concluded that neither France Unbowed nor the far-right National Front should attend.
Not surprisingly, the French left condemned this attempt to lump together the inheritors of the resistance to fascism with an organisation that has roots in collaboration with the Nazis. Knoll’s own son rejected the call by the CRIF to exclude the left from the event, saying all were welcome.
The CRIF is fiercely pro-Israel and falsely claims to represent all French Jews. It routinely equates legitimate criticism of Israel’s dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians with anti-Semitism.
This may be a morally bankrupt line of argument, but it has powerful backers. In July last year, French President Emanuel Macron declared anti-Zionism to be a “re-branded form of anti-Semitism”.
Furthermore, France is one of the few countries in the world where publicly supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel is classified as an illegal “hate crime”, giving lie to its claim to be a bastion of free speech.
It has echoes in the repeated allegations by right-wingers in the British Labour Party that there is a problem with anti-Semitism in the organisation under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
On the day of the march, a violent far-right Zionist group called the Jewish Defence League (LDJ) physically attacked representatives of France Unbowed. They also protected the delegation from the National Front, who were being heckled by the crowd.
Read the full article written by Sam Wainwright at Green Left Weekly.