Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
- From: "Adam R. Tomaszewski" <artomaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 08:08:06 -0400
Raids on the Resistances Bookstore
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
Paris.
Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil - that is the latest exploit of
the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and
get away with it.
In the early afternoon of Friday, July 3, five men, mostly masked, stormed
into the "Resistances" bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood
of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris. To the startled women working
in the shop, as well as two customers, they announcing that they were from
the Jewish Defense League and began ripping books off shelves and tables,
dousing them heavily with cooking oil, and then smashing four computers
before leaving rapidly in a waiting vehicle.
The bookstore is owned and operated by Olivia Zemor and Nicolas Shashahani,
who are also the leaders of the very active militant group
CAPJPO-EuroPalestine (CAPJPO stands for Coordination des Appels pour une
Paix Juste au Proche Orient). In addition to a wide collection of books on
the Middle East and other subjects, including fiction, the bookstore has a
reading room and a lending library, gives courses in English and Arabic, and
possesses a modest but well-attended auditorium where authors are invited to
speak.
Two and a half years ago, on December 7, 2006, a similar attack squad threw
teargas grenades into the bookstore as a crowd was gathering to listen to
the late Israeli author Tanya Reinhart and her companion, the Israeli poet
Aharon Shabtai. On that occasion, Shashahani had to be treated for effects
from the teargas but material damage was slight. This time, the entire shop
is a shambles, with countless ruined books, and damage runs to tens of
thousands of euros, according to Shashahani.
But, he stresses, this is only one in "hundreds of violent actions" carried
out by the French version of the banned US Jewish Defense League in recent
years. There is no reason to expect them to stop so long as they can count
on indulgence on the part of French authorities and the silence of the
mainstream media. The vandalism on the Resistances bookstore was reported
by the French news agency AFP, but the dispatch was apparently carried only
by the small tabloid Le Parisien and not by the major newspapers, much less
by television. Usually, almost the only people who are informed about such
events are in the politically active circles targeted for intimidation.
The general public remains ignorant of these aggressions, while it is
regularly informed by television of even relatively minor acts of
anti-Semitism - some of them imaginary (as the famous case a few years ago
of the young woman who totally invented a story of being the victim of an
"anti-Semitic assault" by blacks in the suburban commuter train in order to
get attention from her family, and got the attention of everyone in France
all the way up to the President of the Republic). Real "anti-Semitic acts"
occur, but most are no more organized than school-yard insults. However, the
publicity they receive serves to keep alive the notion that the very
existence of Jews is under perpetual threat - the basic alibi used by the
Jewish Defense League. The false claim that "the French government does
nothing to protect Jews" is used as a pretext for aggressive "self-defense".
As disciples of Meir Kahane, the JDL not only favors purifying an enlarged
Eretz Israel of Arabs, but wants to bring the fight against Arabs and
"Islamofascism" to France itself. Debate is not their style. After training
in Israeli martial arts, they carry on their fight by physical means,
attacking Arabs, Muslims and defenders of the Palestinian cause. The JDL is
an informal group of a few hundred members, rather than a registered
organization with a headquarters. The French police, adept at infiltrating
every sort of political group, certainly must know who and where they are,
but they seem never to be disturbed after one of their raids. Moreover,
unless the aggressors identify themselves, victims cannot be sure whether
they are being attacked by the LDJ or by Betar, an older Zionist youth
organization founded back in 1929 by Vladimir Jabotinsky and close to Likud.
Both use similar methods, and probably overlap, although the LDJ, as the
more radical of the two, is said to be draining members from Betar.
In the rare cases when Zionist fanatics are actually arrested and put on
trial, they are usually treated with uncommon indulgence. In December 2003,
a group of pro-Palestinian students were violently attacked by the usual
suspects. A Palestinian student suffered grave eye injuries. Faced with
lackadaisical police, the students carried out their own investigation,
leading to the conviction on September 16, 2004 of one Anthony Attal. He
was given a suspended sentence of ten months.
LDJ or Betar members also have the advantage of a "sanctuary" - Israel. On
October 25, 2006, a 68-year-old pro-Palestinian radical militant, Ginette
Hess Skandrani, was attacked in her own home by three unknown men who beat
her savagely, explaining only "you know why". Hospitalized, her head wounds
required several stitches. Last February 4, her aggressors were finally
convicted and sentenced, but:
-- one of them, Ruben Colleu, was sentenced to two years in prison, of
which 18 months were suspended - but he had already fled to Israel.
-- the second, Stevel Elie, was sentenced to three years in prison - but
the French court had already given him permission to go to Israel "to do his
military service" in Tsahal.
-- Only the third, Mike Sfez, was still around. Like Colleu, 18 months of
his two year sentence were suspended, and the remaining six months could be
transformed into social work.
Only recently, large squads of presumed LDJ thugs have attacked
theater-goers outside a benefit for children of Gaza and attacked persons of
Arab appearance on their way to a meeting of diverse groups scheduled to
discuss the "Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions" movement.
The LDJ has its apologists in the police. On June 5, 2006, the head of the
small right-wing Christian union "Action Police CFTC", Michel Thooris,
praised the LDJ and Betar for "performing a public service mission by
defending people and property". He was not publicly reprimanded by his big
boss, the minister of the Interior at that time, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The double standards of Sarkozy's tough "law and order" policy are all too
obvious. His ostentatious policy switch from a certain traditional French
balance in the Middle East to strong support for Israel is only likely to
encourage the LDJ in its feeling of impunity. This spring, a commercially
successful author, Paul-Eric Blanrue, was unable to publish his book on
"Sarkozy, Israel and the Jews" in France, and was obliged to find a
publisher in Belgium. Still worse, the usual French distributor of his
Belgian publisher refused to distribute the book in France. His press
conference in Paris was unattended by any journalist and his book, which
carefully documents Sarkozy's policy of wooing Jewish support in France by
aligning with Israel and attacking the "riffraff" in the suburbs, has been
ignored by French reviewers.
Even though the market is saturated, there is always room in the media,
however, for laments that France's secular tradition is threatened by the
"communitarianism" of. Muslims. The ideological and violent provocations of
fanatic Zionists are rarely singled out as the main cause of this disturbing
trend. Of course, France's many militant intellectual Zionists do not
resort to the methods of the LDJ and Betar. But the theme of Jewish
victimhood, which is constantly present in schools, in cinema, in political
discourse and in the media, provides a congenial atmosphere for the
pathological violence of the Jewish militias in France, and for the
indulgence with which they are treated.
The situation is scarcely improved by the extreme fragmentation of the
Palestine solidarity movement in France - which can be seen as just one
aspect of the endemic sectarianism of the French left. The various victims
of LDJ or Betar violence - such as CAPJPO, Ginette Skandrani, the comedian
Dieudonné, etc., etc. - are often not on speaking terms with each other, so
that even if they all profess solidarity with Palestine, there is very
little or no solidarity between them.
However, one may hope that the July 3 attack on the Resistances bookstore
may arouse a broader protest than other recent attacks, quite simply because
of the strong connotations of destroying books. A protest demonstration has
been called for the evening of Wednesday, July 8, to demand that the
government finally ban the JDL, just as it has already been banned in the
United States and Israel. This will be an opportunity to show solidarity in
resistance to the most active form of fascism in France today.
Diana Johnstone is author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western
Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at diana.josto@xxxxxxxx
.
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