Who has an interest in suggesting that anti-racists are anti-Semites?
Sunday, September 19, 2021
The persistence of anti-Semitism in France, reinforced in recent years by a harmful social and political climate where racism is used by the state as a tool of division, results in the trivialization of racist speeches Islamophobic first, but also anti-Semitic ones, 
held in particular by members of the government, the rehabilitation of Charles Maurras, even of Philippe Pétain, the affirmation that the hallal and kosher shelves of supermarkets are contrary to the republican spirit by a minister, former member of French Action who, in a book of which the title is “Islamist separatism”, describes the Jews as follows and without any reservation: “Napoleon Bonaparte was interested in settling the difficulties affecting the presence of tens of thousands of Jews in France. Some of them practiced usury and gave rise to troubles and complaints. “
Years of Islamophobic discourse have ended resulted in liberating racist speech in all its dimensions and logically, in allowing the famous saying of Frantz Fanon to be reversed: “When you hear bad words about the Jews, open your ears, we are talking about you.”
These anti-Semitic words were widely heard and read on placards during protests against the health passport, which were widely infiltrated by the far right. In the troubled and dangerous times that we are living in, conspiracy ,and therefore anti-Semitism, are unfolding freely. This is one of the reasons why many associations, unions and political parties, and the real left, called on June 12, 2021 in Paris for the “march of freedom to combat the ideas of the far right”.
Recently, a discourse has emerged from people or groups claiming to be on the far left, which does not state things clearly, but which leaves the suspicion that the left, trade unionism, the social movement and the extreme left would be inconsequential and would not really fight against anti-Semitism. It is not said outright that the organizations of the social movement are anti-Semitic, or rarely at that, but that they do not seriously fight anti-Semitism. This accusation never relates to the way in which the left would fight in a consistent way or not against racism in all its forms, negrophobia, Islamophobia, racism against the Roms or against the Asians. This accusation, aimed only at anti-Semitism, intends to reintroduce within the left this old hierarchy of forms which racism takes.
This creation of hierachy was first carried out under the influence of those who instrumentalize anti-Semitism as a massive weapon in the defense of Israeli apartheid. The deliberate confusion between solidarity with Palestine and anti-Semitism introduced by French pro-Israel organizations is brought to the highest level of the state via the statement of the President of the Republic, during the ceremony commemorating the roundup of Vélodrome d’Hiver in July 2017: “We will not give in to anti-Zionism because it is the reinvented form of anti-Semitism.”
But this agenda, taken up even within the left, has already wreaked havoc within the British Labor Party, with the accusations of anti-Semitism leveled against Jeremy Corbyn and the Jewish anti-Zionist current of the party and finally the exclusion of Ken Loach. It has targeted Bernie Sanders in the United States and it attacks Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, based on malicious interpretations of his words. All of them have made the mistake of supporting Palestine.
This deserves some clarification. What is implicit in these accusations, devious as it is, is transparent, however. These same groups that have quietly claimed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, close to the Zionist left and community-based Jewish organizations, seek to divide the issue of racism within the left itself, to re-establish a hierarchy between the different forms of racism and their victims and to block the anti-colonialist political expression of our organizations regarding the tragic situation in Palestine.
We wish to reaffirm here both our commitment against racism in all its forms, including of course against anti-Semitism, and our solidarity with Palestine. These are two inseparable pillars of the anti-racist and anti-colonialist struggles that drive our organizations.
First signatories: View the signatories online by clicking on the link below
DISTRIBUTED BY PAJU (PALESTINIAN AND JEWISH UNITY)
PAJUMONTREAL.ORG/EN
