The Ugly Ironies of France's Muslim-Jewish Problem

By Jason Gitlin

A recent spate of hate attacks in France’s Alsace region has left a number of cemeteries desecrated with swastikas. At first glance, this may appear to be the latest report on anti-Jewish acts in France, but it actually refers to vandalism against Muslim gravestones that is believed to have been committed by Neo-Nazis.

This disturbing trend and its resemblance to a number of similar incidents on Jewish institutions perpetrated by French youth of North African descent is just one of the sad ironies associated with France’s ongoing Muslim-Jewish problem.

Since the intifada began in September 2000, France has experienced an alarming rise in the number of attacks against Jewish people and institutions. While last year brought a decline in such incidents, the French Interior Ministry is warning of another rise in the tide, reporting 135 anti-Jewish acts and 375 such threats in the first six months of 2004, compared with 125 acts and 463 acts for all of 2003.

Recognizing the damage that anti-Jewish and other racist attacks are doing to French society, President Jacques Chirac called on the country’s citizens to mobilize against intolerance in a major address delivered last week in Chambon-Sur-Lignon, a village famous for sheltering Jews from the Nazis and French collaborators during World War Two.

"Discrimination, anti-semitism, racism - all kinds of racism are spreading insidiously," said Mr. Chirac, who went on to add, "All these acts reflect the darkest side of human nature. They are unworthy of France. I will do everything to stop them."

Muslim community leaders in France, the United States and elsewhere should follow Chirac’s example and make the denunciation of these acts a priority for the worldwide ummah.

After all, the scourge of synagogue burnings and physical assaults perpetrated by Muslim youth are no less worthy of Islam than they are of France.

Moreover, anti-Jewish attacks by French Muslims and Arabs represent a misguided and immoral attempt to transfer the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a battle between Jews and Muslims in France, and perhaps worldwide. This illegitimate transferal of conflict is akin to the rash of intimidation, violence, and detentions that many Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian immigrants in the United States have had to endure in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Groups like the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee have been courageous in their fight against such abuses and would do well to lend a stronger voice to what is happening in France.

Campaigning against anti-Jewish behavior may also help draw attention to the similar rise in anti-Muslim acts in France. In addition to the latest attacks on Muslim gravesites, the country’s first Muslim prefect was targeted in a failed car bombing earlier this year that took place amid the debate over banning Muslim headscarves in schools.

But perhaps the greatest irony associated with current Muslim-Jewish tensions, is the potential for a growing number of French Jews to immigrate to Israel in the face of violence against them. Some 2,350 of France’s 600,000 Jews moved to Israel last year, and officials believe that number may only increase if Jews continue to feel threatened.

It is worth recalling that it was the 1894 case of Alfred Dreyfus, a French captain accused of spying for Germany, that convinced Jewish Austrian journalist Theodore Herzl that Europe’s Jewish problem necessitated the creation of a Jewish state. One hundred years after Herzl’s death, French Muslims and their co-religionists in other countries should take this lesson to heart and reconsider the moral and practical implications of not taking a stronger stand against those misguided members of their faith who are contributing to the current rise in anti-Jewish behavior.

Jason Gitlin, a graduate of NYU’s Center for Near Eastern Studies, is a New York-based writer.