Two articles from Le Monde:
Editorial
Translated by Douglas
French original: "Non aux boycotts"
(Le Monde, 2003/01/06)
By Robert Solé [Newspaper Ombudsman]
Translated by Douglas
French original: "De l'index au pilori"
(Robert Solé, Le Monde, 2003/01/11)
Editorial
Translated by Douglas
French original: "Non aux boycotts"
(Le Monde, 2003/01/06)The Israeli government has just announced that the emigration of French Jews to Israel reached record heights in 2002: a level not attained in the last 30 years. If the absolute figure (2,326) is trustworthy, the growth in the percentage is not (a doubling over 2001's level). The militant mobilization, encouraged by a public opinion campaign on the part of Israeli Right and far-Right, certainly had something to do with this. But there is more: an expression of anxiety unique to French Judaism. French Jews are worried and this worry can not simply be imputed to reflexive solidarity with the State of Israel. They are worried for themselves, for the fate of French Judaism, in the face of what they perceive and foresee: the rise and return of anti-Semitism even here — of anti-Semitism that is even more pernicious since it is becoming ordinary and banal — behind the legitimate political tensions and spits brought on by the Middle East conflict.
"There is a uniquely French Jewish anxiety," wrote Elie Barnavi, former Israeli ambassador to Paris, in his Livre ouverte aux juifs de France, ["Open Letter to the Jews of France"], a book in which he worries for "the fundamentalist attraction that is threatening" the Jewish community and reminds us that Israel "is not a metaphysical reality" but a State that, as such, cannot benefit from any "sort of ontological innocence." One may fear that these reasonable words, coming from Israel itself, should become increasingly inaudible in France. Two days before an attack struck civilian victims in Tel-Aviv, a Parisian rabbi was stabbed at the entrance to his synagogue. It was a double symbol, in the person of Gabriel Farhi, a major figure in the Mouvement juif libéral de France [The Liberal Jewish Movement of France]: Judaism and dialogue, devotion and openness, piety and modernity.
This crime in Paris and this attack in Israel occurred while, in our universities, there is developing a campaign for the economic and scientific boycott of Israel in the name of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The founders of the his campaign, notably the doctor Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, cannot be suspected of anti-Semitism. Following the example of members of the European Parliament who voted for a similar resolution in April of 2002, they believe that Israeli policies in the occupied territories contradicts UN resolutions and must, as such, be fought.
But the choice of weapon — the boycott — is not acceptable. Far from favoring dialogue, it strengthens the logic of confrontation, fear and violence. On the university campus, the boycott signals a break, not with a State and its policies, but with a human community: not with the acts committed but with the exchange of ideas. It leaves it to be understood that we must break ties, not with Israel, but with the Israelis, indiscriminately identified with the policies of the current government. Far from reinforcing the peace camp, the boycott's partisans are weakening it.
By Robert Solé [Newspaper Ombudsman]
Translated by Douglas
French original: "De l'index au pilori"
(Robert Solé, Le Monde, 2003/01/11)"Boycott" or "boycottage"? [*] Le Monde's style manual indicates that we should use the second term. Let us use it without hesitation. Boycottage, then. But of whom? Of what?
The resolution adopted by the council of université Paris-VI has caused some confusion. Among other things, it asked the European Union not to renew its agreement of association with Israel for research purposes. Viewed by the Union des étudiants juifs de France [Union of the Jewish Students of France] as "an abject boycott," the resolution provoked quite an outcry and lead Le Monde to publish a 7 January editorial entitled "No to boycotts."
The point of view expressed by the newspaper can be summed up in 4 points:
1) The Jews of France are worried by the "rise" and "return" of anti-Semitism.
2) Among universities, "there is developing a campaign for the economic and scientific boycott of Israel in the name of solidarity with the Palestinian cause."
3) The campaign's promoters, "notably the doctor Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, cannot be suspected of anti-Semitism."
4) The boycott is not acceptable. "Far from favoring dialogue, it strengthens the logic of confrontation, fear and violence. On the university campus, the boycott signals a break, not with a State and its policies, but with a human community: not with the acts committed but with the exchange of ideas. It leaves it to be understood that we must break ties, not with Israel, but with the Israelis, indiscriminately identified with the policies of the current government. Far from reinforcing the peace camp, the boycott’s partisans are weakening it."
In welcoming this editorial, some readers offered their compliments. Jérémie Eskenazi (Marseille) remarked that French scientific research would be the loser in a moratorium on exchange with Israel, in areas such as the bio-medical sciences. "Israeli scientists are pioneers in the use of amniocentesis, the culture of white corpuscles and the commercial production of beta interferon." Currently, French scientific influence is in retreat. "A boycott could only amplify this phenomenon. For the fruits of Israeli research will be lost for France but not for other countries who will be able to sweep them up."
Muriel Darmon, a doctor in Lyon, for her part, asked, if the signatories of this motion thought to end all scholarly cooperation with Russia for the massacres committed in Chechnya, or with China for its daily human rights abuses. "Would they themselves accept to be included black-list of scientific organizations under the pretext that France massively contributed to arming of Iraq or was complicit in the Rwandan genocide? And why are they not breaking ties with those universities massively invested in terrorist organizations such as Al-Najah university in Nablus?"
Approving of the editorial did not stop some readers from criticizing Le Monde. This resolution would not have passed, wrote Didier Stroz of Chatou (Yvelines), without "the violently anti-Israeli climate that often contains an anti-Semitism that you yourselves propagate." Without qualification, he decries the "slurs, outrageous simplifications, partiality, lack of criticism, the angelicism with regard to the Palestinians."
Jean-Pierre Aubin, a mathematics professor at the université Paris-Dauphine, instead criticizes the way in with Le Monde recognized the protests in its 9 January edition. Why talk about "an acute emotion amidst the Jewish community," when "it was the academic community that reacted massively against the resolution that was passed, without regard for the religious persuasion or racial origins of those whom the resolution has outraged?" M. Aubin adds: "Must our Jewish colleagues color their signatures yellow in order to set them apart from those 8,000 academics (including myself) whose births have spared them an incriminating patronymic?"
What's more complex, the mathematician suspects the newspaper of having sought "to discredit the protest movement." How? By writing that the resolution was "described 'as a call to boycott' by numerous academics." But, notes M. Aubin, who used the word boycott, if not Le Monde itself? "Didn't it title its very great editorial of 7 January this way?"
On this particular point, readers on the opposite side are also reproaching the newspaper. In writing of a "boycott" didn't it adopt the interpretation of the defenders of Israel? For example, the filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, who has announced a virulent "Boycott the boycotters" while invoking the pillorying of Jewish business and shops by the Nazis in February 1933...
"For me, the world does not have the same sinister connotation as it does for Mr. Lanzmann," writes Michel Ducrot (Paris). "Instead, it makes me think of the organized boycott of the racist régime in South Africa that contributed to its downfall. Additionally, as was rightly observed by the president of Paris-VI, the adopted resolution was not a boycott but a refusal to collaborate with Israel. It is the institutions that are targeted, not the men."
And even if it were the men that were targeted, where is the scandal? asked several readers. Simone Lafleuriel (Paris) "finds it acceptable that the Israelis, be they academics or not, should be held responsible as a whole for what they have been doing to the Palestinians for years."
Jacques Garrigue, of Kyoto university (Japan), adds: "You say that the boycott is 'unacceptable.' What then are the acceptable means of opposing Israel? Faced with a democracy, what more effective weapon can there be than the boycott?" Louis-Jean Duclos (Paris) is of the same point of view: "One cannot see how the'boycott' — if boycott there were — or some other type of sanction could weaken the peace camp. [...] In fact, Le Monde has opposed the very principle of any sanctioning of Israel."
Who can succeed in reconciling two groups of readers that are so radically divergent? Perhaps Daniel Breuiller, the mayor (Left coalition) of Arcueil (Val-de-Marne), who has just returned from Hebron, where he went to install a cooperative project. "A boycott of Israeli universities," he writes, "would be a grave mistake, but who shall defend the Palestinian universities and the right to an education in Palestine? [...] Is it known that in Hebron, as in all the occupied territories, every morning when they awake the children don’t know whether they'll be able to attend school? This depends on the curfew. The university professors do not know whether they will be able to reach their classrooms. [...] I would prefer that the energy spent either in opposing or promoting the resolution of the administrative council at université Paris-VI be put into the service of universal right to an education, of reopening Palestinian universities and the establishment of tripartite academic cooperation between Europe, Israel and Palestine."
His honor, the mayor of Arcueil would perhaps make a good newspaper ombudsman at Le Monde.
[* Both terms exist in the French language.]
[Posted 2003/01/12]
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