Bloodthirsty Liberal

France:

Anti-Semitic acts almost doubled in France in 2009

According to the head of the French Jewish community, the rise showed ‘the totally unacceptable import into France of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’

Venezuela:

About 30 Jewish families in Venezuela will immigrate to Colombia in 2010 because of concern about the policies of President Hugo Chavez and also because of the energetic and economic crisis which affects the country, a Jewish leader in Bogota said.

(How bad must Venezuela be if the Jews there see greener—and more potent—grass in Colombia?)

And then there’s the always-reliable Middle East:

A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel’s enemies are gunning for.

Come on, Aggie, admit it: Britain looks pretty good now, doesn’t it?

Man refused citizenship because wife wears full Islamic cover

The French are more sophisticated than Americans (just ask them!), and also wiser, more tolerant, more cultured, and the food is better. But, they are uncomfortable with aspects of their Muslim population and it is starting to show. Recently there have been a spate of stories involving imams who were unceremoniously given the boot. They have banned headscarves in public schools and government jobs. And now this:

France has denied citizenship to a man because he allegedly forced his wife to wear a full Islamic veil, the French immigration minister said in a statement Wednesday.

The man was applying for citizenship in order to join his French wife in France, Immigration Minister Eric Besson said. The man was refused citizenship because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered, Besson said.

The decision, made Tuesday, came exactly a week after a French parliamentary commission recommended a partial ban on any veils that cover the face — including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women.

The ban — which has not yet come up for a vote — would apply in public places like hospitals and schools, and on public transport, the commission announced.

Foreigners may become French citizens if they marry French nationals and meet certain criteria, including integrating well in French society and having “good morality,” Besson said. It is on the criteria of morality that the man’s citizenship request was denied, Besson said.

“This individual imposes the full veil upon his wife, does not allow her the freedom to go and come as she pleases, and bans her from going out with her face unveiled, and rejects the principles of secularism and equality between man and woman,” Besson said he told President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France’s top court denied a Moroccan woman’s naturalization request in 2008 on the grounds that she wore a burqa.

Do I understand where they are coming from? Yes I do. But let’s face it, it’s fun to poke fun at the French. Sarkozy is much nicer than the leadership they’ve had for who knows how long, but it is still fun. Besides, if Israel or the US were as openly concerned about radical Islam, and instituted laws that amounted to a dress code, as if the entire country were one big Catholic school, circa 1960, the French would find a soap box, climb up, and, between sips of excellent wine, would begin the Euro-power-whine.

- Aggie

French deport Muslim cleric

This from the superior land of fraternite, equalite, and liberte?

France has deported to Egypt a radical imam who for months had been inciting followers in Paris area mosques to rise up against the West, the government said.

Described as dangerous, Ali Ibrahim Al-Sudani was detained and sent back to Egypt under an emergency deportation order, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said in a statement.

“The secret services had identified this dangerous individual who for the past months had been delivering sermons calling for a fight against the West in several mosques in the Seine-Saint-Denis area,” Mr Hortefeux said.

Mr Sudani, aged around 27, showed “contempt for our society’s values and incited violence,” he added.

The Egyptian national was the 29th imam or Islamic preacher to have been deported from France since 2001, according to the interior ministry.

In all, 129 Islamic radicals have been expelled from French territory, it added.

French security agencies had been tracking Sudani since 2008 and found his Jihadist teachings to be “quite hardline,” said an official close to the case.

Isn’t that just fascinating? I wonder if George Bush could have gotten away with deporting radicals? Could Obama? Would the ACLU have a fit? If Bush had done it, would Obama have campaigned against it? (Yes, definitely) Do the followers of these radical imams protest the deportations? Questions, questions.

- Aggie

French yout having fun

PARIS (Reuters) - Youths burned 1,137 cars across France overnight as New Year’s Eve celebrations once again turned violent, the French Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in poor suburbs that ring France’s big cities, but the arson is especially prevalent during New Year’s Eve revelry.

- Aggie

I’m going to let this guy have the floor for a few moments:

Jacques Attali, a French Jewish intellectual and economist, believes that “there is no problem of anti-Semitism in France.”

“Zero! None whatsoever. It’s a lie. It’s a pure lie. Not true. There are some well-known anti-Semites, but it is not a problem at the national level,” he said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in Paris.

“There are more important things to discuss than my view on a nonexistent problem,” he told me last week in an interview conducted in the headquarters of his consulting firm.

…

He said that all the talk about anti-Semitism in France “is dangerous if not altogether organized propaganda by Israel.”

When the Israeli journalist noted that there is a trend among French Jews to immigrate to Israel because of the anti-Semitic atmosphere, Attali reportedly responded: “I think it is not true. I think it is propaganda, Israeli propaganda.”

He added: “There are some French Jews who take a two-week holiday in Tel Aviv and then they are back to Paris or elsewhere. There are French Jews who buy apartments in Israel the same way the British buy apartments in the south of France: for vacations.”

Okay, contrary to what we thought and have reported ad nauseam, there is no anti-Semitism in France (just anti-Semites), and Jews aren’t staying away from the place in droves (just vacationing in Israel). And anyone who says otherwise is spreading Zionist propaganda.

Well, good, glad to hear it. I’m always happy to be educated. Did someone get a comment from Ilan Halimi, by the way?

But then, if he hadn’t stretched credulity already, he busted the thing wide open:

“France has the most modern Jewish community and the most modern Arab and Muslim community. It is absolutely crucial for there to be success in relations between Jews and Arabs in France. It’s crucial to Israel and to the whole world for the two communities to get along. These relations are of strategic importance: if they cannot live in harmony here, they cannot live in harmony anywhere.”

Attali doesn’t believe that there is a problem of anti-Semitism among the Muslim community in France.

“Absolutely not. They are absolutely adamant to avoid it, wherever and whenever. Of course they are against the Israeli policy in the territories. Of course you can’t say there is no problem at all. You can always find crazy people in every part of society. But it’s not a political problem; it is not growing, and in fact it does not exist. If you look at the numbers you cannot prove it.”

That’s because they’ve already burned all the cars.

But let him finish:

He also said that “the survival of Israel needs 200 million Jews around the world, which means it’s a question of conversion. This question is not really addressed. We should have a much broader definition of who is a Jew, and active conversion.”

Two-hundred million Jews: from his mouth to God’s ears. Would it be uncharitable to point out here that the world might have 200 million Jews if the Muslims and Christians hadn’t spent the last two millennia trying to kill them all off?

We noted yesterday how French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought President Obama, how shall we say, lacked testicular fortitude in opposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But when you look at the context of his remarks, the bigger picture—it’s even worse:

[N]ow we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America’s handling of the announcement.

Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran’s illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world’s leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion.

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been “frustrated” for months about Mr. Obama’s reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn’t want to “spoil the image of success” for Mr. Obama’s debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy.

Let me be clear (as Obama would say): Obama’s own vanity—his gargantuan ego—scuttled an opportunity to confront Iran—cooperatively, with allies—in front of the United Nations.

Le Monde’s diplomatic correspondent, Natalie Nougayrède, reports that a draft of Mr. Sarkozy’s speech to the Security Council Thursday included a section on Iran’s latest deception. Forced to scrap that bit, the French President let his frustration show with undiplomatic gusto in his formal remarks, laying into what he called the “dream” of disarmament. The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions.

“We are right to talk about the future,” Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. “But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises,” i.e., Iran and North Korea. “We live in the real world, not in a virtual one.” No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

“We say that we must reduce,” he went on. “President Obama himself has said that he dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Before our very eyes, two countries are doing exactly the opposite at this very moment. Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council Resolutions.

When a poodle tells you you’re full of shih-tzu, things have gotten really, really bad.

French police evict immigrants

CALAIS, France — Advancing at daybreak, French police rapidly encircled a camp outside this English Channel port on Tuesday to round up almost 300 Afghans, Pakistanis and other undocumented migrants who have gathered for years in the hope of making clandestine journeys across 22 miles of water to Britain.

Migrants, many from Afghanistan and Pakistan, gathered Monday in the “jungle” camp in Calais, France. The authorities plan to start shutting the camp this week.

The number of migrants staying in tents and shanties swelled to around 1,400 in August.

Hundreds of officers in dark blue uniforms scuffled with migrants and campaigners from a group called No Borders as the authorities closed down the camp, known as “the jungle” by migrants and Calais residents alike for its location among the thorn bushes and sand dunes of Calais.

The makeshift camp, with its huts and a mosque made of packing crates, blankets and tarpaulins, grew after the closure of a Red Cross shelter for migrants in nearby Sangatte in late 2002. The continued presence of migrants on the northern French coast has been an irritant to Britain, which is determined to halt their unauthorized passage through the port.

The operation on Tuesday, in which hundreds of riot police officers were deployed, had been loudly signaled by the authorities, and many migrants slipped away before the raid. Of those who remained, some were led away in tears.

So I wonder what the difference is between a migrant and an immigrant? And I wonder where these poor people will go.

With migrants outnumbered by 500 riot police, the half-hour operation began at 7:40 a.m. under the gaze of 200 waiting journalists, who watched police drag or escort away the mainly Afghan migrants who had gathered in silence under a banner written in Pashto and English declaring: “The jungle is our house, please don’t destroy it — if you do so then where is the place to go?”

The immigration minister, Eric Besson, defended the operation on RTL radio Tuesday.

“This is not a humanitarian camp. It’s a base for people traffickers,” he said.

No Borders campaigners on the scene shouted “No border, no nation, stop deportations.”

That has a nice ring in English, don’t you think?

They can’t go to Britain, they can’t stay in France. Will Germany take them? Spain? This doesn’t sound like the Europe I usually encounter in the media. What’s going on here?

- Aggie

By rights, this story should fall to Aggie. She’s the keeper of the Europe-is-so-much-more-civilized file. So think of her when you read this.

Uh, that didn’t come out right.

Er, neither did that.

Just read:

Hidden behind dark sunglasses, Jean-Pierre Rebete follows his target into a narrow Paris alley.

“We’ve got one,” he whispers to his partner, who bolts to block off the other end of the street.

The man in the alley zips up his jeans and turns away from the wall. Busted. Mr. Rebete hands him a ticket and informs him of his rights.

Mr. Rebete is a special agent in Paris’s war on public urination. Part of an elite, 88-member force called the Brigade des Incivilités, or Bad Behavior Brigade, Mr. Rebete scours the streets for all sorts of boorish offenders. Dressed in civilian clothes and driving an unmarked car, he tickets everyone from litterbugs to people handing out unauthorized flyers to Parisians who don’t pick up after their dog.

Jean-Pierre Rebete and Daniel Bottani are not your typical Parisian cops. They are part of an elite force that scours the mean streets of Paris for crimes against hygiene, including the smelliest offense of all: public urination.

But what the French call urine sauvage, which translates to “wild urine,” is the hardest to crack. While France’s capital has campaigned with some success to have Parisians pick up after their pets, the city is still struggling with the presence of pipi. Urine is hard to escape in certain parts of the city, be it on the street, in the Metro or in parks.

Members of the Brigade say there is no high season for urinary offenses, but summertime heat heightens the stench.

Maybe that’s why Muslim youth torch cars, to cover up the stench of urine sauvage.

The next time some French frog f*g (in John McEnroe’s immortal phrase) slanders Israel as a “sh*tty little country”, we can debate which particular offense is worse. At least the Israelis would take the merde, compost it, and use it to grow fresh, nutritious vegetables for the Parisians to boycott in their local marchés.

Not as happily as we’ve been led to believe. Again, the Wall Street Journal does the heavy lifting.

Turns out, the French have been closing hospitals (not that!) and some people live so far away that they are having their babies in fire trucks. You know, that isn’t so bad; it makes great stories for the grandkids. Lots of young firefighters make great obstetricians.

Here’s the key sentence, and if you want more, rush out to buy the newspaper, like I did:

“As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.”

Huh. They’re fighting with each other. Service cuts (nice way to say bye-bye maternity ward) have made the public cranky. And Szarkozy wants doctors to stop prescribing those expensive red pills, to go back to the blue pills, you know?

I do have a serious question for those readers who understand all of this better than I do. We keep reading that the average lifespan is longer in France and Canada and Britain and Germany, even though their death rates from cancer and other illnesses are considerably higher. The US cures roughly twice as many breast cancer patients as Britain does, for example. How is this possible? Is it because the US has higher death rates from accidents and violence? From suicide? I can’t understand how they have greater longevity while we cure more diseases.

- Aggie

If academia truly believed in diversity of thought, they’d hire a bow-tied conservative nibbish like Ben Stein or George Will to teach our children, instead of another Jew-hating Arab terrorist:

Following harsh condemnations by Jewish organizations, Canada’s Carleton University dropped plans on Tuesday to rehire a professor accused of killing four people in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.

Hassan Diab, 55, had been given a contract to teach a sociology class two days a week until mid August. Diab’s lawyer told a court Monday that his client had expected to resume teaching this week.

But the university said that a full-time faculty member “will immediately replace” him, explaining the move was meant to provide students “with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning,” according to a statement. The release also said there would be no further comment on the matter.

Diab, a Lebanese native who became a Canadian citizen in 1993, has been under virtual house arrest since he was arrested late last year. He has been granted bail but under strict conditions, while he’s fighting efforts by French authorities to extradite him.

The Canada office of the influential organization B’nai Brith said that the university had done “the right thing” by not letting Diab teach. Before the university statement on Diab, the organization released a statement saying it was “deeply disturbed” by the news that the alleged bomber of the deadly Rue Copernic synagogue will be teaching.

It was easier to replace him with a like-minded associate—dime a dozen, especially in Canada—than to trot out the tired defense of academic freedom.

Still, they lost a uniquely talented individual:

The Lebanese-born Canadian is accused of parking a bomb-laden motorcycle outside the synagogue on Paris’ Rue Copernic, killing three Frenchmen and an Israeli woman.

Mr. Diab has denied the allegations through his lawyer, who says he wasn’t even in France at the time. Colleagues have expressed disbelief.

Until yesterday, the French case against Mr. Diab was in a file sealed from public view, but yesterday the file was opened by order of a Canadian judge.

The case has four main points:

- Mr. Diab resembles police sketches of the bomber;

- His handwriting matches that of the bomber;

- He is identified by intelligence sources and former friends as having been a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine;

- His passport was used to get into France around the time of the 1980 bombing, in suspicious circumstances.

A misunderstanding, I’m sure.