France and the Jews
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

When the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, addresses the United Nations general assembly on Sunday, he will be speaking in a city where many see him as a spokesman for a ministry hostile to the Jews. That sentiment has been percolating in the most distinguished journal in the city, Commentary magazine, for two years, most recently in an article by David Pryce-Jones.
In the May edition Mr. Pryce-Jones described the pervasive anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of the Quai d’Orsay. He quoted a foreign minister of the 1950s who was well disposed toward Israel, Christian Pineau, admitting in his autobiography that a “more or less conscious” anti-Semitism motivated French Middle East policy. France for example helped Iraq build its Osirak nuclear reactor. It denied American planes landing rights during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. France arrested, and then mysteriously released to Algeria, the terrorist who led the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich, Abu Daoud. In 1987 it was found that the Quai d’Orsay was partly financing an Arab lobby, the Cercle France-Pays Arabes. Mr. Pryce-Jones wrote that: “With the exception of the former Soviet Union, no country did more than France to promote a PLO state, and thereby to endanger the existence of Israel.”
This marked hostility to Israel isn’t just constrained to previous decades. Days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, France’s ambassador to Israel, Jacques Huntzinger, sought to justify suicide attacks against Israelis, saying it “would be completely irresponsible” to compare the attacks in America to those in Israel, because “the terror here is linked with a situation of conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian people.” At a London dinner table in 2002, the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard, infamously referred to Israel as “a shitty little country.” France gave a heroic send-off to the terrorist Yasser Arafat after his death earlier this year.
The editor-in-chief of the Paris weekly Valeurs Actuelles, Michel Gurfinkiel, told The New York Sun that there has “always been evidence of a very strong tradition of anti-Semitism” in the French “diplomatic corps.” This attitude was most evident under President de Gaulle who saw the world as being divided into two camps – those with America and those with him, according to Mr. Gurfinkiel. France came to see the “Islamic world as a natural ally against America,” and “Israel as a natural ally of America.” This “reactivated anti-Semitic tradition that always was present in Quai d’Orsay,” Mr. Gurfinkiel told the Sun.
There are signs that in some areas France is improving. In 2002 the interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, introduced a tougher stance against domestic anti-Semitism. Mr. Gurfinkiel told the Sun that there has also been a “very real effort over the past two years” to show a “more friendly face to Israel.” This has been motivated, he said, by France’s realization that its previously open hostility barred it from playing a role in Middle East peacemaking. Prime Minister Sharon’s recent state visit to France was an example of this new friendlier policy toward the Jewish state.
Mr. Gurfinkiel said that while there are clearly changes in policy at the top levels of government, he’s “not convinced” of success in reforming the hostile attitudes within the Quai d’Orsay. He said many in the diplomatic corps still believe “Israel is not a legitimate country.” While anti-Semitic attacks are down for the moment, the director for International Liaison at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Dr. Shimon Samuels, told the Sun that the community remains very concerned about anti-Semitism and very “significant numbers are leaving.” Many believe, Dr. Samuels told the Sun, that Jews will either end up leaving France with a “suitcase or coffin.” The hotline to report anti-Semitic attacks now receives “only” “three to four calls a day” – during the second Intifada there were “60 to 70 a day.”
We recognize the French take great umbrage at this description of their country as the letters to the editor of Commentary attest. France’s ambassador to America, Jean-David Levitte, leaped to the defense of his country both as a “career diplomat” and a “French Jew,” saying he did not recognize in the Commentary article “either the country I have the privilege to serve or the ministry to which I have the honor to belong.” He should know that among New Yorkers – a hard-headed lot – the credibility lies with Commentary. If the ambassador’s superior, Mr. Douste-Blazy, wants a welcome reaction in New York, he would do well to address these concerns about the ministry he heads. If he doesn’t, it can be taken as a sign of recognition that Messrs. Pryce-Jones and Gurfinkiel are on the mark.