Israel Shamir on the
Iranian statement in Paris:
On October
29, 2005, in the prestigious Hotel de l’Industrie in Saint
Germain des Pres in Paris, there was a meeting of Israel Shamir
with his French readers. The meeting room was full, but nobody
was refused. The audience consisted of an improbable mixture --
from Communists to Front National to the Black and Caribbean
activists -- united in their rejection of the new world order
and of Zionism. There was some tension, for the lawyers warned
of a possible police raid and imminent arrest of Shamir as LICRA,
the French Jewish ADL-like body, pressed charges against him and
his publisher M. Cherifi, but the evening passed without these
complications.
Shamir was
asked about the Iranian President’s remarks, and he said:
“There
is nothing unusual about states getting wiped off the map. The
country I was born in, the Soviet Union, was wiped off the map.
Yugoslavia was wiped off the map with the help of NATO bombers.
Prussia was wiped off the map by decision of the World War's
victors. Palestine was wiped off the map so completely that it
is difficult to find a map containing it. In French history,
Aquitaine and Languedoc were wiped off the map. What is unusual
is the mass hysteria that surrounds the Iranian statement. This
brouhaha proves that the Western world suffers from philosemitic
neurosis. Things that can be said about anybody else can’t be
said about Jews. I can call for the
wiping off of France and for the
creation of something different in her stead, (voices from the
audience: “France is already wiped off!”) but a call to wipe off
the Jewish state may lead to a real war against Iran. I may say:
you stupid Breton; I may say: Corsicans took over the police
force, or the Sicilian Mafia rules the casinos. But were I to
change Breton or Corsican to “Jew,” I’d find myself in handcuffs
and on my way to jail.
“Our
struggle for equality of Jew and non-Jew in Palestine is
connected to the same struggle elsewhere. Jews should be equal,
not superior to Bretons or Corsicans. But there is a
complication: the Jews form a competing church, and their
perceived superiority and overprotection creates the conditions
for this church’s victory over the Christian Church. I can say
whatever I want to about the Christian Church, even things that
are perfectly annoying to a Christian, But if I say things
annoying to the Jewish church, I’ll go to prison. This unfair
situation is unbearable. Voltaire did not hesitate to release
you from the clutches of the Church by writing blasphemous
verses about the Immaculate Conception. Now you may follow his
lead and obtain freedom from the clutches of the Judaic Church.
The Great Revolution disestablished the Catholic Church not in
order to establish the Judaic Church in France. This is a new
taboo that has to be broken, and the Iranian president took an
important step in this direction. If it is permissible to wipe
Palestine, the state of all people, Jews and non-Jews, off the
map, it should be permissible to call for wiping a Jewish state
off the map as well.
Unanimity of the media is a frightening phenomenon. Once, it was
supposed to be a Stalinist feature, but the uniform reaction to
the Iranian statement shows that Stalinism has returned with
vengeance. Though I have been a journalist all my life, I feel
towards the mainstream media as once I felt about the KGB – that
it is the enforcer of the power, not a voice of people.
Our friend
Paul Eisen wrote: “I find nothing wrong with the Iranian
President's remarks. They're pretty standard stuff in such a
context. What is more noteworthy is the huge fuss everyone is
making. Yes of course they're looking for excuses to attack Iran
but victims can't fight an oppressor by just avoiding giving
them excuses. If the object is to avoid giving them excuses,
then the best thing is to just give in. My feeling is that
Israel and Jewish power can't be challenged by strategising.
Israel and Jewish power can't be "undercut". You can't make
Israel 'look bad' because it doesn't matter if Israel does look
bad, Israel still does what it wants. My feeling is that only
defiance and resistance will do. I support the President of Iran
in making his remarks.”
He is
right: defiance is the way to obtain freedom we lost. Do not
submit, and you will win. This is the way to stop the
forthcoming attack on Iran and to regain freedom in France and
in Palestine.
Shamir also
called for unity of the Left and the Right against globalising
imperialism.
Shamir was
asked about the late Israel Shahak whose book Three Thousand
Years of Jewish Religion was an important step in undermining
the Judaic paradigm. He replied:
In the
Jewish tradition, there is a concept: a righteous man does not
die unless there is a new one ready to take his place. It is
based on the words of Ecclesiastes: ‘The sun rises and the sun
sets’. Thus, before the setting of the sun of Eli, the sun of
Samuel had risen, in the book of Samuel. Likewise, I began to
write on this subject when Israel Shahak died. In a way, I took
his place after he was gone. I have immense respect for him, but
I have gone further: he debunked the Jewish paradigm in the name
of liberalism and of open society, I added that the Open Society
of George Soros and its liberalism is but another name for
Jewish paradigm.
The Black
activists asked for Shamir’s stand on the problem of Negrophobia
being stirred up in France. He said:
In
Palestine, there are Black soldiers who man the checkpoints on
the roads, and there are Black Palestinians who queue at the
checkpoints. There are white and black Jews, white and black
Palestinians. So the colour of one’s skin is not an important
factor for us, the people of the Middle East. Similarly to my
countrymen, I am a colour-blind Daltonian, and I do not feel
about the colour of skin more than about the colour of eyes:
there are blue-eyed and brown-eyed people, of black and white
skin, but it is as important as the colour of cat’s fur. It is
not necessary to imitate Jewish talk about anti-Semitism by
speaking of Negrophobia. You are French, of whatever shade of
skin, and that is important. So you may refer, as in the schools
of old, to ‘our Gallic ancestors’ whether your real ancestors
were Franks, Dutch or Africans. Naturally, I am against all
discrimination on the base of skin colour; people should be
equal; but one should not encourage divisive ideas. Again, I do
not know much about your situation here, and I am ready to learn
as much as I am ready to teach.
On
Wednesday, a decision of the French court on the case of
Shamir’s publisher is expected.
|
