The Israeli-Zionist Lobby in France

By Roger Garaudy

Excerpt from the book "The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics"

"There is in France a powerful pro-Israeli lobby exercising its influence especially in the domain of information."

(General De Gaulle)

Source: Philippe Alexandre. "Le préjugé pro-israélien", "Le Parisien Libéré", 29 February, 1988

In France, General De Gaulle was the only one to dare to say: "that there was in France a powerful pro-Israeli lobby exercising its influence especially in the domain of information. This affirmation. at the time, caused an uproar. However, it contains an element of truth which is still relevant today."

Source: Philippe Alexandre. "Le préjugé pro-israélien", "Le Parisien Libéré", 29 February, 1988

Since then there hasn't been a single candidate for the Presidency of the French Republic, whatever his party, from Michel Rocard to Jacques Chirac, by way of Mitterand, who hasn't gone to Israel to get the media investiture.

The media power of the lobby, the controlling center of which is constituted by the "LICRA" (League against racism and anti-semitism), is such that it can freely manipulate opinion. Although the Jewish community constitutes about 2% of the French population, zionism reigns over the majority of decision makers in the media, on television and radio, in the press, weeklies or dailies, the cinema (especially with the Hollywood invasion) and even publishing is in their hands (by the reading committees where they can impose their veto) as is advertising, financial regent of the media.

The proof is the general alignment of the media where it's a case of reversing, in Israel's favor, the nature of events: The violence of the weak is called "terrorism" and the violence of the strong is called "fight against terrorism".

An invalid jew is thrown overboard from the "Achille Lauro" by a P.L.O. renegade. It is, incontestably, terrorism. But when, by way of reprisal, an Israeli bombardment of Tunis causes 50 deaths, including several children, this is called "fight against terrorism", defense of "law and order".

As if under the baton of a clandestine conductor, we hear the same music in all the media, whether it is attacks on the synagogue of rue Copernic or the desecration of the graveyard at Carpentras, the invasion of Lebanon or the destruction of Iraq.

I can contribute my personal testimony: Until 1982 I had free access to the biggest publishing houses, T.V., radio and press.

At the time of the invasion of, and massacres in, Lebanon I got the publication of a full page (paid) in "Le Monde", 17 June 1982, from the Director, Jacques Fauvet, where, with Father Michel Lelong and Pastor Matthiot, we drew a conclusion "after the massacres in Lebanon" about "the meaning of Israeli aggressions".

We showed that it wasn't a momentary lapse but the internal logic of political zionism on which the State of Israel is founded.

I received, by anonymous letters and by phone calls, nine death threats.

L.I.C.R.A. instituted proceedings against us for "anti-semitism and provocation of racial discrimination".

Jacques Fauvet's lawyer reiterated that one cannot confuse the Jewish community, and even less, its faith, with the State of Israel, the exactions of which in Lebanon were denounced by Jewish people of great standing such as Mendes France and Nahum Goldman.

Our defense (Father Lelong's, Pastor Matthiot's and mine) comes from the text itself: we reiterate what our lives owe to the faith of the Jewish prophets.

But political zionism has replaced the God of Israel with the State of Israel.

Its behavior, in Lebanon and in Palestine, by creating odious hodge-podges, dishonors judaism in the eyes of the world. Our fight against political zionism is, therefore, inseparable from our fight against anti-semitism.

For my part, I reiterated, in front of the court, the analyses of my study on "La Palestine, terre des messages divins": Political zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl (and condemned at the time by every rabbi in the world as a betrayal of the Jewish faith), flows, not from the Jewish faith but from l9th century European colonialism and nationalism.

The last vestiges of colonialism by settlement, in Palestine like in South Africa, come up against, by their racism (officially denounced by the U.N.), the resistance of the native inhabitants to the colonial occupier.
As with any colonialism and any regime of occupation (we experienced it in France under Hitler), repression is called "maintenance of order" and resistance is called "terrorism".

Listening to the judge of the L.I.C.R.A. trying to portray me as an anti semite, I could see myself in Jerusalem, at the Wailing Wall accompanied by the Israeli minister Barzilai in 1970, and then in Nahum Goldmann's house (at the time president of the World Jewish Congress), in 1967.

I see myself at the concentration camp with my friend Bernard Lacache (founder of the L.I.C.R.A.), who was helping me to prepare my classes to our comrades, deported like us, on "Les Prophètes d'Israël."

The almost total domination of the French and American media by Israeli zionism imposes on the world this subversion of meaning: An Israeli diplomat is attacked in London (Mrs. Thatcher herself proves, in the House of Commons, that the author of the attack wasn't from the P.L.O.), it's "terrorism". The Israeli army invades Lebanon and cause thousands of deaths: the operation is called "Peace in Galilee"!

On 1 January 1989 I hear of the toll of the "revolt of stones" on the television: 327 killed on the Palestinian side (mostly children, throwing stones) and 8 on the Israeli side (mostly soldiers, firing bullets). The same day an Israeli minister declares: "Negotiation will only be possible when the Palestinians renounce violence." Is it me who is dreaming? Or is this anaesthesia of the critical spirit a collective nightmare?: the triumph of nonsense!

As early as 1969 General de Gaulle was denouncing the "excessive influence" of the Zionist lobby in all the media: From the press to television, from cinema to publishing. Today this "excessive influence" has succeeded in effecting a total inversion of meaning, calling the artisan resistance of the poor "terrorism" and the infinitely more murderous violence of the strong "fight against terrorism".

We were wrong, Father Lelong, Pastor Matthiot and myself, to denounce the lie of this subversion of meaning. The 'High Court' in Paris, in it's ruling of 24 March 1983"considering that it was a case of legitimate criticism of the policy of a state and of the ideology which inspires it, and not of racial provocation... "Nonsuits the L.I.C.R.A. of all its requests and orders it to pay costs".

The L.I.C.R.A. appeals the decision. On 11 January 1984, the "Haute Chambre" of the Court of Paris pronounced its judgement.

The appeal court quotes a passage of our article where we accuse the State of Israel of racism.

The court "considering that the opinion given by the signatories only concerns the restrictive definition of judaism held by Israeli legislation... confirms the referred judgement where it nonsuited the L.I.C.R.A. of its requests and orders the L.I.C.R.A. to pay costs".

The L.I.C.R.A. goes to the Court of Appeal. The ruling of the Appeal Court of 4 November 1987 destroys the hope of the zionists of legally dishonoring us : The Court "rejects the appeal and orders the plaintiff to pay costs".

The smothering operation continues above the legal domain. The Zionist lobby has the means. If we had been found guilty, we would have had the right to appear on the front page of every paper to be pilloried as anti semites. However, the L.I.C.R.A.'s condemnation by the courts was systematically hushed up - even 'Le Monde', whose former director, Fauvet, is involved with us in this fight, contented itself with a bland statement.

However, the blockade I had been hoping for was realized masterfully. At the time of the appearance of the page in "Le Monde" on the logic of Zionist colonialism, I added two lines asking the readers to make contributions to pay for the cost of the advertisement. This had cost five million centimes. I received seven, in hundreds of small checks. Almost a third of the donors were Jews, two of them rabbis.

But, from this point, the media asphyxiation begins: no more access to television, my articles refused. I had published forty books in all the great publishing houses, from Gallimard to Seuil, from Plon to Grasset and Laffont. They had been translated into twenty-seven languages. From now on, all the big doors are closed: One of my biggest publishers is heard to say to his adviser: "If you publish a book by Garaudy, you will no longer have the right to translate American works." To have accepted me would have brought the firm down. Another "big wheel", about another work, said to his literary director (who, impassioned by the book, worked for three months to help me to finish it): "I don't want any Garaudy in the house."

Such is the story of the walling up of a man.

Our networks of resistance to nonsense are condemned to secrecy. And myself to literary death. For the crime of hoping.

This is just one example, on which I can personally testify, of the "inversion of meaning" of zionism.

We could give many more examples but every day we all witness it: It is the very meaning of Hitler's crime against all humanity which is perverted by Zionist propaganda, which reduces this crime against humanity to a vast pogrom of which only the Jews were victim.

* * *

A further step will be taken when these ukases are imposed by law, turning the magistrates into judges of historical truth in spite of prior laws on the liberty of the press.

The crime of opinion is henceforth on the statute books thanks to the Fabius law (no. 43), (the so-called "Gayssot Law", after the communist deputy who accepted to sponsor this wicked law), in May 1990.

It consists of inserting into the law on the freedom of the press of 1881, article 24b, saying:

"They will be punished according to the sixth paragraph of article 24, those who contest... the existence of one or several crimes against humanity, as defined by article 6 of the statute of the International Military Tribunal annexed to the London Agreement of 8 August 1945."

Source: Proposition for adoption by the National Assembly, transmitted by the President of the National Assembly to the President of the Senate, no. 278, an annex to the minutes of the sitting of 3 May 1990.

Mr. Aseni's (deputy) report stipulated (p. 21) : "You are asked to create a new means of incrimination regarding 'revisionism'".

Furthermore, it recommended "enhancing the possibility for associations to legally pursue in the case of infraction." (article 7)

At the moment of its introduction the reporter defined the goal: "To complete the existing repressive arsenal, to see to it that the criminal law... fully plays its role of intimidation and repression." (p.5)

Source: Report no. 1296, annex to the minutes of the sitting of 26 April 1990

The Nuremberg Trials, as we have shown, deserve less than any other to make jurisprudence.

A year later an amendment to the law was proposed by Mr. Toubon:

"Article 24b of the law of 29 July 1981 on press freedom is repealed." This canceled the repression proposed by Mr. Gayssot against "revisionist" historians", and refused to put historical criticism in the same camp as racism or Hitler's apologists.

His argument went as follows:

"When we discussed it in 1990, on the basis of a bill proposed by the communist group, of which the first signatory was Mr. Gayssot, I had challenged - and I wasn't the only one - the principle of this text, which consists of fixing historical truth by means of the law instead of letting history reveal it.

Certain people object that if it is history which reveals the truth, it is not up to the law to impose it. Certain proposals go to far and they must not be allowed to be expressed. This would be to slip imperceptibly towards making politics a crime and opinion a crime

Article 24b represents in my opinion, a very grave political and legal error. In reality, it constitutes a "law of circumstance", and this saddens me greatly. A year has passed. We are not a month away from the events of Carpentras. There is no need to examine a text which the 'Presidents' Conference' had, I remember, hastily registered on the day's agenda, 48 hours after its deposition, and which had been discussed immediately because the President of the Assembly, Mr. Fabius, had decided to subscribe himself. One year later, we can, as I have just done, calmly examine the validity of this law, the validity of this offence of 'revisionism' presented by Article 24b and conclude, with Simone Veil, that this offence is ill-timed."

Source: 'Journal Officiel", of 22 June 1991, p. 3571, Parliamentary Debates, 2nd sitting of 21 June 1991

In effect, it was forbidden, from then on, for any historian to question the conclusions of the Nuremberg Trials which the American President had, nevertheless, sincerely recognized to be "the last act of the war" and as such"wasn't bound to the legal rules of ordinary courts on matters of proof or conviction."

* * *

Hot on the heels of this wicked law, Jacques Chirac's declaration of Sunday 17 July 1995 marks an important moment in our history: That of the end of the unity of the nation, replaced by the collusion of renunciation. When the President of the Republic proclaims that"the criminal madness of the occupier was seconded by the French and by the French State [two crimes are committed against France].

* First, by talking of Vichy as a 'French State', thereby giving it legitimacy ;

* Next, by degrading the French people by confusing them with the servile leaders who served the occupier. And so in this way was rendered official the conception of zionism defended by Bernard-Henri Levy in his book,"L'Idéologie Francaise", where he writes: "It's the whole of French culture... it is our most cherished French traditions which, one by one, testify to our long history of abjection."

Source: Bernard-Henri Levy, "L'Idéologie Francaise", where he writes: "The icing on the cake was that the ceremony was presided over by the Chief Rabbi of France, Sitruk, who, on 8 July 1990, declared to Yitzhak Shamir in Israel (the very man who offered his services to Hitler and whose policy, that of the State of Israel which he presided over, hasn't stopped violating international law and takes no notice of decisions of the U.N.O.): "Every French Jew is a representative of Israel... Rest assured that every Jew in France is a defender of that which you defend."

"Without, however", he said on his return, "thinking of a 'double allegiance'."

Source: "Le Monde", 9 July, 1990

Such remarks to Shamir (who offered his collaboration to Hitler) would have rightly earned him his place among the penitents rather than the presidents.

Of course, this smearing of the French people was greeted with enthusiasm by the leaders of the C.R.I.F. (Representative council of Jewish Institutions in France) who expressed their "intense satisfaction to see the continuity of the "État Francais" between 1940 and 1944 at last recognized by the highest French authority."

The shame is that the leaders of all the French parties approved this denial of Chirac's in all the public organs, from "Le Figaro" to "L'Humanité."

De Gaulle never considered Vichy to be a state. "Hitler", he said, "created Vichy" (Memoirs I, p. 389) and he talked of the "stooges of Vichy" (idem. p. 130).

"I proclaimed the illegitimacy of a regime which was at the discretion of the enemy" (I, p. 107)."A truly French government doesn't exist." (I, p. 388, Brazzaville).

Referring to the agreement of 28 March 1940 with Britain, excluding any suspension of separate arms (I, p. 74), he said clearly: "The organ located at Vichy, and which claims to carry this name (State), is unconstitutional and is subjected to the invader... This organ is only, and can only be, an instrument used by the enemies of France." (I, p. 342)

De Gaulle stuck to this attitude for the whole war. On 23 September 1941, in the order creating the "Comité National Francais" he proclaimed:

"Given our orders of 27 October and of 12 November 1940, together with our organic declaration of 16 November 1940 ;

Considering that the situation resulting from the state of war continues to prevent any reunion or free expression of national representation ;

Considering that the Constitution and the laws of the French Republic have been, and are still being, violated over the whole metropolitan area and in the Empire, as much by the action of the enemy as by the usurpation of the authorities which collaborate with it ;

Considering that many instances of proof establish that the massive majority of the French Nation, far from accepting a regime imposed by violence and treason, sees in the authority of "Free France" the expression of its wishes and free will..."

Source: "Memoires", I p. 394

He thus dissociated the French People from the servility of its leaders.

"The condemnation of Vichy in the person of its leaders dissociated France from a policy which was one of national renunciation." (III, p. 301)

Evoking the uprising of the people of Paris, he wrote :

"Nobody could ignore, neither in our enemy's camp nor in our own, that four years of oppression hadn't been able to grind down the soul of the capital, that the treason was only the vile scum on the surface of a body which had remained healthy, that the streets, houses, factories, workshops, offices and building sites of Paris had seen the heroic acts of the Resistance in the gun battles, torture, imprisonment."

Source: III, p. 442

"Even in the worst moments, our people never gave up." (III, p. 494)

That is what Chirac, in a few words, denied in order to pander to the media power of the Zionist leaders and , by the same token, the vassalage vis-a-vis the U.S. stronghold of the Zionist lobby, which had already made him abandon his opposition to Maestricht, ruin of France, and confirm his submission to the American dictates of G.A.T.T. (rebaptized "World Trade Organization") destroying the possibility of independence and of a renewal of France by the radical transformation of its relationship with the Third World.

* * *

Zionism has always agitated the "bogeyman" of anti-semitism to have us believe in a permanent threat against Israel and in the necessity of running to its aid. There is no shortage of recent provocations destined to hide Israel's exactions. The method is always the same. At the time of the massacres of Sabra and Chatila, the writer Tahar Ben Jelloun wrote:

"There are coincidences which, by virtue of repeating themselves, end up becoming a major clue. At the present time we know what purpose an anti-semitic attack in Europe serves, and who benefits from the crime: It serves to mask a deliberate massacre of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

One can remark that these attacks preceded, followed or coincided with a blood bath in Beirut. These terrorist operations are mounted in such a way and executed with such perfection that they have, until now, directly or indirectly met the political objective: To divert attention every time the Palestinian question gains a little more understanding or even sympathy. Is this not a case of systematically turning the situation upside down in order to turn the victims into torturers and terrorists? By turning the Palestinians into terrorists, they are expelled from history and, consequently, deprived of their rights.

Didn't the killing of rue des Rosiers on 9 August precede by a few hours the deluge of all sorts of bombs on Beirut ?

Wasn't the assassination of Bashir Gemayel followed, two hours later, by the entry into West Beirut of the Israeli army (which, in the same way, eclipsed Yasser Arafat's historic meeting with the Pope) ?

Didn't the explosion of the booby-trapped car in rue Cardinet and the gun battle the following day coincide with the unprecedented massacre in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatila ?"

Source: "Le Monde" Wednesday 22 September 1982. p. 2

There are historical precedents from which we should learn lessons: a systematic effort to shape opinion by saturating it with "information" of ethnocentric inspiration fans antisemitism.

"In Berlin the theater, journalism, etc... was a Jewish business. The "Berliner Tageblatt" was the biggest German newspaper and, after it, the "Vosiche Zeitung". The first belonged to Mese, the second to Ulstein, both of them Jews. The director of "Worwartz", the main socio-democrat paper, was a Jew. When the Germans accused the press of being Jewish - "juden press" - it was the pure truth."

Source: Y. Leibowitz: "Israel et Judaisme", Desclée de Brouwer, 1993, p.
113 (chapter on the sources of anti-semitism.)

The most recent example of these maneuvers and their media exploitation is that of Carpentras.

In May 1990 in the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras, tombs were desecrated. A corpse was impaled and transported onto another tomb.

The Minister of the Interior, Pierre Joxe, declared immediately: "There is no need for a police enquiry to know what criminals are guilty of this 'racist abomination'." And yet, five years later, despite the involvement of dozens of investigators, judicial or police, nobody can say for sure who the perpetrators of this vile deed are.

All that we know is that there was desecration in the Jewish cemetery, that there was a "stating", because the body of Mr. Germon hadn't been impaled, as the enquirers admitted a few days later. So, one might wonder by whom? Why? In whose interest was this "staging" to increase the horror of the event and to stir up the hatred of public opinion?

The method was practiced at Timisoara where corpses were taken out of the morgue so that photographs sent all over the world might provoke more indignation and hatred against so-called massive massacres.

Jean-Marie Domenach (former director of the magazine "Esprit") wrote in "Le Monde" of Wednesday 31 October 1990, under the heading "Silence on Carpentras": "It is almost six months since the desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras... Six months later we still don't know who the criminals are. There is something more disturbing: the written and audiovisual media, who had made from this abominable event a scandal which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets and tarnished France's reputation abroad, have not sought to pursue the enquiry and have fallen silent. No parliamentarian, no moral or intellectual authority dares to question the government. Carpentras seems to be definitively part of the black legend of the nation without our knowing the guilty and without our knowing exactly what happened. Nobody yet can, or dares, speak the truth about Carpentras."

The strange "silence on Carpentras", denounced by Jean-Marie Domenach, contrasts with the racket made by the media in the early days.

At the time of the organized demonstration of 14 May 1990, 80,000 people, according to the police, (200,000 according to the organizers) had marched in the streets of Paris. The great bell of Notre Dame was rung in their honor.

In reality, nobody knew who the authors of the terrible act of Carpentras were. So whom were they protesting against ?

Against whom? Only the enquiry could have told us but it didn't.

But who gains ?

It was obvious: the flag of Israel stood out in all its splendor at the head of the demonstration.

This strange "Union Nationale" during this demonstration where Georges Marchais ostentatiously shook the hand of Francois Leotard, set the stage for the launching of a global attack against anyone who questioned the dogmas which put Israel above any international law. Chief Rabbi Sitruk, who gave a short speech defining the meaning of the demonstration, was able to shout: "Let's not allow any old thing to be said. Let's give a lesson to the "revisionist" professors and the irresponsible politicians."

Source: Le "Méridional". Monday, 14 May, 1990

However the truth about the desecration of Carpentras still hasn't been established because of all the leads suggested to the investigators, only one has been ignored, the one which is the most likely.

Why were those who could have been the most necessary witnesses ordered to be quiet ?

"The caretaker of the Carpentras synagogue and keyholder for the cemetery, Mr. Kouhana, who had been one of the first to discover the body of Felix Germon, refuses to talk to us : "Even if you were the Prefect, I got the order to say nothing. the President of the Consistory forbade him to talk "because he would have said any old thing to the T.V. people", argues Dr. Freddym Haddad, himself very reticent to talk about the desecration, as is Rabbi Amar."

Source: "Var Matin" magazine, Monday 15 April 1995, an article by reporters Michel Letereux and Michel Brault

Why did the Carpentras Rabbi, who was asked if the place would be resanctified, reply :"It is not my resort !", the President of the Consistory :"There's no reason it should be !" and the Mayor :"No one has asked me." Why didn't any French newspaper refer to a totally similar precedent - that of a "desecration" which happened in the Israeli cemetery of Rishon Letzion near Tel Aviv during the night of 2 March 1984: the body of a woman had been dug up and thrown out of the Jewish cemetery. "Barbaric anti-semitic act" proclaimed Jewish communities around the world immediately. A few days later the Israeli police, after an enquiry, revealed the true meaning of this abjection: The body which had been so shamefully treated was Mrs. Teresa Engelowicz's, the wife of a jew but of christian origin. The Jewish fundamentalists considered her presence in the Jewish cemetery contaminated the purity of the place and the rabbi of Rishon Letzion had already called for her exhumation.

Why did no French newspaper point out this parallel? Mr. Germon, whose body had also been exhumed during the night and subjected to the sinister "staging" of the impaling, was also "guilty" of having married a christian, and his body was transported onto a neighboring tomb, that of Mrs. Emma Ullma, "guilty", too, of having married a catholic. Why did nobody remind us that in Israel, in order to convince that before Israel Palestine was a "desert", hundreds of villages were razed by bulldozers - their houses, their walls, their cemeteries and their tombs.

Source: Israel Shahak, "Le racisme et l'État d'Israel", p. 152 and after.

The day after the "Day of Democracy" in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jewish students put the real question:

" Why do you not protest when you know that Agron Street in Jerusalem and the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv are constructed on destroyed muslim cemeteries ?"

Source: "Students of The Israeli Socialist Organization (Matzpen)", P.O.B. 2234, Jerusalem