JAFFA, 25 October 2003 — The reckless words of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed sent waves around the globe and caused some quite unexpected consequences. For sure, the US Congress objected to the unheard-of idea of Jewish influence, and approved a multibillion loan to Israel. JINSA rejected Dr. Mahathir’s saying the Jews promote wars, for the wars promoted by the Jews are called “democratization”, or at least, “the war to end all wars”.
Only the French President Jacques Chirac delayed his response, and found himself on the line of fire. The oh, so non-existent “Jewish influence” could cause his political demise, as it did to Charles de Gaulle after his ill-calculated weapon embargo on Israel in 1967 (the great general lasted just one year). Jacques Chirac took the first flight to Canossa and eventually sent a letter of condemnation to the old Dr. Mahathir. Like Emperor Henry IV, he preferred to submit to the power that replaced Papacy in the minds of Europeans and Americans.
Still, he was attacked by the Maariv, an Israeli tabloid. This rag did not care much for a far-away Malaysia, but had printed grotesquely distorted face of Jacques Chirac above the caption, Anti-Semitic Mug of France. Hysterical comparisons of Chirac with Marshal Petain were made by Amnon Dankner, the Maariv chief editor. His editorial and other articles, notably by Nahum Barnea (he called Chirac “the collaborator”), were aiming at the French Jews, pouring inflammatory venom in order to set them against their non-Jewish neighbors and against France. However, the Jews of France (predominantly Sephardi descendents of Maghreb immigrants) could consider the personality of Amnon Dankner, the chief editor of Maariv, before following his orders. A few years ago this fighter for the Jewish cause published a long essay called I’ve Got No Sister (Ein Li Achot) where he described the Sephardis as “baboons” and “barbarians from the periphery of the degraded French culture”.
Do you recognize yourself, Derrida? Is it your portrait, Albert Memmi? In the time of tension between Maghrebis (“Arab Jews”) of Israel and the Ashkenazi elite, Dankner wrote: There is no chance for a fratricidal war (between Ashkenazim and Sephardim), for I do not consider these baboons my brothers. He expressed the gut feeling of the Ashkenazi elite, of the people who now try to bring the French Jews on their side: The Sephardim are at the bottom of the Israeli society, they are hardly represented in the universities and the media, while their party is out of power, their leaders are ostracized and their culture destroyed.
Dankner and Barnea of Maariv dared to speak of “the collaborationist (with Nazis) past of France”. Well, they should know everything about the Nazis. A few days ago, when Maariv was engaged in a ferocious witch-hunt of the Air Force pilots refusing to fly assassination missions, a long article appeared in one of the newspaper supplements. Ostensibly condemning the pilots, an unknown patriot wrote: “We fight for defense and existence of our people, for livelihood of our children, for freedom and independence of Our Forefathers’ Land. We fight, so sons of our people would be able to realize their God-given mission. We are a peace-loving nation, it is our deep conviction. We want peace, for the war is no solution. But our war against the Enemy can’t be conducted in knightly way. It is a struggle between different approaches to life, and it has to be carried out with uncompromising harshness. In order to obtain our goals, we must apply needed force. We could not get our state just by praying to God, or by calling for help of the United Nations. Only force, our force can help us”.
The article attracted very little attention, for it was an exact match to the rest of the write-up produced by Messrs Dankner and Barnea. Only a few days later, a sharp-eyed retiree paid notice to the by-line: The article in question was signed A. Schickelgruber, a real-life name of Adolf Hitler, and every single sentence was taken from Hitler’s speeches and books. This new posthumous career of the Nazi leader as a Zionist columnist served a sterling proof of advanced Nazification of Israeli society. The Zionist sympathizers affect their indignation whenever their black deeds are compared with those of Nazis, but publication of Hitler’s article and following lack of response by the Israeli public staged a convincing experiment: The Israeli discourse fully inverted and appropriated the Nazi propaganda.
This discovery could act as sobering cold shower to the hot heads of Zionist fanatics, but it did not. Instead of tearing their tailor-made dress shirts and pouring ashes on their balding heads, Dankner and his henchman Barnea fired the brave journalist Yehuda Nuriel who composed the article in question and brought the mirror up to the ugly face of Israel. But here is a good sign: The Sephardi intellectuals (http://www.kedma.co.il/), rebelled against their Ashkenazi Zionist mentors and supported Nuriel. Could it be the beginning of Sephardi awakening? Maybe. From Haim Baram in Jerusalem to David Shasha in New York, the Sephardis look for their own way. Let them serve as a guiding light for their brethren in France, and as the bridge of peace between the communities of Palestine.
— Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual and journalist.
