Shimon Peres a-t-il eu tort de parler d'antisémitisme au Royaume-Uni ?

"Devrions-nous accepter l'idée que tous les Juifs ou que la majeure partie d'entre eux doivent quitter l'Allemagne?" Bevin posa cette question toute rhétorique à l'ambassadeur britannique à Washington.  "Je n'accepte pas ce point de vue. Ils ont vécu, il est vrai, le massacre et la persécution les plus terribles, mais d'autre part ils s'en sont tirés [they have got through it] et un certain nombre a survécu."

Le Prime Minister Clement Attlee alla plus loin en comparant les survivants de l'Holocaust qui voulaient quitter l'Europe pour retourner dans leur patrie ancestrale aux troupes nazies qui avaient envahi l'Europe."

Il  convient de rappeler certaines réalités car il est communément admis qu'après le génocide des Juifs européens (six millions de morts dont un million et demi d'enfants), l'Europe était écrasée par la culpabilité et de ce fait très favorable à Israël.  Est-ce que ce point de vue - répété et martelé sans cesse - reflète la réalité ?  Comment expliquer l'hostilité européenne à Israël ?

Shimon Peres versus the Brits, par Efraim Karsh, JPost

Was the president really wrong when he called the British establishment "deeply pro-Arab" partly due to anti-Semitic dispositions?

Shimon Peres, Israel’s 87-year-old president doesn’t usually arouse antagonism among Europeans. A tireless peace advocate for decades, and architect of the Oslo Process for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, he has long presented Israel’s moderate face to the outside world.

Yet last week he provoked anger among British politicians and Anglo- Jewish leaders when he told a Jewish website that the British establishment had always been "deeply pro- Arab ... and anti-Israel," and that this was partly due to endemic anti- Semitic dispositions. "I can understand Mr. Peres’ concerns, but I don’t recognize what he is saying about England," said James Clappison, vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel. “Things are certainly no worse, as far as Israel is concerned, in this country than other European countries. He got it wrong.”

But did he? While few arguments have resonated more widely, or among a more diverse set of observers, than the claim that Britain has been the midwife of the Jewish state, the truth is that no sooner had Britain been appointed as the mandatory power in Palestine, with the explicit task of facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home in the country in accordance with the Balfour Declaration, than it reneged on this obligation.

AS EARLY as March 1921, the British government severed the vast and sparsely populated territory east of the Jordan River ("Transjordan") from the prospective Jewish national home and made Abdullah, the emir of Mecca, its effective ruler. In 1922 and 1930, two British White Papers limited Jewish immigration to Palestine – the elixir of life of the prospective Jewish state – and imposed harsh restrictions on land sales to Jews.  Britain’s betrayal of its international obligations to the Jewish national cause reached its peak on May 17, 1939, when a new White Paper imposed draconian restrictions on land sales to Jews and limited immigration to 75,000 over the next five years, after which Palestine would become an independent state in which the Jews would comprise no more than one-third of the total population.

La semaine dernière 550 Juifs français ont émigré en Israël

1000 nouveaux olims en l’espace d’une semaine - et plus de la moitié sont Français.

La dernière semaine de juillet a été prolifique pour l’Agence juive avec 1000 nouveaux émigrants au compteur, originaires de 17 pays différents : 550 olims venant de France, plus de 100 de la Grande-Bretagne, 60 de l’Afrique du Sud et 170 de l’Amérique du sud.

Comme de nombreux olims avant eux, ces nouveaux venus sont passés par les étapes fondatrices d’un nouveau départ : ouverture d’un compte en banques, formulaires à remplir pour l’assurance-maladie, et la remise tout en symbole de leur nouvelle carte d’identité israélienne devant le Kotel.

Par ailleurs, l’Agence juive a lancé cet été un nouveau programme de camps de vacances destiné aux adolescents de l’Ancienne URSS. Un groupe de 240 jeunes, âgés entre 13 et 16 ans, ont ainsi découvert en juillet les richesses d’Israël, avant l’arrivée d’un second groupe au mois d’août.

Des olims de Grande-Bretagne montrent leurs nouvelles cartes d'identité israéliennes (JC).

Journal britannique: le Hamas serait plus 'moral' que Tsahal selon Robert Fisk

"Vous voyez où il veut en venir ? Robert Fisk affirme, avec sarcasme, que le Hamas est plus de cent fois plus moral qu'Israël en raison du nombre de victimes de l'opération "Plomb durci", une guerre que le Hamas a commencée! Comme si "Plomb durci" s'est produit dans un vide et qu'Israël avait purement et simplement décidé de massacrer 300 enfants sans aucune raison. Les roquettes, la terreur, Guilad Shalit, les tunnels par où passent des armes, sans parler des années où Israël a subi des attentats suicide - non et non, rien de tout cela n'est pris en compte dans les calculs de Fisk lorsqu'il distribue ses blâmes."

"Et Fisk se surpasse lorsque, implicitement, il blâme Israël pour les victimes afghanes: "Israël, soit dit en passant, a été félicité pour son aide 'logistique' en Afghanistan à l'OTAN - où chaque année nous tuons encore plus d'Afghans que les Israéliens ne tuent en général de Palestiniens - ce qui n'est pas surprenant puisque le boss de l'armée israélienne Gabi Ashkenazi a rendu visite au siège de l'OTAN à Bruxelles pour plaider en faveur d'un rapprochement avec l'Otan." Le Chef de l'armée israélienne va à l'OTAN il y a quelques mois. Et pourtant Fisk veut attribuer la mort de civils afghans à sa visite à l'OTAN du moins de mars?"
 
Voir également: Les propos du Président d’Israël affirmant que les Anglais sont ‘antisémites’ soulèvent la fureur, David Harrison et Adrian Blomfield
 

Elder of Ziyon: Robert Fisk says Hamas more moral than Israel

In what may be a new low for Robert Fisk [The Independent], which hardly seems possible, he starts off his latest screed this way:

The death of five Israeli servicemen in a helicopter crash in Romania this week raised scarcely a headline.


There was a Nato-Israeli exercise in progress. Well, that's OK then. Now imagine the death of five Hamas fighters in a helicopter crash in Romania this week. We'd still be investigating this extraordinary phenomenon. Now mark you, I'm not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).

You get that? Fisk is saying, sarcastically, that Hamas is more moral than Israel by over a hundredfold because of the casualties of Operation Cast Lead, a war that Hamas started! As if Cast Lead occurred in a vacuum, where Israel just decided out of the blue to slaughter 300 children for no reason whatsoever. Rockets, terror, Shalit, weapons tunnels, not to mention years of suicide bombings - nope, none of that is in Fisk's calculus of blame.

Netanyahou se réjouit du fort soutien des Américains à Israël

"C’est avec satisfaction que je constate le soutien du public américain pour Israël. Ce soutien traduit les objectifs communs au peuple américain et au peuple d’Israël: la paix et la sécurité dans un monde démocratique et de libertés. Israël veut la paix et combat le terrorisme et le fanatisme, exactement comme les Etats-Unis. C’est le fondement du lien très fort entre les deux pays, entre les deux peuples."

Nous avions déjà évoqué ce sondage [Record: 63% des Américains soutiennent Israël]

Le Premier Ministre Netanyahou s’est référé dans la soirée de samedi 31 juillet à un sondage de Gallup selon lequel le soutien à Israël dans le public américain est de 63 pour cent. Depuis les tirs de missiles Scud sur Tel Aviv lors de la guerre du Golfe en 1991, jamais le soutien du public américain pour Israël n’a été aussi élevé.

Shimon Peres: "l’Angleterre est profondément pro-arabe et anti-Israël"

"[Après l'évacuation complète par Israël de la bande de Gaza], nos populations se sont fait tirer dessus tous les jours pendant huit ans, sans que nous réagissions. Les Britanniques n'ont pas dit un seul mot lorsqu'on nous tirait dessus."

Voir également: Polémique: Shimon Peres déclare que les Anglais sont 'antisemites' et La seconde mort de Winston Churchill par Guy Millière.

Extraits de l'interview de Shimon Peres par l'historien israélien Benny Morris publiée dans The Tablet (Making history - Foreign relations):

"But it goes a bit beyond [Sweden and Switzerland]?
Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us.

But England changed after the 1940s and 1950s. They supported us in 1967, there was Harold Brown [Wilson?] and Mrs. Thatcher [who were pro-Israeli]. 
There is also support for Israel today [on the British right]. 

But in Labor there was always a deep pro-Israeli current.
But [the late 1940s prime minister and Labor leader Clement] Attlee was [anti-Israel]. Anyway, this [pro-Israeli current] vanished because they think the Palestinians are the underdog. In their eyes the Arabs are the underdog. Even though this is irrational. Take the Gaza Strip. We unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip [in 2005]. We evacuated 8,000 settlers and it was very difficult, after mobilizing 47,000 policemen [and soldiers]. It cost us $2.5 billion in compensation. We left the Gaza Strip completely. Why did they fire rockets at us, for years they fired rockets at us. Why?

Maybe because they don’t like us?
You fire rockets at everyone you don’t like? For eight years they fired and we refrained from retaliating. When they fired at us, the British didn’t say a word.

Maybe it is anti-Semitism?
Yes, there is also anti-Semitism. There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary. But with Germany relations are pretty good, as with Italy and France.

But there is erosion of public pro-Israel sentiment—at the universities, in the press. I’m not talking about the governments.
I’ll tell you why. On television there is an asymmetry that can’t be corrected. What the terrorists do is never broadcast. Only the response is broadcast. And then critics charge: "This is disproportionate." You don’t see the terrorist act. When a lawful nation fights a lawless nation there is a problem in the media. When an open regime fights a secret regime there is a problem."

- Shimon Peres: "l’Angleterre est profondément pro-arabe et anti-Israël" (JSS News)

Un journal britannique se plaint des Juifs

"Honnêtement je ne me souviens pas d'avoir vu jusqu'à présent dans un journal national l'expression aussi crue, aussi cruelle et sans merci et de prégujés anti-juifs." (Stephen Pollard)

"Je viens de lire l'un des articles les plus laids, les plus vils jamais publié dans la presse britannique.  De fait, l'article distille du venin." (Myriam Shaviv)

"Quand je me suis installée à Stamford Hill, je ne me suis pas rendue compte que les goyim étaient presque [le presque change tout, n'est-ce pas?] aussi bienvenus dans les magasin des Juifs hassidiques que Martin Luther King à une convention du Klu Klux Klan." (Christina Patterson)

La journaliste Christina Patterson fustige dans The Independent les mauvaises manières des Juifs hassidiques dans un article intitulé Les limites du multiculturalisme. Voici quelques extraits:

"I would like to teach some of my neighbours some manners. I would like, for example, to say to the man who drove the wrong way up a one-way street on Sunday night, while chatting away on his mobile phone, and to the man who nearly backed into me yesterday, while also chatting on his mobile phone, and to the man who drove into my friend's van last week, while also chatting on his mobile phone, that while they clearly enjoy the art of conversation, it's one that doesn't combine brilliantly with driving.

And I would like to say to the man who drove the wrong way into the car park at Morrisons, and then hooted me, and who parked in a mother and baby slot when he was on his own, and the car park was practically empty, that it seemed a rather aggressive thing to do, and also rather lazy, and I would like to say to the man from whom I bought some paper cups, and who handled my money as if it had been dipped in anthrax, that it wouldn't kill him to say "please" or "thank you", and I would like to say to the fishmonger who asked my (black) friend whether he really wanted to buy some fish from his shop, that you should probably assume that if someone is asking for fish in your shop, then the answer is in the affirmative.

Polémique: Shimon Peres déclare que les Anglais sont 'antisemites'

Shimon Peres a déclaré que l'attitude de l'Angleterre envers les Juifs était le "prochain grand problème" pour Israël.

L'Angleterre est "profondément pro-arabe ... et anti-Israël", ajoutant: "Ils ont toujours agi contre nous".  En précisant: "Il y a en Angleterre un dicton qui dit qu'un antisémite est quelqu'un qui déteste les Juifs plus que ce qui est nécessaire".

Source: Daily Telegraph (Fury as Israel president claims English are 'anti-semitic')

Shimon Peres said England was "deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israeli", adding: "They always worked against us."

He added: "There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary."

His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had "got it wrong".

But other groups backed the former Israeli prime minister and said the number of anti-semitic incidents had risen dramatically in the UK in recent years.

The controversy follows the furore last week over David Cameron's remark that Gaza was a "prison camp", as he urged Israel to allow aid and people to move freely in and out of the Palestinian territory [En Turquie David Cameron critique Israël et dit que Gaza est "une prison à ciel ouvert"].

Mr Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is three years into his seven-year term as president and was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in 2008, said that England's attitude towards Jews was Israel's "next big problem".

"There are several million Muslim voters, and for many members of parliament, that's the difference between getting elected and not getting elected," he said.

"And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment.

"They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 UN partition resolution ... They maintained an arms embargo against us in the 1950s ... They always worked against us. They think the Arabs are the underdogs."

By contrast, relations with Germany, France and Italy were "pretty good", he added.
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