Sharon Urges Exodus of Jews From France

[Rose Siding]

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday urged French Jews to flee the country to escape a rising tide of anti-Semitism, while acknowledging that the French government is fighting racial violence.

The latest French Interior Ministry figures show 510 anti-Jewish acts or threats in the first six months of 2004 -- compared to 593 for all of last year.

"If I have to advocate to our brothers in France, I will tell them one thing," Sharon told visiting American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. "Move to Israel, as early as possible."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-israel-france,0,4901912.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[burythehatchet]

1. are there any sources for information about

investigations into the incidents in France?

[Gyre]

18. Maybe he's planning on stirring the pot again;

this time w/ Iran. If he starts a nuclear exchange I can see how he might want Jews to remove themselves from a potentially dangerous scene. Thanks for the head's up Ariel! I'll be stocking up on some Iodine pills for my girls in the next few days.

Gyre

[IndianaGreen]

20. French Woman Admits She Lied About Anti-Semitic Attack: Police

Israel uses fear mongering in the same way our Homeland Security Department does. In some ways I think that Israel wants to destroy the Diaspora Jews by frightening them to death about the extent of anti-Semitism.

There are more anti-Semitic incidents in the US than in France, yet you don't hear Sharon and his ilk call for American Jews to flee to Israel.

FRENCH WOMAN ADMITS SHE LIED ABOUT ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK: POLICE
Received Tuesday, 13 July 2004 17:41:00 GMT

PARIS, July 13 (AFP) - A young French woman who claimed she had been the victim last week of a vicious anti-Semitic attack on a Paris suburban train admitted Tuesday that she had lied, police said.

The 23-year-old woman had initially told police that on Friday six youths had slashed her clothes, drawn swastikas on her stomach and flipped over her baby carriage with her 13-month-old child inside after mistaking her for a Jew.

On Tuesday, she first changed her story to say that she had been assaulted outside the train, but finally admitted that she had invented the entire incident.

The woman said she had drawn the swastikas on her own stomach with the help of her boyfriend, according to police.

http://www.ttc.org/200407131741.i6dhfxr13491.htm

Frenchwoman Fabricated Tale of Attack, Police Report
By ARIANE BERNARD

Published: July 14, 2004

PARIS, July 13 - A woman who provoked a national wellspring of outrage and sympathy when she reported being accosted at knifepoint in an anti-Semitic attack on a commuter train has confessed to making up the story, the police said Tuesday. Her report of the attack, after a sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents around France, caused President Jacques Chirac to vow to do everything "to find the authors of this shameful act'' and led to fiery newspaper editorials and a call for a mass protest against anti-Semitism and racism, which was supposed to take place here on Monday.

But when the police could not verify her harrowing story, they brought her in for further questioning and, they said, she then confessed to the fabrication.

The woman, Marie Leblanc, 23, reported Friday that a group of six men attacked her on a suburban train north of Paris after they mistakenly identified her as a Jew. She said the attackers slashed her clothing with knives, lightly wounding her in the process, and drew three swastikas on her stomach with a marker. Before the group got off the train, she reported, the assailants overturned the stroller of her 13-month-old child, who fell to the ground.

But video surveillance cameras on the train platform where the attackers supposedly left the train did not record the presence of any group meeting their description, and their hot line received no calls for help, the police said. They also established that Ms. Leblanc has a history of filing complaints for assaults that were never confirmed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/international/europe/14fran.html

[ixion]

2. hmmm... trade a life in France for a life in Israel... I wouldn't take

that trade for anything.

[Taylor Mason Powell]

10. Exactly. "Come to Israel, where it's safer???"

"You could be attacked by hoodlums on a train there! Come here, where the only danger is getting blown up on a bus or in a cafe."

[PsychoDad]

3. I might be wrong....

But... I think I recently read about an ongoing exodus from Israel by many more affluent Jewish citizens.

Is this so?

[starroute]

4. Israeli Jews are getting nervous about becoming a minority

The Washington Times
January 1, 2004

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031231-090830-7906r.htm

Immigration to Israel, suffering from a weak economy and continuing violence, receded dramatically in the past year and cut the Jewish state's annual population growth to its lowest since 1990.

The Central Bureau of Statistics said yesterday that 23,000 people immigrated in the past year, down from 34,000 in 2002. It was the lowest number since 13,000 came in 1988, just before East European borders opened with the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Israeli prime ministers have long made efforts to turn "aliya" — Hebrew for Jewish immigration — into a priority. Governments have feared that without steady immigration, the current Arab minority eventually could outnumber Jews in Israel.

Confronted with a 50 percent slide in immigration since 2000, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said last year that he hoped for 1 million immigrants from North America in the next decade.


(The particularly tinfoilly suspect that Israel actually fabricates anti-Semitic incidents to prompt immigration. Certainly the woman in France who recently faked a story about being assaulted by men who scrawled swastikas on her stomach seems suspicious, as does the item about vandalism of Jewish tombstones in New Zealand, which has no history at all of such events.)

[punpirate]

9. Interesting...

... the March 2004 Harper's Index has the drop in immigration since 2000 at -65%.

[name not needed]

5. Hmm. Get pelted with rocks In Paris,

or get bombed in Haifa. What are you gonna choose?

[merh]

6. Just part of the ongoing efforts to put France in a bad light and to

discredit the French admin so that when they indict cheney/haliburton, no one will believe them. No you must excuse me, but my french fries, oops, freedom fries are going to burn.

[aquart]

7. Sure. Just leave them with all those Muslims.

Makes me giggle, that does.

[markses]

8. There's plenty of room for the French Jews in the West bank and Gaza

We're building all kinds of snazzy new settlements:eyes:

Is this man mentally retarded?

[MikeG]

11. To quote a French diplomat: "Israel is a shithole".

[cantwealljustgetalong]

16. how very diplomatic...

of the "French diplomat"...NOT...

btw, when quoting, it's usually a good idea for the quote to actually be a quote...

here's a quote for ya: your French diplomat is a shithead...

[IndianaGreen]

21. The actual quote was a "shitty little country"

an off-the-cuff remark by a French Ambassador at a cocktail party which was overheard by Conrad Black's wife. Black proceeded to publish the remark in this chain of newspapers that included the Jerusalem Post.

Since that time, Black was fired as CEO of Hollinger International and he is being sued by his former company. BTW, Black is as rightwing as Rupert Murdoch.

[fryguy]

12. well judging by the posts to this message and others

France is only slightly LESS anti-Semitic than DU and its members.....

[spotbird]

13. There you have it.

Anyone sees through the shit that is going on in Israel today and calls it what it is labeled an anti-Semite. It's a safe way to attack without defending the despicable behavior the government tolerates from the far right over there. Arabs are human, someone needs to spread the word.

Until a year ago (or less) I was on the band wagon, but to learn of the treatment of Palestinians by fundamentalist Israelis which is so painfully reminiscent every horror committed in the name of God all over the world I was awakened. Both sides of a conflict can be totally wrong.

Make the claim of antisemitism, but you can't defend it. It is as meaningful as Pat Roberson's claim that 9/11 was brought upon the US because of our supposed transgressions.


Religious wackos come in every cloak.

[TroubleMan]

14. Maybe he needs more cannon-fodder.

nt

[DavidMS]

15. The numbers game again

The Israeli goverment seems desperate for immigrants for demographic reasions (so that the Israeli arabs don't gain too much political power). As for me my co-religionists are crazier in Israel than in the US, they give me too many reasions to stay here (that and I love our country too much to leave).

[Pachamama]

17. Is this his answer to showing solidarity with Bu$h against France?

I'm sorry, but Sharon has seriously lost it, not to mention that he is an evil neo-creep himself....

Yeah, right - leave Paris and France and come to Israel...Sharon will set you up real nice in a settlement in the Gaza Strip or West Bank and arm you with an AK-47 to protect you....

[Swamp Rat]

19. I'd rather be an atheist in France than a Jew in Palistine.

Sharon must want a "Rapture" too. Get all your people in one place so the target will be an easy mark. Why are insane people in control of the USA and Israel?

oi :hi: