Just under the surface

OPINION PIECE

BY ROBERT FESTENSTEIN

Nanterre, London, Jenin.

It’s been an eventful week.

Until this week I had only heard of two of these places. Nanterre it turns out is a suburb of Paris, the suburb where a 17 year old French Algerian was killed by a police officer. It is also home to the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation, a memorial to the more than 200,000 people who were deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. It was inaugurated by then-President Charles de Gaulle on April 12, 1962.

London, or more strictly, the House of Commons on Monday of this week was host to the second reading of the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, or in more colloquial language, the bill aimed at outlawing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) in local councils. Much was said about how this amounts to an attack on free speech and how it ties council’s hands when it comes to criticising foreign governments.

More about this later.

Finally Jenin, an established centre of terrorist organisation going back to the second intifada at the beginning of this century. The BBC predictably enough have made this front page news on their website and just as predictably have failed to even attempt impartiality. Their phrase “The city has seen repeated Israeli military raids in the past year as local Palestinians have carried out deadly attacks on Israelis. Other Palestinian attackers have hidden there” might appear even handed, but it is not, since it equates military action by the Israelis with attacks on Israeli civilians. This false equivalence it seems is here to stay.

As for Nanterre, riots broke out as French Algerians across the country burned and looted shops and other buildings. In Nanterre itself, the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation was defaced with the words “We are going to make a Shoah”. In the middle ages, it was crusading Christians who murdered Jews on their way to Jerusalem to fight the Muslim takeover of the Holy Land. Now it appears that Muslim rioters in France are adopting a similar strategy, in attacking this Jewish memorial.

Pause there for a moment and consider. The police officer who killed the boy was not Jewish. Nanterre is not a Jewish neighbourhood. The boy was not Jewish. Yet when rioters apparently demonstrating against the French police get underway, Jews suddenly become a target. Not a main target, but a target nonetheless.

So back to the House of Commons. I repeat what I said last week about local councils and foreign policy. They should have nothing to do with each other. It is just nonsense to complain that preventing local councils from criticising foreign governments is a restriction of free speech. Councillors are not being prevented from publicising their views, just doing so via a body which has nothing to do with foreign policy. Too many times councils in the UK have criticised Israel when so often those promoting the criticism have no idea what they are talking about. Hardly surprising when it’s not their job.

The leviathan which is the BBC cheerfully fails to report impartially about

Israel, and in their own way contribute to hardening attitudes towards Jews. It has long been established that constant (and inaccurate) criticism of Israel has a part to play in current anti-Semitism and the BBC is clearly culpable.

The attack on the memorial in Nanterre is a chilling reminder that we are often a target, even when the issue at hand has absolutely nothing to do with us. When it comes to fighting the anti-Semitic BDS propaganda, since local councils cannot be relied upon to concentrate on their own affairs the legislation designed to keep them on the straight and narrow is most welcome. As a community, we Jews need all the help we can get, since Jewhate is only just below the surface.

Robert Festenstein is a practising solicitor and has been the principal of his Salford based firm for over 20 years. He has fought BDS motions to the Court of Appeal and is President of the Zionist Central Council in Manchester which serves to protect and defend the democratic State of Israel.