Israel and France are back to normal

Israeli President Shimon Peres has seen it all.

Almost any man would have been confused by the series of unbelievable mishaps that erupted out of nowhere during his visit in France, from anti-Israeli rallies and boycotts to a sabotage of his speech by right-wing Jews, to the collapse of an installation just inches over his head at the mid-March prestigious annual book fair where Israel was the star guest.

But not President Peres. He didn't appear moved at all. To the contrary. Like a quick tennis player, he anticipated the attacks and threw the ball back to his advantage, winning the PR match.

His message was clear: Sarkozy's policy of close friendship with Israel is not a new or original trend after three decades of somewhat colder ties, but rather a return to the natural state of affairs between the two countries -- albeit one that must be encouraged. Peres repeated over and over that after Israel's War of Independence, when Israel was desperately looking for any kind of ally in order to defend itself and survive, France was the only country that agreed to sell warplanes and weapons to the Jewish state.

"I came to France at the time and discussed [this] with its great leaders. That was the France of the Resistance, the one we respect so much," Peres said in his speeches. "I say we owe France our thanks. Thank you France!"

One of the striking things about Peres' visit is the disconnect between him and the local Jewish community, which is often more allied with the Likud Party. The non-Jewish public appreciates him, yet most Jews don't share that enthusiasm (though they pretend they do when speaking with non-Jews). By contrast, when Ariel Sharon visited France a couple of years ago he made whole audiences of traditional French Jewry cry and laugh to tears. The same people didn't even bother to attend Peres' address to the community.

One girl told me "I admire Sharon; I worship Rabin; I don't care for Peres." Some right-wingers attended the ceremony only to interrupt Peres and call him "traitor" for a dozen minutes.

Peres was not moved.

"I'm used to your kind of people, those who try to turn any meeting into a political protest," he said. "I'll tell you one thing: Whatever you may attempt, we will not halt our efforts to encourage Mr. Sarkozy in his policy on the Middle East. He understands what the dangers are, and together we will fight terror and the Iranian threat and bring security to the whole region."

"Being a Jew is not just having a Jewish mother. It's raising one's children to become Jews, and I mean with Jewish moral values. This means one does not want to rule [over] or control any other people."

The protestors were ejected from the hall by security.

The next day, the Jewish community issued a press release saying, "All French Jews are united behind Shimon Peres."

Something has definitely changed in France regarding Israel. Maybe it's the Sarkozy effect. As both Ehud Olmert and Peres say, the French president is an extremely rare example of a political leader who maintains his enthusiasm toward Israel, even after his election.

A few years ago, France, at best, tolerated Israel; on some occasions Jacques Chirac said Sharon was not welcome in Paris. Obviously, things have since improved, but Sarkozy's election pushed the friendship further, turning the relationship into genuine support.

And indeed, the French president kept his promise and honored Israel by inviting Peres as his first official guest on a state visit. He defended Israel's right to defend itself and its right to live as any other state and be -- for instance -- the guest of honor at the Salon du Livres de Paris, the international book fair. He sent his son Jean, a newly elected local representative at 22, to Peres' meeting with the Jewish community.

In embracing Israel, the French president has on several occasions been the victim of anti-Semitic jibes, and, indeed, the French book fair was boycotted by several Arab countries because an Israeli leader was a guest star. France could have tempered its support to the guest, but it didn't. The boycott was seen as an outrage, and the Presidential Palace's spokesperson repeated its position. The affair was of national importance. Through all that week, thousands of Israeli flags were seen floating across the French capital to honor Peres and Israel.

All the signs are there: France is changing. Or perhaps, as Peres puts it, things may be simply getting back to normal.


The 8th Israeli Film Festival of Paris is taking place this week (March 25 to April 1st). The event, launched eight years ago by Charles Zrihen, propelled precious collaborations between French producers and Israeli directors contributing greatly to the Israeli 7th art industry, said French producer Sophie Dulac. Israeli films were a joke here 10 years ago. Today, French intellectuals won't miss them for anything.

The festival is organized by Charles Zrihen's association ISRATIM (http://www.isratim.co.il/)


If you have visited the Jewish quarter of the Marais in Paris, you have seen a piece of history. The old Jewish Rue des Rosiers, where the community has been present for centuries, has slowly disappeared as luxurious fashion stores, art galleries and gay clubs have replaced synagogues, restaurants, kosher butcheries and bakeries.

Some of the new stores agreed to keep old ornaments on the walls, and when walking in the Rue des Rosiers, one can still spot some drawings of boys studying for their b'nai mitzvah and other such scenes.

A group of Jewish residents launched a petition to stop the building of a major clothing store on this street, but the initiative is not the first of its kind, and none of the preceding ones achieved their goal.

Letter from France: The hottest ticket in town

The Judeo-political happening of the year, the annual dinner of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (Council of Jewish Organizations of France, better known as CRIF), is about to take place on Feb. 13 in one of Paris' glamorous venues, the Pavilion d'Ermenonville, and all of its aficionados are wondering whether this year's edition will stand up to the competition of preceding ones.

Last year, the Jewish community dinner was the only event attended by both presidential candidates, Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, and no guest could ever forget how the two managed to avoid each other while moving through the packed lounge, shaking hands with everyone else. Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, officially the star guest, was completely ignored by the crowd.

This year Sarkozy, one of the dinner's regular guests, will attend the event once again. Only this time he will be in attendance as France's leader, the first president to do so.

CRIF press director Edith Lenczner told me that organizing the dinner has been even more delicate now that Sarkozy is coming, and she hopes to keep the press in a separate hall with a giant TV screen to watch the speeches. Some would say this sounds like an idea Sarkozy himself would have suggested.

The CRIF annual dinner was never meant to become a central political event of national importance; it started out as a simple distinguished meeting between Jewish leaders and political officials where the CRIF shared its fears, ideas and projects. Throughout the years, though, an increasing number of public figures have attended the event. High-ranking leaders, the whole government and the opposition, TV stars, singers, ambassadors of numerous countries -- from China to Tunisia -- and even controversial figures wouldn't miss the event and press their Jewish friends to get them in. Jacques Chirac's lawyer, Francis Szpiner, called his most influential clients to get a seat, without managing to do so. The dinner, speeches and cocktail reception are even broadcasted live on French TV, because everyone knows this is the place to be, and that an important message will be delivered.

In 2002, Roger Cukierman, the excellent former CRIF leader, denounced the growing anti-Semitism in France at a time when Lionel Jospin's government was still denying its existence.

In 2003 Cukierman criticized the "Brown-red-green alliance," implying that the extreme left had joined the extreme right and fundamentalist Muslims, symbolized by the color green, in an anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic allegiance. The speech launched a great controversy, because the audience misunderstood Cukierman and thought he was attacking the Green environmentalist party, whose leader Gilles Lemaire left the dinner angrily. Cukierman never openly cleared up the misunderstanding, and some of his enemies within the Jewish community accuse him of enjoying the attention and headlines too much to admit he never intended to attack the nature-friendly Greens, who do tend to strongly criticize Israel at times.

Every year the CRIF tries to impress by inviting a special guest involved in some recent news event. Robert Redecker, the philosophy teacher who had to run for his life after criticizing Islam in a newspaper column, was invited along with anti-terror judge Bruguière, Ilan Halimi's family and the policeman who saved a young Jewish soccer fan from an enraged crowd of Jew-haters trying to lynch him, etc. This year's special guest will be a newlywed couple: top model Carla Bruni and Sarkozy himself.

Sarkozy's participation is appreciated by the CRIF, but some observers, such as the newsmagazine Marianne, criticize the move, arguing that it shows once again that Sarkozy is encouraging religious communities to lobby for their interests in a strongly secular state.

"We shouldn't be ashamed to lobby for Israel, against anti-Semitism and in favor of inter-religious dialogue," Pierre Besnainou, the former head of the European Jewish Congress, told me last year when he was still running the organization.

French observers, mainly the left-wing press Liberation, Charly Hebdo and Marianne, fear that the Jewish annual happening will open Pandora's box, strengthen other communities, including Muslim extremists, and weaken the French secular identity, the nation's apparent immunity against fundamentalism and terror.

The process they dread so much had already begun when Sarkozy created a few years back the CFCM (French Muslim Council), an Islamic CRIF. From this Muslim council emerged the UOIF (Islamic Organizations' Union of France), a fundamentalist body.

"Sarkozy the bigot is endangering secularity" was Marianne's main headline last week. The magazine printed a series of articles and a picture of Sarkozy with a white-bearded rabbi, mistakenly identified as the French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, when he was in fact David Messas, the rabbi of Paris.

Sarkozy's favorable attitude toward religion; as well as his speeches in the Vatican, where he pleaded for a "positive secularity," and in Saudi Arabia, where he said religion saved civilization from man's extremism, shocked French observers.

Those who criticize his position don't accept the concept of positive or negative secularism, saying secularism is an intrinsic notion; they don't accept the growing importance of communities and say that the republic should be lobby-free.

However, fundamentalism does exist in France as well as fundamentalist lobbies. They are also active in European Union bodies.

Maybe Sarkozy's "positive secularism" is a way of battling against extremists while recognizing a community's right to defend its security and interests.

Maybe it begins by trying to understand religion, the right to practice and by avoiding mixing up all rabbis and imams.

Maybe then would France's cherished secularity be truly protected.