Volume XLIII No. 6 June 1988 £2 (to non-members) IS MARSEILLES PRONOUNCED MUNCHEN? On the other side of the Channel the barometer Minister who legalised abortion, she — an So much for the Jews; what about France needle hovers dangerously close to Storm: the Far Auschwitz survivor — was accused of 'genocide' herself? To understand the problem we need to Right is on the march in France. By gaining 15 per of unborn French babies. A party which indulges take cognisance of one important local factor: cent of the vote in the Presidential Election the in such methods does not have to spell out its unlike Britain, where expatriates returning from National Front has proved itself stronger and anti-semitic ideology; the clearest indication of its the newly independent colonies only numbered more durable than the postwar Poujadists from attitude to the Jews was provided some months thousands, postwar France received over a mil­ whose ranks Front leader Le Pen first emerged. back when Le Pen dismissed the Holocaust as a lion white settlers uprooted from Algeria. These Not that Poujade was the first would-be Fueh­ minor incident (bagatelle) of the Second World socalled pieds noirs formed the bedrock of Le rer promising to be France's Man of Destiny War. Pen's support; he has since added to them the sort capable of solving all her problems; that phe­ Given all that it is most regrettable that a small of people who voted NSDAP in the end phase of nomenon is as historic as Napoleon and as recent group of our French co-religionists look upon the the Weimar Republic, such as struggling crafts­ as Marshal Petain. In the wider perspective of Front as potential allies. These Jews are doubly men and farmers, unemployed workers and history, though. France has on the whole been on blinkered. For one they accept its opportunistic bloodyminded students. the side of the angels rather than of the devils. She disavowal of antisemitism at face value; for There is another similarity between Hitler and is. after all. the country of the Declaration of the another they see its anti-Arab xenophobia — Le Pen. Just as Hitler lost no support when he Rights of Man and of the — ultimately — just most immigrants in France are from North accepted "personal responsibility' for political conclusion of the Dreyfus Trial. Africa — as helping Israel's struggle against her murders carried out by the SA (as at Potempa in The Dreyfus affaire prefigured the rise of Le Arab ememies. 1932) so evidence that Le Pen personally tortured Pen in being fuelled by race hatred: the Captain's To find a parallel for this grotesquely mistaken prisoners during the Algerian War caused no Jewishness was produced as evidence of his threat Jewish view of Le Pen one would have to turn a drop in the National Front vole. to national security in the way Le Pen describes mental somersault and imagine Germany Jewry For all that we need not expect the worst to the alien character of North African immigrants welcoming Hitler because of his hatred for the happen on the other side of the Channel. France as imperilling the economic and social wellbeing Soviets who closed down synagogues. Central to has been shaped by rather different forces than of the country. their entire misconception is the fact that North Germany. The Marseillaise is lightyears removed Like aspiring dictators of whatever country and African immigrants in France include several from the Deutschlandlied, and Voltaire was, for period Le Pen is a terrible simplificateur. He hundred thousand Jews. These Sephardim from all his Judeophobia, a different kettle of fish from equates the rise in crime with rising immigration Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, who today out­ Wagner and Nietzsche. and asserts that the number of immigrants equals number the Ashkenazi element in French Jewry, Francois Mitterand is, furthermore, the absol­ that of the unemployed: therefore, he argues, would undoubtedly rank among the first desig­ ute antithesis of President Hindenburg (even if expelling the immigrants would both alleviate nated victims of Le Pen's expulsion programme Chirac's friend Pasqua rather resembles Hugen­ crime and provide work for all jobless French­ — and the 'European' Jews among the second. berg). We can be cautiously hopeful that the men. An additional consideration, and one intimately new-old president and the leaders of the civilised As regards crime he identifies an additional bound up with the question of minority rights, is Right will jointly exorcise the spectre that is culprit: the inept reformers who liberalised the this: Jews can never, lest they want to blind currently haunting France. penal code and abolished the death penalty. It so themselves to all the lessons of history, afford to Indeed, it is good to see that the results of the happens that the most reform-minded recent flirt with enemies of democracy. The Jewish presidential election last month confirmed the Justice Minister was Badinter, a Jew. The supporters of Mussolini (seen in The Garden of good sense of the French people as a whole in National Front depicted him as 'covered in the Finzi-Continis) and their German counter­ rejecting the extremes of both right and left. blood" — i.e. the blood of the victims of the parts in Max Naumann's Verband National- criminals he had allegedly unleashed on society. deutscher Juden, not to mention their distorted The Front used a similar Goebbels-style smear mirror images on the totalitarian Left, have rarely An Announcement to our Readers campaign against the Jewish Health Minister managed to escape the bloodlust of the monster (see page 2 column 1) Simone Veil. Because Madame Veil was the they have helped, however marginally, to create. page 2 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1988 CHANGE OF EDITOR THE CHALLENGE OF TOLERANCE Editors frequently do not seek a profile or deliberately attract attention to themselves. Their When One Jew says to Another 'You Should Have Been Gassed' contributions to the journal in their charge tend to be anonymous or are modestly published above initials. Even if at times an article appears with When Jews in London recently were distributing according to him, 'no one seriously contends any their full name it is not associated with the leaflets calling upon fellow-Jews to strengthen the longer that the liability of a book to be banned editorship. movement to end the occupation of the West still forms part of Jewish law', though here, with One such editor is Caesar Aronsfeld. Taking on Bank and Gaza and help create a Palestinian all respect due to the learned judge, opinions may AJR Information on a temporary basis some two State alongside Israel, they were told by fellow- well legitimately differ. In his book Israel in years ago, its contents and layout soon showed Jews 'You should be hanged' and 'You should Europe (1907), G. F. Abbott perceptively the marks of his professional experience, a deep have died at Auschwitz'. They also were spat remarks: 'Strong convictions do not of course knowledge of Jewish affairs, and a feeling for the upon though this would seem a minor, less excuse unrelenting brutality but they explain it. interests of our readership. He has now decided relevant detail. The outrage was by no means an Given such convictions, persecution becomes a that the time has come to terminate his 'tempor­ isolated incident. The Jewish Chronicle has fre­ duty and toleration a sin'. The reference was ary' appointment and we wish him well in his quently reported cases of this kind; a member of actually to the Holy Inquisition but, alas, the retirement and for many years to come together the Peace Now movement in Israel, for instance, Holy Inquisition, throughout history, has worn with his wife Helga. We are certain that our was told it was 'a shame the Nazis did not finish all many hats, even a kappel, and it is the surviving readers will wholeheartedly second this vote of the Ashkenasim', adding 'We will finish what spirit of this scourge that will seek to vindicate the thanks. Hitler started', and, curiously enough, an Israeli inhumanity of those who tell dissenters they From 1 June the new occupant of the editorial court not long ago held that in Israel such an 'should have died at Auschwitz'. chair is Richard Grunberger, who has been a abuse was no libel in law. frequent contributor to these columns. Vienna- These sad facts, ominous straws in a desert born Mr. Grunberger has been a teacher and wind, well illustrate the progress from humanism part-time lecturer, and is the author of several through nationalism, fanaticism, fundamental­ books. ism, to bestialism. Beyond that they must also DOCUMENT CENTRE THEFTS raise the general question of tolerance among IMMIGRATION NEWS Jews. We demand tolerance from others — how Much publicised reports about files stolen from else could we exist? how else could civilised Balanced Controls in Britain the American Document Centre in Berlin, said to society survive? — but we are not prepared to Twenty years ago, Mr. Enoch Powell made his be containing 'highly secret', even 'explosive' grant it to our own. It is an old story. Maimonides famous 'Rivers of Blood' speech forecasting that material on leading figures of the Third Reich, for example was excommunicated by French mass immigration would cause racial violence in appear to have been much ado about very little. rabbis and his Guide burnt under their auspices. Britain. Whether by accident or design, the No fewer than 80,000 'top secret' files were said to The Hasidim were suppressed when they attacked theme was taken up by the Home Secretary, Mr.