Wiesenthal Centre to French Foreign Minister: “Your Dream of Two
States Can be Achieved by Pressing the Palestinians to Recognize the
'Jewish State of Israel'.”

“Without this precondition, you only reinforce Palestinian obstinacy
in pursuing their blind vision of murder to the last Israeli.”

Paris,1 February 2016

In a letter to French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, the Simon
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon
Samuels, noted that, “on 13 January - the anniversary of Emile Zola's
'J'accuse' - our Centre held a gala screening of our film 'It is no
Dream – The Life of Theodore Herzl' on the Champs Elysees, under the
Patronage of President François Hollande and Paris Mayor Ann Hidalgo.”

Samuels stressed that “their official patronage symbolically
demonstrated,on the one hand, the French State's endorsement of Zola's
clarion call against the antisemitism of the Dreyfus show trial, and
on the other, a tribute to Herzl's vision of a sovereign Jewish
State.”

The letter argued that the Minister's call 'to recognize a State of
Palestine unconditionally', thus conflicts with your own government's
above 13 January commitment to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre". Adding,
"The Foreign Ministry's singling out of the Jewish State is redolent
of the demonization of Dreyfus and endorses those who wish to wipe out
Herzl's Zionist enterprise.”

Samuels proposed that “the French dream of two states could very
easily be achieved, without international conferences and diplomatic
grandeur. France can lead Europe in pressing the Palestinian
leadership to finally recognize 'the Jewish State of Israel' as a
condition for recognition of 'the Arab State of Palestine'.”

The Centre claimed that “this would mean:
- an end to the zero-sum identity theft of the Jewish narrative in
order to validate a Palestinian legitimacy
- to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Jewish presence and sovereignty
- to replace their national emblem of a map of a 'Greater Palestine'
superimposed over all of Israel
- to end all incitement to hate and violence in the name a 'deJudaized
and 'Judenrein' ( Nazi example of Jew-cleansing) of the Holy Land'.”

The letter emphasized that, “without this precondition, Mr. Minister,
your plan can only reinforce Palestinian obstinacy in pursuing their
blind vision of murder to the last Israeli.”

“Your plan could, moreover, further endanger French Jewry by evoking an
'anti-Dreyfusard' antisemitic revival when Israel is obliged to reject
an indigestible French recipe. Indeed, one that France would surely
refuse if called upon to recognize 'the Islamic State of ISIS',”
concluded Samuels.