Paris, 23 August 2022
Mr President,
In the shadow of the Dreyfus antisemitic case, the journalist Theodor Herzl realized that the return of the Jewish people to its ancestral home, the Land of Israel, would be its only protection.
This week, we will celebrate the 125th year since Herzl’s first Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland.
Amnesty International’s partner in Jew-hatred is “BDS France” (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), reminiscent of the 1930’s Nazi’s “Buy not from Jews” (Kauft nicht bei Juden).
Its instigator is the Stalinist French annual “Fête de l’Humanité”.
The Wiesenthal Centre has brought up the Lellouche law that forbids BDS.
Next, we successfully lobbied the National Assembly to adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism, that includes demonizing the Jewish State of Israel.
Amnesty’s agitation against Israel as an “Apartheid State” is to whip up further hatemongering against the Jews.
Mr. President, in a previous article, I claimed that “equating the situation in Israel to ‘Apartheid’ is a form of Palestinian identity theft of that horror that was specific to South Africa and Namibia.”
Israel – after days of rocket bombardments from Gaza – opened the security fence to 15,000 Palestinians, whose salaries, earned in Israel, keep their families alive.
Israel’s hospitals and pharmacies are manned by Palestinians.
Tel Aviv has the only LGBT community in the Middle East. In “Palestine”, they are incarcerated or worse.
Israeli Palestinians are members of Parliament (Knesset).
Mr. President, is this “Apartheid”?
Amnesty’s provocation is heavily rooted in France. We urge you to end this incitement to Jew-hatred, which stirs up the memories of Vichy.
Most respectfully,
Dr Shimon Samuels
Director for International Relations
Simon Wiesenthal Centre