I heard yet another disturbing report this morning on the news. A group of young female jewish students from the United States and Israel were taking a tour of Auschwitz, and a group of French teenagers, on of whom was 6'9" tall started shouting at them using antisemitic epithets, telling them to leave the continent and die. What made it all the more disturbing to me was where exactly all the shouting started -- in the showers & gas chambers.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the story of 3 young girls, who were thought to be Jewish by a group of French teenagers on a subway car in Paris, were assaulted by the teenagers while the rest of the subway car full of Parisians just sat there and watched it happen, even though none of the attackers were armed.

Is anyone concerned here that modern day France is turning into pre-WWII Germany, at least with respect of their hatred of the Jewish people? I find it extremely disturbing. In another thread (I think it had to do with patriotism), I mentioned that a friend of mine who lived in Paris for 15 years and was Jewish experienced overt acts of antisemitism on a weekly basis.

What's going on in France???

This is a quasi-current event (it would be more topical around the time of that borderline-nazi who ran for president a while back) that I sorta have an idea about. According to what I've heard about nazi/fascist movements and about France here's what I've interpreted about the whole situation.

Although even super-conservative Frenchy-hating Forbes magazine admits that things are changing for the better, France is known as a country that is difficult to do business in. Taxes are high, and regulations are abundant (35-hour work week?!!). This is not good for employment rates. However, the regulations that make jobs leave the country are the ones that sincerely try to help the average Joe, err, average Jaques. People aren't going to blame laws that try to help them, so they place the blame on foreigners and minorities. What compounds the racism is the way that tight labor laws make immigrants want to come into the country and try to get a job with better conditions than in their home country.

This is just a theory, but think of American blue collar workers angry at Mexicans, and it seems very probable. The Nazis were only able to take power in Germany because their economic situation after WWI was freakishly bad, so antisemitic politicians won't be taking office in France anytime soon. And because the business climate in France is warming, the chances are even less likely.

Any fascist movements in France will just be an interesting sidenote in history in a few years.

Very well said Sweetie! I concur.

Thanks for that response, Sweetie. I wasn't totally aware of that situation.

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Originally posted by SparkleMotion:
I heard yet another disturbing report this morning on the news. A group of young female jewish students from the United States and Israel were taking a tour of Auschwitz, and a group of French teenagers, on of whom was 6'9" tall started shouting at them using antisemitic epithets, telling them to leave the continent and die. What made it all the more disturbing to me was where exactly all the shouting started -- in the showers & gas chambers.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the story of 3 young girls, who were thought to be Jewish by a group of French teenagers on a subway car in Paris, were assaulted by the teenagers while the rest of the subway car full of Parisians just sat there and watched it happen, even though none of the attackers were armed.

Is anyone concerned here that modern day France is turning into pre-WWII Germany, at least with respect of their hatred of the Jewish people? I find it extremely disturbing. In another thread (I think it had to do with patriotism), I mentioned that a friend of mine who lived in Paris for 15 years and was Jewish experienced overt acts of antisemitism on a weekly basis.

What's going on in France???

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Having not been to France recently, I can't speak to the overall sentiment there, SM, but I'm not sure if a casual perusal of news headlines from across the US, particularly more rural parts, wouldn't find the same kinds of hatred (anti-semitic and otherwise) spread out here. Recent hate crimes (Donald Byrd, Matthew Shepard, Larry Birdsong) in the US might not have the visceral quality of anti-semitism in Auschwitz, but there's plenty of pockets of it throughout the US. I've never seen so much overt racial and homosexual hatred as I've seen present in rural Missouri, one of the "battleground states" for President. In Illinois, a white supremist and member of the "World Church of the Creator" was convicted recently of a hatching a plot to kill a federal judge.

And the fact that people seemed to stand idly by on a Subway car isn't at all shocking to me. The Kitty Genovese case seemed to show that people won't help someone in need even when they can do it anonymously...I hope this case serves as a wake-up call to the French and, indeed, to everyone else. Standing idly by while someone is assaulted is not OK. We should be a better society than that.

From what I have been reading in the news, that subway attack story was apparantly fake. Police are now saying that the woman who told them the story lied to them and that the incident did not happen.

There was an interesting story in yesterday's New York Times on the increase in neo-Nazi acts in France, specifically in Alsace on the French/German border. Neo-Nazism is strictly repressed within German borders, which has led fringe groups to cross the border into France, especially Alsace, which is a traditionally German-speaking region of the country. While such groups will always find adherents among the sort of disenfranchised groups Sweetie describes, there is at least some evidence that the sort of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim acts France has seen recently may be perpetrated by the usual suspects.

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there was a hysteria of recent isreal-bashing too among the socialist hordes in france and that could have set off a wave of popular resentment against jews, especially among the younger sets. here in america, when the vitriol was at its highest (about a year or so ago) it was not uncommon to see anti-semitic signs being held at anti-isreal rallies on college campuses across the country.

france also has a large arab population that can be stoked with any public show of hatred against isreal to ignite a spree of anti-semitic attacks.

By definition arabs are semites too, so an arab being anti-semitic makes no sense. Semites are all the descendents of the tribe of Shem, of which most arabs would be included. The term anti-semitism is used to divert criticism of Zionism in the media. By confusing the public with this form of "Newspeak", the perpetrators of anger and resentment as well as the defenders are unable to seperate the differences between Hebrew, Jew, and Zionist. This certainly does not benefit the average jew, hebrew or semitic person, it only benefits the wealthy zionists, who exert a massive influence upon media and government, especially in the U.S. Hopefully the organizers of anti-Israel rallies would be intelligent enough to discipline members of their protests who resort to inciting hatred towards jews, which is actually counter-productive to their goals. There are many jews who do not agree with zionism, but their voices are rarely heard, and for many of them, America was their zion, and they were welcomed in the land of equal opportunity!

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Originally posted by Smenkharon:
By definition arabs are semites too, so an arab being anti-semitic makes no sense. Semites are all the descendents of the tribe of Shem, of which most arabs would be included.

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uh, thanks for the bible lesson, chief.

the fact you are technically correct is
meaningless. the historical use of 'anti-
semite' does not follow your simplistic lesson
in ethnology.

if you like, you can re-write the history
of the term's usage. and you can protest in
front of f.b.i. headquarters since they too
classify violence against arabs as 'anti-arab'
and not as 'anti-semitic'. damn, the whole
world is in on the conspiracy !

BEWARE--SPOILERS

OK, Smenkharon's "technically-correct" discussion is BS, while the FBI and the "Planets Alignment" really know what's going on. There IS no "conspiracy"(except, apparently, from the Left [better watch out which way you're facing.]) It's just that almost a thousand years ago, the "Christians" had to do a crusade to save "their" religion/culture/Holy Land from the heathen. I guess it's just a coincidence that the heathen were Muslims, but the Jews would have been considered equally worthy of a cultural crusade at the time (and actually were). I don't really need to discuss how bin Laden started a reverse crusade and now we're stuck in a never-ending cycle no matter WHICH idiot occupies the "White" House( I'll get into trouble here by saying that that's probably "meaningless" too.)

The bottom line seems to be that every "crusader", no matter their race, religion, creed, nationality or political party, seems to engage in a much-more simplistic and meaningless mantra than S's acknowledged "correct" information. We are supposed to learn from history, not use/deny
it to perpetuate mis-guided political apathy and slavery of the masses who'll "believe" the FBI before they acknowledge "meaningless" history. I know this is a stupid argument; does anybody here actually believe anything the FBI says?