Sunday, November 12, 2023

Anatomy of a Paris Demo

by Amir Taheri
  • A poll for the daily Le Figaro shows that 37 percent of the French still have sympathy for Israel, while Palestine gets 20 percent and Hamas 5 percent.
  • Those I talked to in the demo seemed as if they had forgotten October 7, reminding me of Isaac Bashevis Singer's phrase "What a miser is a human memory!"
  • In the Saturday demo, there was no mention of the nearly 250 Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The so-called elites have adopted a one-way indignation posture against Israel.

Pictured: Anti-Israel protesters at Place de la République in Paris, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

"Paris could become a battlefield!" This was how commentators speculated about a "solidarity with Palestine" demonstration that the police had authorized for last Saturday. The concern was not groundless.

A few days before, a Harris opinion poll had shown that 82 percent of the French feared a wave of terrorism in France and 72 percent believed that something like the 7 October attack by Hamas would happen in Paris.

"People are right to have concerns," says Brice Hortefeux, a former Minister of the Interior.

In the past decade, France has been hit by over 400 terrorist attacks or attempts, almost all related to the Middle East or what is shorthanded as "Islamic World." The same concern was expressed in numerous editorials, reminding people that as home to Europe's largest Jewish community, some 500,000, and highest number of Muslims, around 7 million, France was already "part of the Middle East."

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