From J'Accuse to Indignez-Vous

How do you argue with a man who helped author the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a resistance fighter who managed to escape death at Nazi hands at least twice, a man who in February 2008 denounced the French government’s failure to make funds available to provide housing for the homeless, who frequently uses his prominence to urge younger generations to live by the legacy of the resistance including its ideals of economic, social and cultural democracy, a man who received the UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights? Here is a man who has dedicated his life to the well-being of his countrymen and to people around the world, particularly in Africa where a foundation he established has sent more than 20,000 hospital beds.

Stéphane Hessel (father Jewish, mother Protestant, refugees to France from the Nazis) has recently published an essay Indignez-vous! (“Be Indignant,” or “Get Angry!”). By year’s end 600,000 copies had sold; 1,000,000 is anticipated. As he has before he argues that the people of France need to get outraged, as when under German occupation. The new enemy is blasé acceptance; me firstism; materialism. He includes in his indictment the growing gap between the very rich and the very poor, France’s treatment of its illegal immigrants, the need to re-establish a free press, the need to protect the environment, the plight of Palestinians, and the importance of protecting the French welfare system.

Whoops.

How did calls to reform France get to include advocacy of Palestinians? Well, this is not Hessel’s first venture into those waters. In August 2006 he made an appeal against the Israeli air-strikes in Lebanon—but the key here is in who sponsored the call—it was published in French newspapers on behalf of the French Jewish Union for Peace.

Two years ago, in January 2009, Hessel decried Israeli military operations in the Gaza strip: “In fact, the word that applies - that should be applied - is ‘war-crime’ and even ‘crime against humanity’”

We’ll pause here for a moment for a necessary headcount. All those in favor of condemning Palestinians to being perpetual victims of Israeli ruthlessness, please raise your hands. Seeing none, I’ll proceed.

The problem with arguing with Hessel is less that he ignores the Arab slaughter of Jews; that he seems not to understand that the Palestinian problem could have been resolved decades ago the same way the Jewish problem in Yemen and Iraq was, but that he brings to the discussion the perspective of a man whose genuine love of humanity, whose attitudes of social reform, of resistance to oppression are unimpeachable. He is not an anti-Semite; he is not pro-terrorist. And in at least one way he is not terribly off the Franco-Jewish mainstream. French Jews have historically never been ardently pro-Zionist. Initial reactions to the movement in the 19th century were that it was a German-Jewish idea, not a French one. Yes, there was the Dreyfus Affair, but on the whole the Jews of France lived a good life with no need to emigrate. (At least one French Jew rejected Zionism wondering what would happen to the native Arabs.) Even after the holocaust there was no mass migration of French Jews to Palestine/ Israel. What anti-Semitism in France is violent is from Arab immigrants, not from traditional Frenchmen. I don’t know how typical of French Jewish feeling it is but Joel Schalit in his blog “the-arty-Semite” reports on the conflict within the French Jewish community. “Coming on the heels of the formation of JCall (the French equivalent of the American JStreet) and the conversion of such figures as JCall founder Bernard-Henri Lévy to routine criticism of Israeli policy, in all likelihood more French Jews find themselves receptive to Hessel’s words than not.” Sigh.

This is Israel’s new burden. Add it to the list—the failure of Labor to keep the promises of the original leaders for an economically just society; the pressure to create a potentially hostile Palestinian state which would surround it; the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb aimed at Tel Aviv; Hezbollah in charge in Lebanon; Hamas in Gaza; Jews, some honorable such as Hessel, others whose motives are more obscure, ignore all the above and condemn Israel. I can only tell the Israelis what Moses told my namesake. Be strong and resolute.