The long and detailed analysis conducted by the English historian David PRYCE-JONES in his book published in 2008: "A century of treason: French diplomacy and the Jews" reveals this history.
Since the French Revolution, shows PRYCE-JONES documents in support - and all its analysis is very precisely detailed - the Arab world is perceived as of crucial interest for the preservation of the "greatness" of France.
A Franco-Arab kingdom under Napoleon III
The remarks made by Napoleon Bonaparte during the campaign in Egypt (May 1798) or those he uttered in 1830 during the conquest of Algeria are, in this respect, eloquent and find their extension in the dream, then elaborated under Napoleon III, to create a French-Arab kingdom "Led by a France" Muslim power ".
At the same time, distrust continues to show towards Jews, who are perceived as likely to be instruments in the service of "foreign conspiracies".
These two dimensions guide France's foreign policy in the nineteenth and twentieth century - the main orientations of this policy being defined less by ministers, passingonly by senior officials and members of the diplomatic corps, remaining, having more stability and co-opting each other in the manner of "nepotism and a Catholic sensitivity hostile to Jews, Protestants and the parliamentary system" - just as they guide the behavior of diplomats in the countries concerned.
In 1840 (Case of Damascus), in order to "appease" the spirits, following the disappearance of a Christian monk and several Muslims, the Count Ulysses of Rati-Menton, French consul in Damascus, spread the rumor according to which the Jews committed "murders" rituals "and persuaded the Ottoman governor to arrest Jewish notables and to take Jewish children hostage, who for the most part were forcibly converted to Islam.
Zionists: "hordes gnawed by mysticism"
Two of the most influential men at the Quai d'Orsay spoke at the time of the Dreyfus affair and the emergence of Zionism in 1894, the danger that the creation of a Jewish state would constitute for the interests of France.
The first, Paul Cambon, not hesitating to note that " the Jew is a traitor by definition ", the second, Maurice Paleologue, speaking, he, of Hereditary defects and bad passions of the Jews ".
At the end of the nineteenth century, France had hospitals, monasteries, churches throughout the Near East.
Jules Ferry noted in 1888 that "The protectorate of the Christians in the East is an integral part of the Mediterranean area of France".
The arrival of Jews and the prospect of creating a Jewish national home in the Middle East was seen as a phenomenon to counteract absolutely, which implied a active anti-Zionist policy, and an equally active support for the emergence of Arab nationalism, which may appear in many ways as a creation of France. The Zionists were soon described in diplomatic notes as "hordes gnawed by mysticism", while the Quai d'Orsay funded, in parallel from 1907, the publication of a French newspaper distributed throughout the region: Arab independence.
The goal of French diplomacy, at the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, was to create the "Syria integral", under the tutelage of France, and to include in this territory the present Syria and Lebanon, plus the total territory of the Palestinian Mandate, including Transjordan. Jews having a "International weight" and "May put pressure on ignorant governments", France was ready to accept the creation of a small semi-autonomous Jewish entity around Hebron and Gaza, where "Jews could grow oranges and mutually exploit each other"as written Jules Cambon, Paul's brother, a diplomat too.
After the Balfour Decree (November 2, 1917), Paul Cambon was instructed, in his own words, to explain clearly to the British authorities in 1919 that it was out of the question that "the Zionists ... constitute an independent state in Palestine".
"The French work" financed by the Quai d'Orsay
France had to accept that the United Kingdom adopted a position different from its own, but French diplomacy did not resign itself. The Quai d'Orsay financed another newspaper called The French Work, also broadcast throughout the Near East, where it read: "It is unacceptable that the land of Christ may fall prey to Jewry and Anglo-Saxon heresy."
Henri Gouraud, High Commissioner in charge of the French Mandate in Damascus, has not ceased, as long as he was stationed in the interwar period, to encourage French diplomacy to take advantage of the circumstances and to work to "enlarge the protectorate so as to include Muslims whom we can not leave alone and disarmed in the face of Zionism ".
In the same period, there were at the Quai d'Orsay, diplomats-writers:
- Paul Morand, author of Death of a Jew, a short story where a Jew on his deathbed refuses to pay his doctor until the exchange rate has changed in favor of his speculator activities.
- Jean Giraudoux, who wrote in 1939: "Jews corrupt, rot, erode, degrade, devalue everything they touch."
- Paul Claudel, noting with enthusiasm after the vote of full powers to Marshal Pétain, that "France is finally freed from the grip of the radical and anti-clerical party (professors, lawyers, Jews, Freemasons)".
- Louis Massignon, first of the French "islamologues" and known islamophile, died in 1962, which spoke, from 1920, of the perspective of "The horrible Israel of stateless cosmopolites and bankers", and noted in 1943 that "Only a Franco-Islamic bloc can save the Holy Land".
The great mufti of Jerusalem saved by France
In 1945, the great mufti of Jerusalem, a friend of Hitler, fervent supporter of the "final solution", after being denied political asylum by Switzerland, found himself in the hands of the French authorities. The position of the Quai d'Orsay, just freed from the Germans, was to say: "The mufti certainly betrayed the Allied cause but he mostly betrayed Britain without directly affecting us. It could provoke crises in Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and Transjordan that could be beneficial for our policy ", even note Henri Ponsot, in charge of relations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the prisoner. In April 1946, the mufti was able to leave France by plane, provided with a real false passport, and he thanked him warmly a little later. After staying in Cairo, he was able to go to Lebanon from where, writes Pryce-Jones, "He was able to orchestrate violence against the emerging state of Israel and bring about the ruin of Palestinian Arabs."
France voted in favor of Israel's creation at the United Nations, but only after its diplomats did everything to delay or prevent the vote, and it is only much later, in april 1949After the Arab armies were defeated, France officially recognized the new state.
René Neuville, French consul in Jerusalem, noted, on April 12, 1947, that "Jews are viscerally racist, at least as much as their German persecutors". After the vote for the creation of Israel, he wrote that this was "A victory of obscurantism over the lights and a pernicious example".
After Nasser's seizure of power in Egypt in 1952, France was confronted with the consequences of Arab nationalism: Nasser's Egyptian radio The voice of the Arabs becoming at once the organ of incitement to revolt against French colonialism in North Africa.
Some French leaders discerned in these circumstances a "community of interests" between France and Israel.
Institute of the Arab world, symbol of the Arab policy of France
Suez case: Ministry of Defense against Quai d'Orsay
France and Great Britain preparing offensive plans, October 21, 1956 Guy Mollet and the Minister of Defense Bourgès Maunoury secretly invited Ben Gurion to a villa in Sèvres to persuade him to participate militarily in the operation in exchange for a secret commitment by the French government to give the nuclear bomb to Israel.
And the young and fiery General Moshe Dayan obtained the missing military equipment: 200 tanks, 72 Mystery bombers, 10,000 anti-tank rockets, and 40,000 shells, but these supplies were given without the knowledge of the Quai d'Orsay, because the Foreign Minister Christian Pineau was dismissed on the pretext of a mission to London. "Above all, not a word at the Quai d'Orsay" had imposed the French Minister of Defense.
As soon as General de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, the Quai seized the opportunity to take the matter back into its own hands. In 1959, it was decided to abandon a project to build a car assembly plant in the United States. Renault, to show that France respected the boycott of Israel set up by the Arab world.
In 1960, Ben Gurion went to France, but a statement from the Quai d'Orsay stipulated that it was not a "state visit", and the Israeli delegation was forbidden to fly the flag of Israel.
In 1963, Couve de Murville, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the General, declared that a closer collaboration between the Arabs and France is "Not only acceptable, it is desired".
Gaullist "Arab policy" of France kicks in
France's demonstrations of hostility to Israel became a constant practice that allowed French diplomacy to prolong its habitual behavior towards Jews and Zionism.
The objective of this policy was to counter the United States, to place France in a position of "third force" between the United States and the USSR, to allow France to land, through the Arab world, leader of the Third World and the non-aligned, and so to assert its power in Europe, against the backdrop of Israel's sacrifice.
Couve De Murville then sought to put an end to nuclear cooperation. Shimon Peres was then mandated in Paris to challenge the decision of the French minister who assured him that "France would not divulge anything, neither on the great details, nor on the details of the arrangement of Sèvres".
With a scribbled writing on a corner of the table at the secret meeting in Sèvres, Shimon Péres replied that, "If France unilaterally denounces the very essence, we would not be able to safeguard what he wanted to safeguard, that is to say the no publication clause". "You score a point" had to recognize the Minister of General De Gaulle.
When in 1966, Abba Eban, Israeli Foreign Minister worried about the serious deterioration of the relations between France and Israel, Couve de Murville replied with a letter impregnated with condescension and irritation: "The character of the links between Israel and France does not justify that General De Gaulle constantly beat you on the shoulder to reassure you."
Immediately after the Six-Day War in 1967, Roger Seydoux, the representative of France at the United Nations, declared that "The reunification of Jerusalem is untimely and without legal foundation".
De Gaulle declared, as we know, (November 1967 press conference): "They had remained as they had been since all time: an elite people, self-assured and domineering"but also spoke of people animated by a "Burning ambition of conquest".
The discussion remains open if it is anti-Zionism, or a compliment. Alain Peyrefitte quotes the General, who, questioned on this subject, replied: "People sure of him and domineering! I wish I could say as much of the French ...!
René MassigliSecretary General of the Quai d'Orsay, he declared in 1969 that "The French Jews who support Israel are guilty of disloyalty".
Since, as PRYCE-JONES notes, "No country except the former Soviet Union has done more to create a Palestinian state and to endanger the existence of Israel."
1973 Yom Kippur War: France closes its airspace
In 1973, under PompidouDuring the Yom Kippur War, France closed its airspace to American planes coming to supply Israel that was fighting for its survival.
The same year, a delegation of the PLO was opened in Paris and Arafat was received at the Elysee.
In 1978, under Giscard d'Estaing, the Quai d'Orsay criticized the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt in terms that were exactly those used by the PLO, and stipulated that "A just peace in the Middle East can not come without fully satisfying the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people".
François Mitterrand, a former Vichy official, strongly condemned Israel's destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1982, and declared for the creation of a confederation between Israel, Jordan and Palestine, which would have abolished Israel's sovereignty.
He allowed Arafat to survive the defeat by leaving Beirut for Tunis, which saved the PLO.
Claude Cheysson, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1981 to 1984, declared the year of his departure from the Quai d'Orsay: "The State of Israel was created against the will of the rest of the world."
The same year, his successor, Roland Dumas, said that air piracy and hijacking "Were the only way for the Palestinian resistance to break international indifference".
Under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, nothing has improved, quite the contrary, do you remember his "You want me to leave? " in the streets of Jerusalem, and so many facts and statements in the news of the last decade attest that it is useless to enumerate them.
The Quai d'Orsay has ostensibly curbed the actions taken to suspend the broadcasting license granted to the anti-Semitic chain al-Manar.
In December 2004, Gérard Araud, Ambassador of France to Israel, said that "Israelis suffer from a neurosis, a real mental disorder that makes them anti-French ...".
A few years ago, the late French Ambassador to England Daniel Bernard had been even more precise in qualifying his feeling towards Israel: "A little shitty state". He had said aloud what the majority at the Quay thinks in a low voice.
Under Sarkozy, Israeli diplomats were once again invited to the Quai d'Orsay.
Despite this, any hope of improving relations between France and Israel, under these conditions, seems vain, and this must be said. There is a long-standing trend that makes Israel (and indeed Palestinians) nothing to expect from France in terms of progress towards peace. And this, whatever the leaders of France: the choice, at best, can be between the least worst and the absolutely catastrophic.
We, Jews of France, must understand in what context we are
The situation was basically defined at the time of the French Revolution, when the count of Clermont Tonnerre declared in front of the Constituent Assembly in December 1789: "All things must be denied to the Jews as a nation, everything must be granted to them as individuals".
The difference being that today, the Arab policy of France has resulted in the emergence of an important Muslim community, whose Quai d'Orsay policy flatters increasing anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism.
"All things must be granted to the Jews as individuals," said Clermont Tonnerre; should we say that today "everything must be given to the Jews as dhimmis"?
Guy Millière, as for him, leave the interrogation in suspense, adding as soon as it seems to him every day to be more the case ...
Michel Gurfinkiel, meanwhile, specifies that: "Recently, the archives of the Quai d'Orsay have been declassified. The report sent by Jacques Andreani, Ambassador of France to the United States at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords, can be read. He says that in terms of image, Arafat won ... This corroborates what I wrote in my book (Israel, geopolitics of peaceThese agreements were an absolute catastrophe. "(Interview of Guitel Benishay for LPH Info of 16/01/2018).
Source: https://mabatim.info
Source: © The Quai d'Orsay and the Jews, By Émilie Maarek
Le Quai d’Orsay et les Juifs, Par Émilie Maarek added by RichardA on
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