Netanyahu versus Dreyfus
In a press release published on November 26, the French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP) analyzes the implications of the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense.
Faced with these warrants, following the request of Prosecutor Khan in May 2024, the reactions of the Israeli authorities were immediate. The Prime Minister notably established a parallel with the Dreyfus affair, a comparison that the association considers as an insult to the memory of the French captain, victim of a real anti-Semitic plot.
The UJFP claims that Netanyahu’s rhetoric, reversing executioners and victims, aims to mask acts described by the ICC as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The press release also analyzes the impact of this situation on the perception of anti-Semitism. For the UJFP, the political use of this accusation in the current context could have counterproductive effects on the fight against this phenomenon.
Press release from the UJFP
The judges of the International Criminal Court issued, on Thursday November 21, 2024, the arrest warrants requested in May 2024 by prosecutor Karim Khan against the Israeli Prime Minister and his former Minister of Defense.
The highest Israeli authorities found nothing better than to accuse the three ICC judges who made this decision of “ anti-Semitism »: the Israeli Prime Minister immediately reacted by considering this decision “anti-Semitic”, considering himself the victim of a new “Dreyfus trial”. Mr. Gallant, for his part, denounced a “dangerous precedent” Who “encourages terrorism”. In Israel, a form of national union was immediately formed around the two accused.“It’s a dark day for justice. A dark day for humanity”wrote on X the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, while the leader of the opposition, Yaïr Lapid, estimated that “These arrest warrants are a bonus for terrorism.” Conversely, the Palestinian Authority saw it as a “sign of hope”, and Hamas “important step towards justice”.
That Netanyahu dares to compare himself to Captain Dreyfus is an insult to the memory of the latter. Dreyfus was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage because he was Jewish as part of an anti-Semitic plot. He was a French officer, perfectly loyal to the French army: no relation to the far-right Jewish Israeli politician, prosecuted for corruption and war criminal, Netanyahu. T. Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, who covered the Dreyfus trial for an Austrian newspaper, the Neue Frei Press, believed the captain guilty, at least initially.. Let’s not forget that Herzl was close to Drumontwho reviewed his book “The State of the Jews” in his newspaper “La Libre Parole”. At the beginning of the 20e century, the French right was very anti-Semitic and their goals were common: to expel the Jews from Europe.
The victorious fight to exonerate Dreyfus of all guilt showed that Herzl was wrong to consider that it was vain to fight against European anti-Semitism, as well as to think that the only solution was the departure of the Jews to Palestine.
Netanyahu, using his usual rhetoric, reverses executioners and victims – he who has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for more than a year at least -, as the ICC judges specify, even a genocide , as suggested by the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu must be judged for the actions he commits. He is the closest friend of the real anti-Semites in this world and he hopes they will not follow the ICC. The real fight against anti-Semitism cannot be in the hands of such a man and his right-wing extremist allies of all stripes, serving a political agenda of destruction of international law and eradication of the Palestinian people. .
Much international law was put in place after the Second World War, to ensure that genocide such as that carried out by the Nazis would never happen again. This is another of the paradoxes of Israeli politics. She wants to destroy what was built to protect her and the rest of the world with it!
The fight against anti-Semitism is, for these individuals, only an alibi; their criminal actions, allegedly committed in the name of Jews, paradoxically fuel anti-Semitic prejudices.
We do not fight anti-Semitism by legitimizing ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Zionist state is neither a solution for the security of Jews nor for justice in Palestine. Only its replacement by a true democracy in Palestine-Israel will make it possible to achieve a just and lasting peace. Here as there, everywhere, there is no other solution than equality, which implies commitment to the fight against all forms of racism and oppression.
Notes
The National Coordination of the UJFP
