Like a pebble being dropped into a lake, the full effect of the barbaric Paris attacks last month remains to be seen, but the initial public outcry in defense of free speech had many quoting Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Rallies across France, and the world, spoke to the unity felt in times of tragedy, with #JeSuisCharlie capturing the world’s hearts and computer screens for several days. Politicians and the media responded in their own ways, but the response of the leftist media has been shockingly biased.
Once again, many radical liberals tried to prove that all roads lead to Israeli guilt. Spearheading the charge was the Free Gaza movement, an affiliate of BDS, an organization that is self-described as a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
Greta Berlin, spokesperson for Free Gaza, posted on Facebook just hours after the attacks, “MOSSAD just hit the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in a clumsy false flag designed to damage the accord between Palestine and France. Here’s hoping the French police will be able to tell a well-executed hit by a well-trained Israeli intelligence service and not assume the Muslims would be likely to attack France when France is their friend… A four-year-old could see who is responsible for this terrible attack.” This is not the first time Berlin has made such comments; in 2012, she tweeted “Zionists ran the Holocaust and the Concentration Camps.”
Berlin’s Free Gaza co-founder, Margaret Thompson, was quick to grab hold of the idea as well, posting on Twitter several hours later, “#Hebdo killings indefensible. Can’t help thinking #JSIL Mossad false flag though. Killers spoke with perfect French accents. Time will tell.” The hashtag JSIL stands for “Jewish State in the Levant,” and her use of it is part of a wider campaign to equate the State of Israel with the terrorist group ISIS/ISIL.
This conspiracy theory was picked up by International Business Times. Their article opened with a disclaimer by stating that nobody knew who was responsible for the recent attacks, but jumped to add that “fingers are being pointed” at Mossad and the Israeli government.
“[Is] Israel Venting Its Fury for France’s Recognition of a Palestinian State?” asked the article’s title, only somewhat rhetorically. The article pointed out that Israel had interfered in European politics before, in an attempt to “further their Jewish claims.” After fury erupted on social media, the story was quickly removed from the news agency’s website and an apology was issued.
CNN news anchor, Jim Clancy, claimed that the Twitter accounts @elderofziyon (the handle of a Jewish-centric blog), and @JewsMakingNews (“dedicated to fingering #Jewish main players & their minions in news stories”), the latter of which uses hashtags like JewCult and AntiFreeSpeechJewTerrorists, were working in tandem to promote a pro-Israel, anti-Muslim sentiment on the internet. When confronted on Twitter, Clancy responded, “Get a grip, junior…You and the Hasbara team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.” Hasbara refers to public diplomacy on behalf of Israel, specifically the kind that promotes positive views and stories.
Clancy has since deleted his Twitter account and departed from CNN, although neither CNN nor Clancy gave a reason for his departure.
More fuel was poured on the fire during a news report on French television. Live footage of the January 11 rally in Paris to mourn the victims of the attacks shows a woman wearing a “Boycott Israel” t shirt, which seems to link Israel to the attack on Charlie Hebdo. A screenshot of the woman circulated widely on social media, sparking outrage amongst users, who pointed out that the solidarity rally was a place to mourn, not make political statements or accusations.
During the same rally, BBC anchor Tim Wilcox threw in his two cents. While interviewing a Jewish French woman at this same rally who said that it felt like Europe was “going back to 1930s” and that people needed to admit that Jews were being targeted specifically, he interrupted her to say, “The Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”
Note the use of the word “Jewish” instead of “Israeli”, which seemed to imply to many that French Jews got what they deserved. Both the U.S. and E.U. include as part of their definition of anti-Semitism, “holding Jews accountable for the actions of Israel.” Wilcox has since apologized for his “poorly phrased” comment and is being investigated by the BBC. Incidentally, the woman was the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
Jewish Voices for Peace (JVC), a left wing group that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, published an article entitled “The Paris Murders & the Islamophobic Backlash” in which a mere half sentence could be spared for their fellow Jews killed “in the kosher supermarket.” The rest of the article spoke about the importance of closing ranks around Muslims, who were in danger of violent retribution, as well as an obligation to condemn the cartoons as anti-Muslim, claiming that they qualify as hate speech against a “marginalized and targeted…population.”
Writing on the news blog Mondoweiss, Chloe Patton, a fellow at the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia, spoke about the bigotry facing Muslims the world over, framing the cartoons as, “yet another assault on Muslims’ right to citizenship in its fullest sense.” There is not a single mention of the four Jewish victims in her article.
Stern student Shoshana Levin was in Israel during the terrorist attacks in Paris; an impromptu memorial sprang up outside her hotel on King George Street. When asked what she thought about the comments made by Berlin, Clancy, et al, she said, “There’s no such thing as anti-Israel; it’s just anti-Semitism. What’s really scary is that there are terrorist attacks happening all over the world and people refuse to see that these are done by terrorist organizations.”
All of this seems to be proof that there are many who believe that the actions of radical Islam and terrorist groups are warranted. The far too common belief is that these attacks and killings are justified by Israel’s actions, or even its mere existence. If Berlin, Thompson, and others like them, really want the public to believe that they are fierce proponents of human rights, then they should have condemned the attacks as terrorism and barbarity. Instead, they beat their chests and call foul on Israel. Worse, they hide behind the façade of human rights to do so. Campaigning for equal rights and moral treatment of all is a noble pursuit. But it seems that these days, people aren’t so much pro-Palestinian as they are anti-Jews.