Boaz Bismuth
Boaz Bismuthערוץ 7

Boaz Bismuth, Foreign Editor of newspaper Israel Hayom, analyzed the current state of Jewish life in France: "The cause of the serious incident between two young Muslims and two skullcap-wearing Jewish brothers in Bondy, a popular suburb of Paris where a large Muslim population lives, is not clear. As French police investigate the case, the father of two Jewish youths has no doubt that the attack was anti-Semitic. The Bondy incident has once again raised the issue of anti-Semitism in France, an important component of the Republic's ills that are coming to the surface before the presidential elections to be held in May.

"During the latest annual CRIF dinner (the umbrella organization of French Jews), a decline in French anti-Semitic incidents in 2016 was reported. The numeric decline is not reflected in the feelings of French Jews, who feel threatened from every direction: the extreme right and National Front activists express the classic anti-Semitism that has always existed in France; the radical leftists and Greens unilaterally and blindly support the Palestinian narrative, and Muslim activists in France who exploit the Middle East conflict to release frustrations and for personal and communal promotion.

"The head of Bondy's municipality, Sylvin Thomason (left), who is trying to find a way to the Muslim resident's hearts, announced in July that she supports marking Israeli products from Judea and Samaria. This perhaps appeased Muslim voters, but injured the Jewish residents still living there. Thomason's intervention only succeeded in importing the Israel-Palestinian conflict into her provincial borders, even though it is contrary to the Elysee's policy, which seeks stability and quiet in the suburbs. This is an issue that France should take seriously: It is impossible on the one hand to pursue a pro-Palestinian policy and then be surprised at the present polarization between Muslims and Jews.

"Another worrisome point is the rise in popularity of France's new Islamic cultural heroes, winners of media visibility. In the social networks they allow themselves to lash out - something they do not do in their establishment media performances. The problem is that one complements the other: on the one hand they gain "respectability" for "official" performances, and then spit venom on the networks. This is the case with the young Muslim French writer Mehdi Maclat (25), whom France suddenly discovered to be also anti-Semitic, homophobic, too, even misogynist, and supporting terrorism.

"Last Thursday Mehdi Maclat visited the studios of channel France 5, to talk about his new book "Minute". Viewers traced the media phenomenon's Twitter account and found that he ran parallel account under the pseudonym "Marslan Deschamps". Mehdi Maclat's tweets would not have embarrassed the Europe of the 30's and 40's and sparked a furor. The half-full-cup of the story is that he was forced to leave France temporarily until the storm ended. But the half-empty is that he will return and he represents the cultural heroes of New France," wrote Bismuth.