Badiou Alain - Reflections On Anti-Semitism

This book is supported by the Institut franais as part of the Burgess programme (www.frenchbooknews.com)

This English-language edition published by Verso 2013

Translation David Fernbach 2013

Anti-Semitism Everywhere in France Today first published as Lantismitisme partout Aujourdhui en France

La Fabrique 2011

The Philo-Semitic Reaction: The Treason of the Intellectuals first published as La Raction philosmite ou la trahison des clercs

Nouvelles Editions Lignes 2009

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

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eISBN: 978-1-78168-226-5

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Badiou, Alain.

[Antismitisme partout. English]

Reflections on anti-semitism / Alain Badiou, Eric

Hazan, Ivan Segre; Translated by David Fernbach.

pages cm

1. AntisemitismFranceHistory21st century.

I. Hazan, ric. II. Segr, Ivan. III. Title.

B2430.B273A5813 2013

305.8924044dc23

2013015615

v3.1

by Alain Badiou and Eric Hazan

by Ivan Segr

In 2002 war was declared against the forces of evil in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, the US army had invaded six weeks after 11 September 2001 and was continuing its project of liberation. A further liberation was also taking shape, that of Iraq: generals and diplomats were openly preparing to invade the country to establish democracy. In Palestine, where the Second Intifada was under way, the Israeli army reoccupied the whole of the West Bank and Operation Rampart swept away what remained of the autonomy granted at Oslo. In April, the seizure of the Jenin refugee camp and its destruction by bulldozers caused the death of several dozen civilians.

In France, meanwhile, the first round of the presidential election was marked by the success of the Front National. Roger Cukiermann, president of the CRIF, wrote in Haaretz (23 April 2002) that then FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pens success will serve to reduce Islamic anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli behaviour, as his vote sends a message to Muslims to behave peacefully.

It was in this context that a campaign developed denouncing a wave of anti-Semitism in France:

Why this campaign? It was important to create a diversion, as public opinion and even the media were shocked by the brutal way in which the Israeli army repressed the Second Intifada. Denouncing the wave of anti-Semitism was a good way to distract attention from the bloody Operation Rampart, or still better, to present this as a defensive measure in the context of a general upsurge of anti-Semitism.

The terrain was propitious for this kind of operation: in the wake of 11 September, hatred against Arabs and Muslims was on the rise throughout the Western world. They were of course the propagating agents of this anti-Semitic wave:

The revival of both verbal and physical anti-Semitic attacks in France and Europe, since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in autumn 2002, has undoubtedly brought to the fore new agents of anti-Jewish hatred, in particular aggressors hailing from the banlieues or from immigration, victims of racism and discrimination who embark on behaviour towards Jews of a kind they are entitled to be protected from.

This notion of a wave of anti-Semitism was not entirely without foundation. It is undeniable that the years from 2002 to 2004 saw insults against Jews, hostile graffiti, wooden crates burned outside synagogues, and fights among youths. Even if those acts that attracted the most media coverage, triggered the strongest words among politicians and the greatest indignation from Jewish organizations were the act of a fantasist (the aggression of Marie Leblanc on an RER train in July 2004),

For the initiators and activists of this campaign, however, the real scope of the so-called wave mattered little: the impulse had been given. In tandem with the police-style listing of acts of an anti-Semitic character in the press, designed to demonstrate their proliferation, we had the publication in October 2004 of the Rufin report, commissioned by the minister of the interior, which denounced an imported anti-Semitism, particularly rife among young people whose families come from countries where anti-Semitism is culturally commonplace. Rufin equated anti-Zionism with surrogate anti-Semitism, and proposed legislation that would criminalize criticism of the state of Israel.

This was also the time of the first prosecutions for incitement to racial hatred brought by a group calling itself Avocats Sans Frontires (Lawyers Without Borders) against the journalist Daniel Mermet, against the publisher La Fabrique, then against philosopher Edgar Morin, political scientist Sami Nar and novelist Danielle Sallenave. We also saw the appearance of a series of publications denouncing the anti-Semitism of Maghrebians. In Les Territoires perdus de la Rpublique, a collective work edited by Emmanuel Brenner and focusing on the question of schools, the general theme was that

Nicolas Weill, in La Rpublique et les antismites, took it as an accepted fact that there was a particularly virulent Arabo-Muslim anti-Semitism, tolerated when convenient by a certain far left that is often passive if not fascinated in the face of this extremism.

We might note in passing the new emphasis placed on the word Republic, already wielded to support the ban on the Islamic headscarf in schools: as if, by a singular paradox, a word generally seen as indicating a certain political universalism, even oriented to the defence of the right of those below, now serves as a token of hostility towards the Arabic and Muslim workers of the housing estates.

The bulky tome Prcheurs de haine, by Pierre-Andr Taguieff, is a 968-page denunciation of this alleged phenomenon, proscribing a whole list of archeo-Trotskyists and anti-globalist new leftists, extravagantly Palestinophile despite the increasing Islamization of the Palestinian cause.

This denunciation of an upsurge of anti-Semitism was relayed and amplified by almost the whole of the media and what is known as the world of politics. On the left, its most vocal proponents were the habitual enemies of French Arabo-Muslims: secularist zealots and misguided feminists. (We should note in passing that the composite Arabo-Muslim, along with Islamo-leftist of the same coinage, originates with the police, just like other couples of the same ilk: Judeo-Bolshevik, Hitlero-Trotskyite, or more recently anarcho-autonome [anarcho-autonomist].)

On the right, the government side, there was unanimity in the solid determination to struggle against the revival of anti-Semitism. It might seem strange to see Jews so well defended by an ideological current the right that has traditionally been hostile to them. This phenomenon inevitably recalls a Jewish joke: What is a philo-Semite? An anti-Semite who loves Jews. During the years 20022003, the number of these philo-Semites and their activity seemed to increase considerably.