(New York Times) Editorial - Over the past two years France has been the site of hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents - synagogues defaced, sacred texts burned, individuals menaced - nearly all of them perpetrated by disaffected North African youths. Early this month a young rabbi in Paris was stabbed at the entrance to his synagogue by a man shouting "God is great" in Arabic. It remains sadly common for French intellectuals and officials to discount Jewish anxiety and to suggest that if only Israel would do right by the Palestinians, the problems of France's Jews would disappear. The two have little to do with each other. What remains clear is that the French government has a responsibility to treat acts of hatred as what they are and to protect all its citizens.
2003-01-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive