The arrival of the French President Sarkozy (the only one with the extremist Jean Marie Le Pen who refused to respond to the application of the French League for Human Rights (LDH)’ presented to all presidential candidates) and his appointment of Bernard Kouchner, an unconditional advocate of the Hebrew State, was a disastrous indicator of France’s reputation and status in the syndicates, popular organizations, Arab civil society, and human rights organizations (those which are credible, i.e. do not yield to the conditions of financial aid or One Man Organization) as was the situation within human rights circles and those of humanitarian action in France itself.

Being among the trusted friends, the Sarkozy-Kouchner duet had known about the Gaza offensive project as more than one Israeli official confirmed.  In fact, the Israeli government had called on them to side with the agreement on enhancing their relations with the EU not before the end date of the French presidential term (i.e. during the holiday season which is tactically the most suitable time for passing such a conspiracy behind the European parliament’s back), but on December 8, 2008, so that it would be Israeli army’s gift to the world which Nobel ‘death’ prize winner Shimon Perez described as “an achievement within sixteen days which humanity couldn’t do in its sixteen years of war on terrorism.”

Tzipi Levni- who had lived in Paris from 1980-1984 with a fictitious name and worked as a servant for an Iraqi nuclear scientist whom she assassinated with poison and whom a memo hadibeen issued in her fictitious name, and later in her real name?  Exchanging kisses with Kouchner in front of the Elysée gate while the children of Gaza were dying and lying under the rubbles caused by the blind shelling of legal and illegal weapons.  In a TV program on the French Channel 2, the Hebrew State’s ambassador to France had said, “When Dr. Kouchner talks with Hamas, we will immediately start talking with them!”  And while human rights secretary in the Quai d’Orsay were yelling, “stop offering Gaza as a martyr,” the French police were destroying a solidarity tent that had been erected in Stalingrad, Paris, in a clear provocation to the democrats, human rights defenders, and Arab-Islamic community.  Then Kouchner and Sarkozy go out, following a mass solidarity demonstration that filled the French capitals, saying, “We condemn the importation of the Middle East crisis to French lands.”

A number of writers, artists, and French resistance figures, primarily Raymond Aubrac (one of the first who joined the French resistance), General De Gaulle, Carole Bouquet (actor and human rights supporter), Rony Braumann (Former President of Without Limits correspondents organization), Monique Chemillier-Gendreaux (the thinker and struggler for an alternative UN), Regis Debray (Progressive thinker and Former consultant of Francois Mitterrand), Stephane Hessel (Human Rights Ambassador), Mireille Mendes-France (daughter of the struggler France Fanon) and Gilles Perrault (renowned leftist writer) requested Sarkozy to send a hospital ship to the shores of Gaza for the treatment of the Palestinian war-wounded, especially since the French Republic was behind more than one UN decision ordering the opening of humanitarian passages (or corridors).  But the President instead decided to send a team to the shores of Gaza to prevent the smuggling of weapons to Palestinian resistance, while sending French weapons to the Israeli ports as the human rights republic has become the primary European source of weapons to Israel!!

In a day when tens of humanitarian and Islamic charity organizations had turned into terrorist organizations, Minister of Interior Sarkozy was the first European official to deal with the American black lists.  He had prevented 13 academians and employees in the humanitarian field from Saudi Arabia to attend the Paris Conference for Humanitarian NGOs that had been given the first world confederacy for humanitarian work (International Bureau for Humanitarian NGOs).  Then he came out with an authoritative edict calling on judges to avoid lenience with any French Muslim who travels to the regions of conflict, referring to Afghanistan and Iraq only.  As a result, sentences were issued against French citizens by political intervention ordering their imprisonment for seven years if they’ve traveled to Iraq and a lesser term if there was an intention of going there.  The French government didn’t intervene to release any French prisoner in the American prisons in Iraq or Israel; it even sent public investigations and foreign affairs representatives to Guantanamo to coordinate with its administration the situation of French detainees.  We don’t find these procedures with French Muslim citizens when the matter is concerned with the fraud Arche de Zoe or French Jew volunteers in the Israeli army.  In fact, there is a website titled “Civil Volunteering In Israel” with the phone and fax numbers, and travel costs coverage to serve in the Israeli army.  The site doesn’t fear posting the pictures of volunteers during their training with weapons, and was proud with their stance during the offensive in Lebanon when they had been in the northern front.  Mr. Sarkozy doesn’t have the courage to detain one of these volunteers despite the evidence from statements issued by them confirming their participation in military activities.

So who is the one actually bringing the conflict to France?  Those defending the victims or those joining the army of the offensive?

Who is the one creating the separation between Arabs and French Muslims on the one hand, and the ruling political classes which lack the wisdom and balance in their stance towards the offensive in Gaza on the other hand?  In fact, who is responsible for the resignation of all the Muslim members in the Jewish-Muslim Friendship Society for the absence of a minimum level of solidarity with the Gaza victims?

The destructive Kouchner-Sarkozy policies not only destroy what the French diplomacy had built since General De Gaulle’s cry in 1967 against the colonialist style of Israel and his attempt to prevent the French Republic’s bias to the aggressor but are also the primary factors leading to the formation of a large front in France comprising the different progressive, democratic, and human rights and altermondialistes forces to confront those whose interests are subject to the multinational corporations and pro-Israel lobby and all those stigmatized in the political system, the immigrant society (who are no different from Sarkozy, an immigrant’s son, except in color and religion).  This civil front loudly says that the French government has started to form a line behind the Israeli war criminals and doesn’t represent the French society.  Therefore, peaceful civil resistance derives its legitimacy from the declaration of human rights and citizen, and French constitution as well as France’s international commitment to human rights and international humanitarian law. of a government that plays with the vital French interests in both the Arab and Islamic worlds and the proximity between the Arab and French people and the dialogue of peoples and civilizations.

 ——————————–

Arab writer, Spokesperson of the Arab Commission for Human Rights

Published in Arabic: Alquds alarabi (London), Elbadeel (Cairo), Annahar (Beyrouth)…