Claude Lanzmann is the French film director who, 20 years ago, made the renowned film Shoah - an overwhelmingly powerful oral history of the Holocaust. Today, Lanzmann edits a French literary journal, and is a well-known figure on the international cultural scene. On 21 January 2005 he gave an interview with the Jerusalem Post in which he discussed French attitudes towards Israel and Jews. Here we highlight six of Lanzmann’s insights:
Lanzmann: “Israel …. is demonised in France. People refuse to see what is new in Israel, they refuse to accept that men can change. I was in Israel not long ago when Sharon made his speech at the Knesset about the disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip. At the time, he took a new and extremely strong position. Haaretz journalist Yoel Marcus said that Sharon had made a Churchillian speech and that he behaved as a Gulliver among the pygmies …. The French press did not pick up on Sharon’s speech or when they did, they did not appreciate its significance…. I think that something is changing and that a politician like Sharon could be the ‘man of peace’ more than many others. One has to be prepared to see the changes. Instead they have turned Sharon into such a monster. Their perception is so black and white that they are incapable of doing so…..”
Lanzmann: “I am shocked that the French almost entirely ignored the extraordinary statements that Mahmoud Abbas [current Palestinian leader, otherwise known as Abu Mazen] made in front of the popular intifada committees in Gaza in December 2002, several months before he was designated as prime minister by Yasser Arafat. He said that violence had to end, that killings were leading nowhere and that Sharon was the greatest leader that the Zionists had had since Herzl. He actually said that!....”
I think it’s a lot less difficult with these groups of people – but maybe I’m wrong because I haven’t seen many of them – than with factions of the European left. It is almost impossible to change the rigid thinking of the extreme and even moderate left-wing intellectuals. The bottom line in their views about Israel is that they don’t condemn a policy – anyone has the right to condemn a policy, but it is not about that at all. What they condemn is Israel’s right to exist itself. I know some of them are ready to go back to the idea of a binational state. There are many people like that. They see the creation of Israel as the original sin and that we should put an end to the sin once and for all….”
Lanzmann: “I’m sure that anti-semitism exists among some Muslims living in France, but I think it is less deeply-rooted than among hard-line factions of the Left. Anti-Zionism flourishes in France. Zionism is identified with Evil. The expression “Zionist entity” used by the Arab propaganda, had a big impact here…”
Lanzmann: A French radio station like ‘France Info’ that people listen to all day long, offers them totally distorted news from Israel. You have to wait until the end of the news report, if they mention it at all, to understand that a specific Israeli military operation in the Palestinian territories was in reprisal for mortar shelling or a bombing. They often don’t mention the attacks on Israel, so it’s always the same image of Israelis: they are killers, they like to kill…”
Lanzmann: “In France, an inter-ministry meeting is immediately organised each time there is an anti-semitic act. It’s like a Pavlovian reflex, an automatic reaction. Governments are more alert against anti-semitism than they’ve ever been, but, paradoxically, anti-semitism has become something totally commonplace. It doesn’t shock people anymore….”
Ariel Sharon: Unwilling to compromise….? Briefing 32 (May 2003) Ariel Sharon, the disengagement plan and the Palestinians: Briefing 127 (January 2005) Palestinian leaders admit intifada was a mistake: Briefing 37 (January 2003) [in which we quote from the speech which Lanzmann refers to above, by Abbas] The Demonisation of Israel: Briefing 64
(updated October 2004) |
||||||||||
