Tolouse Killer’s Brother Abdelghani Denounces His Family’s Anti-Semitism.

 

A Just Man.

The Independent reports,

The oldest brother of the Toulouse scooter killer, Mohamed Merah, denounces the role of his own father, mother, sister and brother in spawning a “monster” in his new book.

Abdelghani Merah, 36, says the youngest of his four siblings was raised in an “atmosphere of racism and hatred” but also of violence and neglect. He has written the book – “Mon Frère, ce terroriste” (My brother the terrorist) – to try to counter the hero-worship of Mohamed, 23, among some young French Muslims. “I am the killer’s brother but I am on the side of his victims,” he says.

Mohamed Merah murdered seven people, including three Jewish children, in a series of scooter-borne attacks in the Toulouse area in March.

Le Monde portrays a worrying picture of that family.

Abdelghani secretly recorded the anti-Semitic rants of his sister  Souad,

Abdelghani Merah, frère aîné du tueur au scooter, a déclaré lundi 12 novembre sur BFMTV avoir placé un micro pour “piéger” sa sœur Souad, sur des images tournées en caméra cachée et diffusées par M6, afin de prouver l’antisémitisme entretenu dans sa famille. Les propos de Souad Merah ont conduit le parquet de Paris a ouvrir  une enquête préliminaire pour “apologie du terrorisme”.

Abdelghani Merah the elder brother of the ‘scooter killer’  on Monday stated to the BFMTV channel that he had placed a hidden microphone  to “trap” his sister Souad. The images broadcast and filmed by hidden camera, by the M6 channel were there to prove the family’s anti-Semitism. Souad Merah’s remarks have led Paris magistrates to open a preliminary enquiry into “apology for terrorism”.

““Ma mère a toujours dit que les arabes sont nés pour détester les juifs, et cela, c’est une phrase que j’ai entendue tout le long de ma tendre enfance. Mohamed a baigné dans tout cela et les salafistes ont récupéré la bombe déjà prête à exploser”.

My mother always said that Arabs are born to hate Jews, and that is a phrase I heard throughout the length of my early childhood. Mohamed was immersed in that, and the Salafists took advantage of a bomb already primed  to explode.”

What did  Souad say?

«Je suis fière de mon frère, il a combattu jusqu’au bout (…), je pense du bien de Ben Laden.» «Les Juifs, tous ceux qui sont en train de massacrer les musulmans, je les déteste.»

I’m proud of my brother. He fought right to the end (…). I like Ben Laden.”  “The Jews, all those massacring Muslims, I loathe them.

Libération reports,

Le recteur de la Grande mosquée de Paris Dalil Boubakeur a condamné mardi les «délires verbaux» de Souad Merah et s’est dit «atterré par la violence, la gravité et la dangerosité de ces propos incitant à la haine et nous regrettons la médiatisation de ces propos qui ne traduisent en rien le vrai islam, religion de paix». Le président du Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM), Mohammed Moussaoui, a quant à lui condamné «fermement» les propos «ignobles et choquants» de Souad Merah et a appelé au «respect de la mémoire des victimes des tueries».

On Tuesday the rector of the Paris Grande Mosque Dalil Boubakeur denounced the “verbal delirium” of Souad Merah and said that he was “dismayed by the violence, the seriousness and the dangerous nature of these hate-inciting remarks”. “We regret the media publicity given to these comments which have nothing in common with real Islam –  a religion of peace”. Mohammed Moussaoui President of the Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM) equally condemned the “ignoble and shocking” remarks of Souad Merah and called for “respect for the victims of the killings.”

We note solely this: Abdelghani Merah proves that Arabs are not ‘born’ to hate Jews. 

He is a just man.

Morning Star “Clarification” over Shamir article.

“Clarification” over Shamir.

Today’s Morning Star carries this in a small box piece under the headline:

Clarification over Shamir article in Saturday’s Star.

(I reproduce the one already posted here, which does not appear to differ from that printed on  Page 4 of the Morning Star, Monday September the 24th)

A NUMBER of you have raised concerns over the decision to reprint an article by Israel Shamir on the Russian band Pussy Riot that appeared in the weekend’s Morning Star.
The paper would like to reassure readers that the piece was syndicated from Counterpunch in good faith without knowledge of the author’s background.
We would like to reiterate the paper’s commitment to publishing writers who reflect and remain steadfastly committed to the values of anti-racism, anti-fascism, international solidarity and social justice that the paper has campaigned for ever since its establishment.
It remains guided by those goals and will seek in future, wherever possible, to establish the full biography of writers before publishing their work.
In the meantime the Morning Star would like to distance itself from the opinions of the author of the piece, which do not reflect our position or those of the wider movement.
We apologise wholeheartedly for any distress caused.

There remain a number of unanswered issues and points:

• What exactly were the “concerns” and what was the “distress” about Shamir and his article? The Morning Star is silent. The very vivid anger  expressed here and elsewhere  at his anti-Semitism and far-right opinions is apparently best left unsaid.
• In the same vein: how far does the Morning Star wish to “distance itself from the opinions” of Shamir and what opinions do they wish to remain far from?
• If the Morning Star is committed to the “values of anti-racism” and “anti-fascism” why were they unaware of the fascist and racist views of one of the most notorious international propagandists for the far-right, Israel Shamir?
• As numerous posters on this Blog have said, it is hardly necessary to establish the full biography” of Shamir before realising this: a simple Google enquiry would have done, that is, assuming the staff of the Morning Star has, unlike most well-informed people,  not heard of Shamir.

Rosie Bell has said that the phrase “We apologise wholeheartedly for any distress caused” is clumsy and reeking of management-speak.

The ‘clarification’  does not condemn Shamir.

It does not condemn his fascist views.

It fails to ‘clarify’ anything that has come out in this controversy, except that the “decision” to “reprint” ultimately comes from an arrangement to “syndicate” material from the (as we have shown, dodgy) US publication Counterpunch.

This ‘clarification’ is not just evasive: it  is wholeheartedly inadequate.

 

Counterpunch Attacks Pussy Riot and Links Up with Euro Far-Right.

Alliance of ‘Anti-Imperialists’ and Euro Far-Right?

Is CounterPunch now the US vehicle for the European ‘anti-imperialist’ and extreme right alliance  represented by Entre la plume et l’enclume? *

The Spanish Prisoner (a highly recommended site) signals Israel Shamir’s most recent offering.

He cites (from the latest Counterpunch) The Secret History of Pussy Riot, (Hitting the Commercial Jackpot) by Shamir.

During the trial, the defence and the accused did their worst to antagonize the judge by threatening her with the wrath of the United States (sic!) and by defiantly voicing anti-Christian hate speeches. The judge had no choice but to find the accused guilty of hate crime (hooliganism with religious hate as the motive). The prosecution did not charge the accused with a more serious hate crime “with intent to cause religious strife”, though it could probably be made to stick. (It would call for a stiffer sentence; swastika-drawers charged with intent to cause strife receive five years of jail).

He comments,

Two years’ sentence is quite in line with prevailing European practice. For much milder anti-Jewish hate talk, European countries customarily sentence offenders to two-to-five years of prison for the first offence. The Russians applied hate crime laws to offenders against Christian faith, and this is probably a Russian novelty. The Russians proved that they care for Christ as much as the French care for Auschwitz, and this shocked the Europeans who apparently thought ‘hate laws’ may be applied only to protect Jews and gays. The Western governments call for more freedom for the anti-Christian Russians, while denying it for holocaust revisionists in their midst.

Shamir should know about this:  he regularly writes for the Revisionist and Holocaust denial site Entre la plume et l’enclume.

He has written on Holocaust denial,

The legal enforcers of the Holocaust want us to bow down to the idol of Jewish superiority, or else! They won’t  jail Deborah Lipstadt for denial of the Holocaust of Dresden, or Guenter Lewy who penned a lengthy piece entitled Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide? denying the genocide of native Americans. The Jews produced and published these denials for the same reason they published the Satanic Pictures – in order to emphasise the difference between a goy and a Jew. They want you to remember: you may profane Islam and Christianity, but not Judaism. You may discount the suffering of anybody but  the Jews.

We have dealt with his efforts to cast doubt on Dreyfus’s innocence and the announcement that Counterpunch intended to publish this.

Apparently Counterpunch is ‘left-wing’.

It continues to reproduce Shamir’s material.

It will be interesting to see how New Left Review mentions (or does not mention) Alexander Cockburn’s career in Counterpunch and his ties with Shamir in their next issue.

* For information on this site and its Holocaust denial see here.

Piers Paul Read, the Dreyfus Affair and its Tribes (and Israël Sahmir).

Piers Paul Read, the Dreyfus Affair and its Tribes.

“Juif insolent, tais-toi!

Voici venir le Roi!

Et notre race

Court au-devant de lui

Juif, à ta place!

Notre roi nous conduit.

Battle Song of the Camelots du Roi – Action Française, founded 1899.

“C’est la revanche de Dreyfus!”

Charles Maurras, leader of Action Française, at his trial for Collaboration. 1945.

The Dreyfus Affair, which began in 1894 and “ended” with Dreyfus’ naming as a Chevalier de la legion d’honneur in 1906, was a “defining moment in the history of the Catholic Church.” For Piers Paul Read it “is only intelligible if it is seen in the context of the ideological struggle between the France of St Louis and the France of Voltaire.” (Page 4) Three decades ago Read expressed his pride in the Christian tradition, “I have never for a moment doubted either the teachings or the disciplines of the Catholic Church”. (1) Now, in The Dreyfus Affair (2012) he announces he is willing to look at the “pathologies of western Christian thought” and to understand anti-Semitism and anti-Semites. Yet he has just asked, “Can anything be said for the anti-Dreyfusards?” In the eyes of Israël Shamir, there’s quite a lot to speak about, some of which he finds in Read’s book.

The story of Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s wrongful conviction has withstood a great deal. But Read, who begins with such honourable intentions, may not be pleasantly surprised to find his book seized upon by Shamir, a prominent contributor to Entre la Plume et l’enclume. This is a Web site broadcasting a form of ‘anti-imperialism’ that includes attacking not just Zionism and Israel, but Jews. It defends Holocaust deniers. Shamir’s publishers now include, apparently the leftist, and not notably Catholic, Counterpunch.

Dreyfus and Tribes.

The Dreyfus Affair is subtitled The Story of the Most Infamous Miscarriage of Justice in French History. There is often vivid account of the legal process. Reviewers’ have praised Read’s dramatic touch. There is a sketch of Dreyfus’s military career and background as an Alsatian Jew. The key players – the Dreyfus family, his defenders, such as Bernard Lazare, and, famously, Émile Zola, their upright Military ally, Georges Picquart, are turned out, the latter more sympathetically than in most accounts. The slippery Ferdinand Esterhazy, the writer of the infamous “bordereau” (list) of military information that led to Dreyfus’s conviction, is seen juggling his finances by real collaboration with the German secret services. The forger from the Intelligence Bureau, Joseph Henry, who added “proof” of Dreyfus’s guilt, is followed to his suicide. Many readers interested in the Affair will be more than familiar with this, and it would be hard to find anything ‘new’ in this side of The Dreyfus Affair. This is because there is very little novel or original there.

In one, unpleasing, aspect, Read nevertheless stands out. He portrays the Dreyfus affair as a war between different “tribes”. These were not absolutely exclusive but they mean rather more than freely chosen camps, or sides of an argument. In general, “Jews, Protestants and free-thinkers thought the worst of the Jesuit-educated officers on the General Staff, while the Catholic, conservative, aristocratic elements in society had a blind faith in the integrity of the High Command.”(P 211) Furthermore, “Each side had its bogymen. For the anti-Dreyfusards, it was the syndicate – these secretive, transnational network of world Jewry with its allies, or stooges, the Protestants and Freemasons. For the Dreyfusards, it was the Catholic Church, in particular the Society of Jesus, and its schools, its members taking oaths of blind obedience to their General in Rome – the ‘back pope’ – and the Pope himself.”(P 260)

Counterpunch to Publish Anti-Dreyfus Shamir, Extracts.

LA DOUBLE AFFAIRE DREYFUS  par Israël Adam Shamir(une lecture de The Dreyfus Affair, par Piers Paul Read, Bloomsbury, Londres 2012, et de Le cimetière de Prague, par Umberto Eco, Paris, Grasset 2011) .

This has already appeared on a French language site, Entre la Plume et l’Enclume,  devoted to the ideas of Holocaust Denier Roger Garaudy.

We just can’t wait for the Counterpunch publication….

Hat-Tip to Stephen.

Here are some extracts (which probably look very different in their original English).

Shamir cites the Catholic study of Dreyfus by Pier Read, The Dreyfus Affair, (roundly criticised by reviewers for its superficial research*).

This argues that the Dreyfus affair was the pretext and crucial battle ground  for a fight between French republican secularists and the ancient Catholic faith. Shamir summarises some of the central ideas,

Que Dreyfus ait été innocent ou coupable, c’était une question secondaire, si l’on se place du point de vue des conséquences de affaire. Il a été un précurseur de la longue kyrielle des martyrs des droits de l’homme, telle que la produisent les media, cette liste interminable de refuseniks, dissidents, espions arrêtés à tort et tutti quanti. Il peut s’agir d’innocents ou de coupables, mais dans chaque cas, il s’agit d’attaquer la souveraineté de l’État et ses structures traditionnelles, ce qui revient à renforcer l’Empire et son Droit à protéger, empire qui dispose des armes dernier cri. Dreyfus avait eu le soutien de l’Angleterre (les USA de l’époque) et cela consolida la position des éléments pro-britanniques dans l’establishment français.

That Dreyfus was innocent or guilty is a secondary matter, if it is looked at from the standpoint of the consequences of the affair. He was the forerunner of a stream of  human rights victims, that endless list of dissidents, refuseniks, wrongly arrested spies and all and sundry.  Whether it concerned the innocent or the culpable, in every case the real issue was a threat to the sovereignty of the state. The  Empire, and its legal system, backed up by the latest military means and its traditional structures, were at stake. Dreyfus was backed by Britain (the USA of the period), and that helped the pro-British elements within the French Establishment.

Shamir notes however,

En fait, le rôle de l’Angleterre, réel, prend une place démesurée dans l’ouvrage de Read. En revanche, dans son optique, on note une absence totale des francs-maçons, ce qui me semble une lacune regrettable dans un essai de ce genre. Leur rôle a été déterminant.

In reality the role of Britain, which was real, takes an exaggerated place in Read’s book. By contrast, in this respect, there is a total absence of the place of the free-masons, which seems a regrettable gap in an essay on such a subject. Their role was decisive.

In general he opines,

Personnellement, j’ai été très surpris de découvrir qu’au début de l’Affaire Dreyfus, les juifs n’étaient pas persécutés; ce sont les catholiques qui étaient brimés tandis que les juifs frétillaient déjà joyeusement.

Personally I was astonished to find that at the start of the Dreyfus affair, the Jews were not persecuted; it was the Catholics who were bullied, while the Jews were dancing (frétillaient – literally, wriggling) with joy.

After a tedious discussion of the details of the Affair, which involves the claim that the original writing expert could not have been motivated by anti-Semitism, he compares the process (favourably)  to modern Israeli justice.

Shamir states, that the defenders of Dreyfus  “aussi ont fait autant de falsifications (also produced falsified evidence)  qu’ils l’ont pu, nous dit Lindemann.” – Albert Lindemann.

In conclusion,

Y avait-il matière à procès contre Dreyfus? Oui, certes. Était-il coupable? Nous ne le savons pas et ne le saurons probablement jamais. Il a échappé à un châtiment, mais OJ Simpson aussi. Pouvons-nous être certains qu’il était innocent? C’est ce que pense Read.

Was there evidence to bring a charge against Dreyfus? Certainly. Was he guilty. We will probably never know. He escaped from punishment (???) but  so did O.J.Simpson. Can we be certain he was innocent? Read thinks so.

I will not go further in doing Shamir the honour of re-translating (back to the English original) the rest of the text.

Read is used to sketch a largely imaginary history of the affair in which antisemitism is an expression of the popular classes’ anti-bourgeois instincts, Marxists refuse to condemn it, and a key part of the establishment sides with Dreyfus, partly in order to consolidate their link with Britain. The conservatives and Catholics form part of this anti-Dreyfusard bloc. Umberto Eco, well, Shamir dismisses him as working on the assumption that, for Eco, the Jews are ”des victimes éternelles, et de simples objets de l’imagination hostile des gentils.”

The cursory description of the positivist, ‘integral nationalist’ , Monarchist , supporter of the Catholic Church (which he saw as a means to eliminate Christianity’s Jewish heritage) and founder of the Action Française, Charles Maurras as a “Nietzschean” who rejected Christ,  gives an indication of his source’s and his own quality as a historians of ideas.

The determining point however was the aristocratic and ultra-Catholic elements of the French bourgeoisie who loathed Dreyfus, particularly in the military.

This gave rise to the just cited  anti-left Action Française  sometimes called  the world’s first fascist party, and is the origin of the modern French far-right.

The left, including Marxists, overwhelmingly supported Dreyfus. To cite two Names, Jean Jaurès the Republican Marxist, and the Catholic leftist poet Charles Péguy.

And this sticks in the craw:

Mais les attaques contre les juifs réveillèrent leur esprit belliqueux, et tout cela s’est terminé par leur grande victoire.

But the attacks on the Jews awakened their martial spirit, and it ended in their great victory.

* David A Bell noted in the Guardian” Piers Paul Read‘s The Dreyfus Affair feels somewhat poorly timed and redundant, and all the more so since it is based on a very thin job of research. The first two parts of the book, taking the story up through Dreyfus’s condemnation and imprisonment, rely almost entirely on published histories, and cite fewer than 10 original sources at first hand. Read’s lack of expertise in French history comes through in the first pages of the book, in which he confuses the old regime’s first and second estates, and the French revolution’s cult of reason and cult of the supreme being.

A proper brief account of the Dreyfus Affair is given in Wikipedia.