Wiesenthal Centre to French Foreign Minister: “The French Dream of Two States Can be Achieved by Pressing the Palestinians to Recognize the 'Jewish State of Israel'.”

February 1, 2016

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE-EUROPE
Tel.: +33(0)1 47 23 76 37
Fax: +33(0)1 47 20 84 01
Email: csweurope@gmail.com

“Without this precondition, you only reinforce Palestinian obstinacy in pursuing their blind vision of murder to the last Israeli.”

Paris, 1 February 2016

In a letter to French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, noted that, “on 13 January - the anniversary of Emile Zola's 'J'accuse' - our Centre held a gala screening of our film 'It is no Dream – The Life of Theodore Herzl' on the Champs Elysees, under the
Patronage of President François Hollande and Paris Mayor Ann Hidalgo.”

Samuels stressed that “their official patronage symbolically demonstrated,on the one hand, the French State's endorsement of Zola's clarion call against the antisemitism of the Dreyfus show trial, and on the other, a tribute to Herzl's vision of a sovereign Jewish State.”

The letter argued that the Minister's call 'to recognize a State of Palestine unconditionally', thus conflicts with your own government's above 13 January commitment to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre". Adding, "The Foreign Ministry's singling out of the Jewish State is redolent of the demonization of Dreyfus and endorses those who wish to wipe out Herzl's Zionist enterprise.”

Samuels proposed that “the French dream of two states could very easily be achieved, without international conferences and diplomatic grandeur. France can lead Europe in pressing the Palestinian leadership to finally recognize 'the Jewish State of Israel' as a
condition for recognition of 'the Arab State of Palestine'.”

The Centre claimed that “this would mean: - an end to the zero-sum identity theft of the Jewish narrative in order to validate a Palestinian legitimacy
- to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Jewish presence and sovereignty
- to replace their national emblem of a map of a 'Greater Palestine' superimposed over all of Israel
- to end all incitement to hate and violence in the name a 'deJudaized and 'Judenrein' ( Nazi example of Jew-cleansing) of the Holy Land'.”

The letter emphasized that, “without this precondition, Mr. Minister, your plan can only reinforce Palestinian obstinacy in pursuing their blind vision of murder to the last Israeli.”

“Your plan could, moreover, further endanger French Jewry by evoking an 'anti-Dreyfusard' antisemitic revival when Israel is obliged to reject an indigestible French recipe. Indeed, one that France would surely refuse if called upon to recognize 'the Islamic State of ISIS',” concluded Samuels.

For further information please contact Shimon Samuels 00 33 609 770 158, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).