Sam Mréjen, 1932-2025

Papa,

Nous savons tous que ce moment arrive un jour, mais quand il arrive c’est toujours trop tôt.

Tout le monde ici ne t’a pas connu. Que ceux qui ne t’on pas connu sachent que tu étais un homme profondément responsable et généreux, un homme de bon sens, qui savait toujours approcher la vie avec humour. Je n’aurais jamais pu accomplir ce que j’ai accompli sans ton soutien et ta générosité.

Après le décès de maman –alors que Valérie, Aurore et moi étions encore jeunes– tu as pris sur toi, avec courage et responsabilité, de nous élever seul.

Il y a deux ans, presque jour pour jour, ton meilleur ami Gérard Latortue nous quittait. Vous êtes maintenant réunis, vous racontant vos blagues d’antan. Gérard était un diplomate haïtien qui devint premier ministre de son pays. Vous vous étiez rencontrés à Paris alors que vous étiez tous deux étudiants. Gérard avait posté sur une annonce à la cité universitaire qu’il cherchait un partenaire pour voyager en Scandinavie. Au téléphone, vous vous étiez mis d’accord pour voyager ensemble.

Mais c’était la France de la fin des années 50, et Gérard voulait que tu saches quelque chose que tu ne pouvais pas voir au téléphone. « Voilà » te dit-il « je suis Noir. » Ce à quoi tu répondis du tac-au-tac : « Ça tombe bien, je suis Juif. » Et vous devinrent les meilleurs amis du monde.

C’était ça Papa : le bon sens, l’humour, la fidélité.

Une fidélité à la famille, aux amis, et à la tradition juive.

Un ami d’enfance à toi, Charley Pietri, nous avait écrit à Sima et à moi un poème pour notre mariage, qui disait entre autres : « De Meknès à Jérusalem, en passant par Paris : que de feuilles fanées, et que de chemin parcouru. » Ce chemin s’achève pour toi en Israël, mais il continue à travers tes enfants et petits-enfants. Je sais à quel point tu étais fier d’avoir des petits-enfants israéliens, même si l’un d’entre eux commit l’impair, dans sa tendre enfance, de nommer un croissant « bourekas. »

Et je sais que tu es d’autant plus fier d’eux aujourd’hui qu’ils protègent notre pays et notre peuple.

Nous sommes tous fiers de toi. Fier du père et du grand-père que tu as été. Nous ne serions pas ce que nous sommes sans toi.

Tous les membres de la famille et tous les amis qui m’ont écrit après avoir appris la nouvelle de ton départ se souviennent de ton amour de la vie, de ta générosité, de ton sens de l’humour, de ton attachement à la famille, et de ton affection pour les enfants.

Je veux dire merci à Ruth, pour l’amour et pour l’attention qu’elle t’a donné. Ruth a été une עזר כנגדו, un soutien à tes côtés, et une אשת חיל, une femme de valeur, qui t’a accompagné et soutenu pendant votre mariage et dans tes derniers moments.

Papa, les gens t’appelaient Sam. Ton prénom hébraïque est Shlomo. A la bar-mitzvah d’Ethan, dont le deuxième nom est Shlomo, tu avais cité le Livre de l’Ecclésiaste (Kohelet) attribué au Roi Salomon. La parasha d’Ethan est « Yitro », qui est la parasha de cette semaine.

Le livre de Kohelet a été canonisé bien qu’il soit déroutant par ses contradictions et par ses mots durs sur la vie. Mais c’est un livre qui nous rappelle cette évidence : « Il y a un temps pour tout sous le ciel. Un temps pour naître, et un temps pour mourir … Un temps pour pleurer, et un temps pour rire … Un temps pour la guerre, et un temps pour la paix. »  Aujourd’hui nous pleurons, mais nous rirons de nouveau, comme tu nous faisais rire avec tes bonnes blagues –à part celles qui commençaient en Français et qui se terminaient en Arabe, et que nous ne pouvions comprendre.

Le Livre de Kohelet, c’est également la leçon du vieux sage revenu de tout. Shlomo conclut son livre compliqué avec un message simple : « Au bout du compte, et après avoir tout dit, craint Dieu et observe ses commandements, car c’est là tout l’homme. »

Le bon sens de Shlomo. Le bon sens qui était le tien.

Repose en paix, Papa. Ta dernière demeure est en Terre d’Israël, entouré de gens qui t’aiment et qui t’admirent, de petits-enfants qui t’adorent et qui nous remplissent de fierté. C’est l’ultime rétribution de l’homme juste que tu as été.

Emmanuel Navon (Mréjen), 10 février 2025

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Papa,

We all know that this moment comes one day, but when it does it’s always too soon.

Not everyone here knew you. They should know that you were a very responsible and generous man, a man of common sense, who always approached life with humor. I could never have accomplished what I accomplished without your support and generosity.

After Mom passed away—when Valérie, Aurore, and I were still young—you took it upon yourself, with courage and responsibility, to raise us alone.

Two years ago, your best friend Gérard Latortue left us. You are now reunited, telling each other your old jokes. Gérard was a Haitian diplomat who became prime minister of his country. You had met in Paris, where both of you were students. Gérard had posted an ad on campus that he was looking for a partner to travel to Scandinavia. Over the phone, the two of you had agreed to travel together.

But this was France in the late 1950s, and Gérard wanted you to know something you couldn’t see on the phone. “Well,” he said, “I’m black.” To which you replied immediately: “That’s great: I’m Jewish.” And you became the best of friends.

That was Papa: common sense, humor, loyalty.

A loyalty to family, to friends, and to Jewish tradition.

A childhood friend of yours, Charley Pietri, had written a poem to Sima and I for our wedding, which said among other things: “From Meknes to Jerusalem, via Paris: so many faded leaves, but what a journey.”  This journey ends for you in Israel, but it continues through your children and grandchildren. I know how proud you were to have Israeli grandchildren, even if one of them made the faux pas, as a young child, of calling a croissant “bourekas.”

And I know that you are even more proud of them today that they protect our country and our people.

We are all proud of you. Proud of the father and grandfather you were. We would not be who we are without you.

All the family members and friends who wrote to me after hearing the news of your passing remember your love of life, your generosity, your sense of humor, your commitment to family, and your special connection to children.

I want to say thank you to Ruth, for the love and attention she gave you. Ruth was a עזר כנגדו, a support at your side, and a אשת חיל, a woman of valor, who accompanied and supported you during your marriage and in your final moments.

Papa, people called you Sam. Your Hebrew name is Shlomo. At Ethan’s bar mitzvah, whose second name is Shlomo, you quoted the Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) attributed to King Solomon. Ethan’s parsha is “Yitro,” which is this week’s parsha.

The book of Kohelet has been canonized even though it is confusing because of its contradictions and its harsh words about life. But it is a book that reminds us of the obvious: “There is a time for everything under heaven … A time to be born, and a time to die… A time to weep, and a time to laugh… A time for war, and a time for peace.” Today we weep, but we shall laugh again, as you made us laugh with your good jokes – except for the ones that started in French and ended in Arabic, and which we didn’t understand.

Kohelet is also the lesson of the old wise man who has seen it all. Shlomo concludes his complicated book with a simple message: “In the end, and after having said everything, fear God and keep his commandments, for that is what man is all about.”

The common sense of Shlomo. The common sense that was yours.

Rest in peace, Papa. Your final resting place is in the Land of Israel, surrounded by people who love and admire you, by grandchildren who adore you and who fill us with pride. This is the ultimate reward for the righteous man you were.


LETTER FROM MARLENE, GAILLE, STEPHANIE, AND ALEXIA LATORTUE:

Everyone gathered today to celebrate the beautiful life of Sam Mrejen may not know that in addition to family in Morocco, France and Israel, Sam also has a Haitian family that loves him, the Latortues.

At the heart of this family is an epic friendship that began with a long road trip of a Jewish student and a black student from Paris to Scandinavia. What started out as a practical and business arrangement – Sam had a car, Gerard Latortue had gas money, and both wanted an adventure – grew into a loyal, brotherly love.

Sam, or Sammy as Gerard often called him, had a twinkle in his eyes, enjoyed chatting with perfect strangers, showed love by teasing – the more he loved you, the more he would tease you – and had overflowing laughter and joie de vivre to share.

Well into their 80s, whenever they were together, including the last time they saw each other in London, something magical happened with Sam and Gerard. Their step had more spring, they stood taller, any worry lines disappeared from their faces…they were young, handsome, charming students once again. The jokes would flow, the stories would come fast, one after the other. Pure joy. Pure friendship.

But their friendship was not a light one. It was deep and real, and they were there for each other in their hardest moments as well as their happiest moments.  Gerard was by Sam’s side when he lost the mother of his three children. Sam flew to Haiti to give Gerard support when he first worked in government there. Gerard donned a kippah and was by Sam’s side here in Israel when Emmanuel got married. Sam flew to Florida to attend the wedding of Gerard’s first daughter to get married, Stephanie, and flew to Washington, DC for the baptism of Gerard’s grandchild, Gaielle’s son, Galen.

The bond between Sam and Gerard extended to their families. Everyone knew that to be in the inner circle of either man, meant accepting and growing to love the brother from another mother.

And it was easy for us, Marlene, Gerard’s wife, and his three daughters, Gaielle, Stephanie, and Alexia to love Sam. Sam is generosity embodied. Sam is abundant love. Sam is the warmth of his native Morocco.  Sam is a Papa Poule – his family was his everything. Sam is a mensch. Yes, he was well dressed and had a fine address in Paris, but there was not a drop of show or pretense to Sam. He often delighted in being slightly irreverent to the norms and expectations of society. He treated everyone with respect and love.

Sam, thank you for your love. We miss you and our hearts go out to your three children, and their children that you loved so fiercely, and to your dear Ruth who loved and cared for you until the end.

In this moment of sorrow, we are comforted by the vision of you, Sam, and Gerard, reunited in the heavens causing just a little bit of mischief.

Marlene, Gaielle, Stephanie and Alexia Latortue.

The End of the Beginning (Times of Israel, 19 December 2024)

[Picture Credit: ELNET]

Israel is about to achieve total victory. If Europe’s three main powers wish to reap the benefits of this victory and to shape the future of the Middle East, they should trade legalistic formalism for political realism.

ELNET’s first and previous strategic dialogue between the “E3” countries (Britain, France, Germany) and Israel took place in October 2023, less than three weeks after the October 7 tragedy. We were still in shock. Our sons, including mine, were about to enter the Gaza Strip. The dialogue ended on October 26, two days before the IDF’s ground operation in Gaza.

Being in London during Israel’s darkest hour, I visited Churchill’s war room to uplift my mood. Paraphrasing the great Winston, I said at the dialogue that Israel “Must, and will, teach its enemies a lesson which they, and the world, will never forget.”

One year later, I am glad to say that this lesson has been taught, is still being taught, and will continue to be taught.

One year ago, Israel was humiliated, traumatized, and threatened by Iran’s multi-front ring of Jihadist aggression. Today, Israel has gained the upper hand. The Iranian ring has been dismantled, and Iran is the one on the defensive. Three of Iran’s proxies –Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime– have been either neutralized or eliminated. The Houthis in Yemen can still fire missiles at Israel and disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, but they are vulnerable to Israel’s airstrikes. As for Iran itself, its two massive strikes at Israel –in April and in October 2024– have been humiliating for the Islamic Republic. So has Israel’s devastating counterstrike on October 26.

The war that erupted on October 7 was, from day one, a war between Iran and Israel. Israel has not fully won that war yet, but it will. Never has the prospect of a large-scale military strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure been more feasible and more likely. The crumbling of the Iranian axis and the incoming Trump administration have turned “total victory” from a slogan to a palpable reality.

Because Israel is emerging as the Middle East’s greatest power with a fully supportive U.S. administration in the coming four years, it is time for E3 countries to rethink their Middle East policy. And this rethinking must take into account a paradox: The Russia-Iran axis has suffered a serious setback, but Russia is unlikely to be defeated in Ukraine.

To complete the defeat of Iran and to prevent the collapse of Ukraine, the E3 should replace legalistic formalism with political realism. This doesn’t mean Europe should abandon its principles. But it does mean that it is about time to realize that complex problems cannot be managed, let alone solved, with simplistic slogans.

There will be no new nuclear deal with Iran. Ukraine will not recover its 1991 borders. Establishing a 22nd failed and autocratic Arab state in Israel’s heartland will not bring peace and stability to the Middle East. The Islamic republic can be defeated, but the Russian empire can only be contained.

If E3 countries wish to be constructive in the Middle East in the coming four years, they should fully cooperate with the U.S. and with Israel on the war against Iran’s axis of aggression, and they should keep Qatar’s malign influence in check. In Europe, E3 should help contain Russia not only by cooperating with the U.S. on reaching a sustainable compromise with Putin, but also by significantly increasing European defense spendings. The two are related, because NATO can only contain Russia from a position of strength.

Cooperation between Israel and Germany is a case in point: German-made submarines help Israel deter Iran, and Israeli-made anti-missiles systems help Germany deter Russia.

Finally, E3 must be on the same page at the United Nations. This organization has long been hijacked by autocracies that abuse the letter and the spirit of international law against the free world. Democracies do a disservice to their own values by playing into the hands of this sham. Precisely because the free world has become a minority at the UN, the least it can do is to stick together on votes at the Security Council, at the General Assembly, and at the Human Rights Council. This should start with E3 countries.

The past year has brought important achievements and victories. But we must remain resolute, united, and clear-sighted. To quote Churchill again: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

This text summarizes the author’s remarks at ELNET’s second E3-Israel strategic dialogue in Paris on 16 December 2024.

Next Year in Berlin (Times of Israel, 21 November 2024)

Photo Credit: ELNET

One year ago, ELNET held the 11th strategic dialogue between Israel and Germany in Berlin. Back then, Israel was a month into its ground operation in Gaza, and the Ukrainian counter-offensive had reached a stalemate. The Israeli government was thought to be on a short lifeline, while the German government was considered stable. In the US, President Biden had expanded his Senate majority in the midterms, and Donald Trump was indicted. One year later, the situation has not only changed; it has been turned on its head.

Israel has mostly defeated Hamas and Hezbollah. It has thwarted Iran’s missiles attacks and destroyed strategic targets on Iranian territory. The Israeli government is expected to last until the Fall of 2026. The upcoming snap election in Germany is likely to produce a different coalition. The incoming US administration is committed to the defeat of Iran and to normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In other words, the year 2025 could potentially be a turning point in the wars fought simultaneously in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East.

In those two wars, the special relationship between Germany and Israel is not only mutually beneficial. It is also an asset to the free world. The military partnership between Germany and Israel makes a major contribution to our common resistance to the Russia-Iran axis. Not only has Germany rejected demands to end military supplies to Israel. It has also held its ground –a moral ground– at the ICJ, at the ICC, and at the UN. It has reminded the world, with courage and determination, that Israel’s security is part of its Staatsräson.

But the tragedies of the past are not, and should not, be the only reason for Israel’s special place in Germany’s Staatsräson. This special place is also the outcome of shared values and of common interests. After all, Staatsräson is a German adaptation of the French raison d’État and of the Italian Ragion di Stato. Henry Kissinger writes in his magnum opus Diplomacy that raison d’État is to French what Realpolitik is to German. In which case there is no need for the word Staatsräson. But the point is that there is no shortage of words in European languages to talk about national interest.

With the war in Ukraine, the Zeitenwende, and the global coalition between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, there is also no shortage of awareness about the fact that our free societies are threatened once again. But awareness is not enough. The free world must be resilient, and it must be united at the UN, where democracies and law-abiding nations are a minority. In the Middle East, repeating hollow formulas like some type of religious incantation, will not bring peace. Realpolitik might. This means working with the new US administration instead of dismissing it. It means building alternatives to UNRWA. It means breaking apart the Iranian axis of aggression. And it means understanding that Israeli society is not the same, and will never be the same, after October 7.

We end the Pessah Haggadah with the words “Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem.” But since this 12th Germany-Israel dialogue took place in Jerusalem, let us wish “Next year in Berlin.” Thankfully, this dialogue only meets in reunited capitals.

This text summarizes the author’s concluding remarks at ELNET’s 12th strategic dialogue between Germany and Israel, held in Jerusalem on 20 November 2024. 

The Free World must circle the wagons at the UN (The Times of Israel, 27 September 2024)

Picture Credit: ELNET

Below are my concluding remarks at ELNET’s CEE (Central & Eastern Europe)-Israel Strategic Dialogue, which took place in Riga, Latvia, on September 23, 2024.

Israel is fighting a seven-front war which includes Iran, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. But this war is not confined to the Middle East. It belongs to a wider geopolitical divide between the free world and the despotic powers that are undermining the US-led, rule-based order which was established after World War II and which expanded with the end of the Cold War. Russia and Iran are on the same side of this divide. Both countries are imperialist autocracies that treat their neighbors as subjects and that perceive democracies as a threat.

Israel and its allies in eastern and central Europe are facing together the Russia-Iran axis, which enjoys the backing of China and of North Korea. Countries in eastern and central Europe are all too familiar with the threat of imperialist autocracies. Czechoslovakia was dismantled in 1938 because of German bullying and of Western cowardice. Poland was conquered by Germany and by Russia in 1939. That same year, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were forcibly added to the Soviet Empire. Russia financed and armed Israel’s enemies during the Cold War. It is now aligned with Iran.

In our common and current struggle, we must not only expand our military cooperation but also reaffirm our moral clarity. Let us not fall into the trap of those who wish to draw a false parallel between Israel and Russia. No, the West is not applying double standards by supporting Israel while condemning Russia. Russia is conducting a war of aggression while intentionally committing war crimes. Israel is conducting a war of self-defense while abiding by the laws of war. But there are consequences to moral confusion. One of them is the lack of unity among free countries at the UN.

The UN was established by the Allies, but with time the free world became a minority in the organization it had established after WWII. Today, democracies and law-abiding nations are a minority at the UN. The general assembly and the human rights council are dominated by autocracies that use their automatic majority to pass political resolutions under the pretense of international law. As free nations have become a minority at the UN, the least they can do is to stick together. When they don’t, they play into the hands of China and Russia.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what happened on September 17 at the general assembly with the PLO-sponsored resolution against Israel. This resolution calls upon Israel to fully and unconditionally withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines without a peace agreement and without security guarantees. Israel did just that in 2005 when it fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The outcome was nearly two decades of rocket attacks, and then October 7.

The fact that Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain voted in favor of this resolution is a disgrace. Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, India, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom had the decency to abstain. Argentina, the Czech Republic, Figi, Hungary, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the United States had the courage and moral clarity to vote against.

While general assembly resolutions are mere declarations that are not binding in international law, those votes carry consequences because they send the wrong message to China and to Russia. That message is that the free world is divided and lacks moral clarity. If we wish to overcome our divisions and to restore our moral clarity as free nations, let’s start at the UN.

 

The British Paradox (Times of Israel, 18 September 2024)

Photo Credit: ELNET

Below are the concluding remarks I delivered at ELNET’s eight strategic dialogue between the UK and Israel on 17 September 2024 in Jerusalem.

Eighty-five years ago on that day, the Soviet Union invaded Poland as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Britain had declared war on Germany two weeks before to defend Poland’s sovereignty. The invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia spelled disaster for the Jewish people. Britain was now at war with a country, Nazi Germany, that was bent on eradicating the Jewish people.

But Britain was also preventing Jewish national self-determination in its Palestine mandate. Three months before the war, the British government has adopted the infamous “White Paper” which drastically limited Jewish immigration and land purchase. David Ben-Gurion summarized this paradox when he said: “We must fight with Britain as if there were no White Paper, and we must fight the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Paradox characterizes to that day relations between Britain and Israel.

Britain enabled Palestinian Jews (this is how Israelis were called at the time) to fight alongside the Allies in Italy when it established the Jewish Brigade in 1944. But Britain also maintained the White Paper after the war and continued to prevent Jewish immigration despite the Holocaust. Britain tried to prevent Israel’s independence in 1948, but it fought alongside Israel against Egypt in 1956.

Britain played a key role at the UN Security Council in 1967 to block a resolution that would have demanded a total and unconditional Israeli withdrawal to the armistice lines of 1949. But Britain also added its voice in 1980 to the Venice Declaration, which endorsed the PLO and its demands. Margaret Thatcher imposed a military embargo on Israel while selling tanks to Jordan and military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, but she was also the first British prime minister to pay an official visit to Israel.

The list goes on, and the question is: “What’s the paradox today?”

It is the fact that Britain officially supports Israel’s right to defend itself but undermines that right by suspending military export licenses. Among allies, criticism and frank dialogue are welcome and necessary. Israel is not, and should not, be above criticism. But neither should it be held by impossible standards which NATO forces did not apply to themselves in Iraq and Syria.

Two weeks ago, ELNET hosted a delegation of former senior commanders, most of them from the UK. Among them was General Sir John McColl, former deputy senior allied commander of NATO. He came away from the trip, he said, “satisfied that the IDF’s operations and rules of engagement were rigorous compared to the British Army and our Western allies.”

Israel might be able to do better still to protect civilians while fighting a terrorist organization in urban areas and in underground tunnels. But imposing a partial arms embargo on Israel sends the wrong message to our common enemies: not only to Hamas, but also to the Russia-Iran axis that supports it.

The free world cannot afford to be divided in the current global conflict that has been imposed on us. When our two countries went to war against Egypt in 1956, tensions between the US and the UK played into the hands of the Soviets. Let us not repeat that mistake and let us settle our differences in private.

Abba Eban wrote the following about British politics: “It became a Zionist truism that our friends were former minsters, while incumbent ministers were our former friends.” May this dialogue, and the work of ELNET in general, relegate this truism to history.

Europe can condemn Russia while supporting Israel (Times of Israel, 26 August 2024)

Photo Credit: ELNET

As a scholar and practitioner of diplomacy, I regularly engage with counterparts whose views differ from mine. I very much value being exposed to contradictory viewpoints and debating both factually and respectfully. In recent weeks, I have heard more than once that many Europeans ask themselves the following question: “How can we justify to the Global South condemning Russia while supporting Israel?” To most Israelis, including myself, this is a jaw-dropping question. But since it is being asked, let me answer it.

I shall start with the question’s least controversial part: the so-called “Global South.” This misleading expression was coined during the Vietnam War by far-left American activist Carl Oglesby, who used typical Marxist terminology to depict an alleged divide between “exploiters” and “exploited.” The “Global South” expression made a comeback in the early 21st century, and it has progressively imposed itself by way of herd behavior – thus replacing the “Third World” idiom conceived by French geographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952.

The widespread and uncritical adoption of the “Global South” expression has absurd, though at times amusing, consequences. According to the UN Agency for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), North Korea belongs to the “Global South” while South Korea belongs to the “Global North.” China, with a GDP of 18 trillion, the world’s largest navy, and technological leadership from electric cars to 5G, is classified as “Global South.” But Russia, with a GDP of 2 trillion, a dysfunctional army whose supplies depend on North Korea, and a rentier economy that mostly lives off energy exports, is classified as “Global North.”

Besides this list of absurdities (which is longer), there is nothing in common between the right-wing and pro-American governments of Argentina and India, and the left-wing and pro-Russia governments of Chile and Venezuela; or between the anti-Iran thriving economies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Iran-controlled failed states of Syria and Lebanon. The “Global South,” in other words, is a scam.

Now for the real controversy.

Russia is the largest country in the world. It is a violent autocracy and a revanchist empire that tries to retake control of former Soviet republics. Russia also tries to undermine –in cooperation with other autocracies such as China, Iran, and North Korea– the US-led rule-based order that was established after World War Two and that expanded with the end of the Cold War. Russia started the war in Ukraine by aggressing and conquering its neighbor. It knowingly commits war crimes there by intentionally bombarding civilian targets that are not used by the Ukrainian army.

Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world. It is a democracy surrounded by autocracies and by a ring of failed states – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza – that have been taken over and armed by Iran with the declared purpose of destroying Israel with a coordinated strike. Israel was the one attacked by Hamas on October 7, and it did what every country would have done after such a barbaric attack by using force in self-defense (in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter).

As in every war, the war in Gaza is making civilian victims (the number of victims is unverifiable, and the figures provided by Hamas are unreliable). The armies of NATO made large numbers of civilian victims while fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (the Battles of Mosul and Raqqa in 2016-2017 were especially lethal). Israel must be judged by the same standards applied to other Western democracies, not by higher and unachievable ones. And Israel is taking greater precautions than Western armies in its battle against Jihadists. As explained by US military expert John Spencer: “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires.”

Iran, which aggressed Israel via Hamas on 7 October 2023, and Russia, which aggressed Ukraine on 22 February 2022, are allies. Israel is fighting not only for its survival against Iran’s genocidal program but also for the free world. If Israel and Ukraine fall, the Russia-Iran axis supported by China will declare victory. Taiwan will be next. So will the Baltic States and the rest of Europe. As President Biden said on 19 October 2023: “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”

It is as simple, and as true, as that. So not only can Europe condemn Russia while supporting Israel. It also should.

Rome and Jerusalem (Times of Israel, 10 May 2024)

Photo Credit: ELNET

On the 8th of May 2024, ELNET (European Leadership Network) held its first Italy-Israel strategic dialogue in Rome, in partnership with the De Gasperi Foundation. The date was symbolic because May 8 marks the end of World War II in Europe. Italians and Jews fought together as brothers toward the end of the war in northern Italy. The Italian Resistance and the Jewish Brigade joined the Allies to fight and defeat the Nazis, intoning Bella Ciao –the song of the Italian partisans– and Hatikva –the Hebrew ode to hope that became Israel’s national anthem.

The Jewish Brigade had been established in the Summer of 1944. It was composed of Palestinian Jews (this is how Israelis were called at the time) and it started fighting in Italy in October 1944. Unlike the Jewish Legion that fought during World War One and which was made up of Diaspora Jews, the Jewish Brigade was composed of what Italians call Ebrei –Hebrews. Jews who spoke Hebrew, who lived in their historic homeland, and who were rebuilding their country.

It is symbolic that in 1944 Hebrew and Italian soldiers fought together because, eighteen hundred years before, Roman and Judean soldiers had fought each other. The two Jewish-Roman wars between the years 66 and 136 were eventually won by the Roman Empire. The Jews were defeated and scattered, and their country was destroyed. But if we look at history in a broad perspective, the Jews ended-up having the upper hand. They survived eighteen centuries of exile and rebuilt their independence. The Roman empire, by contrast, is no longer around –even though it has shaped, and continues to influence, Western civilization.

This civilization rests upon two pillars: Rome and Jerusalem. It is from Jerusalem that the Jews wrote the Bible and observed its commandments, and it is from there that the Jewish faith became a universal message via the Church. Rome incorporated and expanded both Hellenism and Christianism. This unique blend produced Western civilization which, with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, became a wonder of scientific innovation, of cultural richness, and of political freedom. This civilization, of which our two respective capitals are the cornerstones, is under attack today –both by radical Islam and by post-modernism.

You only need to look at European and at American universities to witness this coordinated assault. The same people on Western campuses who call for the elimination of Israel also chant “Death to America.” The billions spent by Qatar and by Saudi Arabia on American universities have turned entire departments into machines of indoctrination, with the willing support of radical professors whose deconstructionist agenda is only directed at Western culture.

Hence the bizarre alliance between two otherwise incompatible ideologies: post-modern nihilism and pre-modern Islamism. The only reason they are joining forces is because they have a common enemy: Western civilization. It is no coincidence that Judith Butler, who has spent her professional life fighting the core values of the Judeo-Christian civilization, has described Hamas as a progressive movement, and October 7 as an act of resistance.

In this unholy alliance between wannabee revolutionaries and medieval reactionaries, the former always end up being the useful idiots of the latter. Those tik-tok students who wear a keffiyeh today would have worn a Che Gevara shirt forty years ago.

It is both tragic and ironic that, as Iranian women risk their lives by removing their headscarves, spoiled and ignorant students in the West walk around with those scarves thinking they are cool. They follow the steps of Jean-Paul Sartre who, in 1963, went to Prague to tell the Czechs oppressed by Communism that they were lucky to be on the right side of the iron curtain.

Sartre, like most French intellectuals then and Western academics today, was at least consistent in always being on the wrong side of history. He didn’t join the French resistance, he praised Mao Zedong, and he considered Ayatollah Khomeini a liberator. Michel Foucault called Khomeini a holy man. As we all know, Foucault was hardly an expert on holiness… Given his personal lifestyle, he would not have survived a single day in the Islamic republic. But, of course, Sartre and Foucault were only fascinated by the totalitarian and destructive ideologies of Mao and of Khomeini.

A hundred years before that, in 1856, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his book L’ancien régime et la révolution that French philosophers were fascinated by autocratic China. That’s because, Tocqueville explained, the radical philosophes were not interested in freedom but in imposing their untested ideas on others. Another brilliant French mind, Raymond Aron, described Marxism as the “opium of the intellectuals.” Marxism has morphed into wokeism, but many intellectuals still need their opium.

We must provide an alternative to that opium by rebuilding the pride of our youth in Western civilization. There are no better places to start from than Rome and Jerusalem.

Rome and Jerusalem is the name of a book published in 1862 by Moses Hess, a Jewish-German philosopher who argued that the Jews needed to reclaim the national component of their identity and to put an end to their exile. Hess was addressing a question raised by the defeat of the Judean armies in the first century, which I mentioned earlier. This defeat was described in detail by Flavius Josephus in his book The Jewish Wars.

Toward the end of the book, Josephus tells the story of Emperor Titus visiting the city of Antioch whose inhabitants demanded from him the expulsion of the Jews. And this is what Titus told them: “Well, their country, where they should be sent back since they’re Jews, has just been destroyed, and no other territory can welcome them.”

Those words were pronounced 1,954 years ago. The Jews have survived that period against all odds, and they have rebuilt a country that is free, prosperous, and successful. This is a source of pride and inspiration to whoever wants to preserve Western civilization, and a source of rage and frustration to those who want to destroy it.

I’ve used the words “pride” and “rage” as a reference to Oriana Fallaci’s book The Rage and the Pride (“La rabbia e l’orgoglio”), which she published shortly after 9/11. As Sartre and Foucault were celebrating Khomeini, Oriana confronted him. The pride Florentine donna threw her chador in Khomeini’s face after interviewing him for hours, and then told him the following: “Your revolution did not yield the good fruit that people had called for, did not bring any of the things you had promised. Less freedom than ever. You are headed for darker waters, Imam.”

Oriana ends her book –which she called a sermon– by writing that she wants an Italy that defends its values, its culture, its national identity.

It is for this Italy, and for this Israel, that we fought together in 1944.

And it is for them that we must fight again today.

Israel’s Judicial System Needs an Evolution, Not a Revolution (12 February 2023)

Photo Credit: Kohelet Policy Forum 

The controversy around the constitutional overhaul proposed by the Netanyahu government understandably leaves outside observers confused. The purpose of this article is to understand this controversy and to suggest a constructive solution to the current constitutional crisis.

In the absence of a written constitution, Israel’s system of checks-and-balances between the three branches of government has evolved empirically. For the first three decades that followed Israel’s independence in 1948, the Socialist Mapai party dominated Israeli politics. In the absence of a bicameral parliament, of a presidential veto to legislation, and of regional elections for the Knesset, the only counter-power to the government was (and still is) the Supreme Court. Menachem Begin was full of praise for the Judiciary precisely because judges were a shield of last resort in a system dominated by his nemesis David Ben Gurion.

In contemporary Israeli politics, judicial activism is generally criticized by the right and defended by the left. But, five decades ago, the opposite was true. Indeed, Yitzhak Rabin resigned in 1977 because then-Attorney General Aharon Barak decided to prosecute him over the bank account he and his wife illegally held in the U.S. (Rabin’s resignation paved the way for Likud’s historical victory).

Israel’s Supreme Court became more activist under the presidency of Meir Shamgar (1983-1995) and of Aharon Barack (1995-2006). During that period, the Court made five profound changes to Israel’s constitutional order by declaring that:

  1. Israel’s basic laws collectively constitute a de facto constitution and that the Court has the authority to strike down unconstitutional legislation;
  2. Everything is justiciable, meaning that the Court can rule on any matter and not only on legal ones;
  3. There should be no restriction to petitioning the Court, and therefore standing applies to anyone;
  4. The Attorney General’s advice is binding and must be accepted as is by the government;
  5. The Court can strike down government decisions not only for being illegal but also for being “unreasonable” in the Court’s opinion.

Some of those principles are common in other democracies. But, in Israel, they were not the outcome of legislation nor of public debate. They were simply and unilaterally imposed by the Court itself. This judicial overreach went further yet after the Knesset passed in 2018 a basic law that officially defines Israel as a nation state. The Court was expectedly petitioned to strike down the law.

According to its own doctrine (i.e., basic laws enjoy a constitutional status), the Court should have dismissed the petitioners out of hand. It did not. Rather, the Court argued that it was free to revise its own doctrine and strike down basic laws as well. The new basic law was spared that fate only because the Court could not find anything wrong with it.

This new constitutional order produced an imbalance because the Judiciary ends up having the last word on matters of policy, and because the activist Court is now used as a de facto second chamber by the opposition when it loses a vote in parliament. Add to this the fact that the Israeli left was dealt a fatal and durable electoral blow by the Second Intifada, while it can count on sympathetic judges in the Court, and you understand why the Israeli right has been bemoaning for the past two decades that it keeps winning at the ballot box only to be struck down by the bench.

Hence has judicial activism become a right-left issue in Israeli politics. Having won a majority after five consecutive inconclusive elections, and having formed a government that sees judicial overhaul as a priority, the pro-Netanyahu right feels that it has hit the jackpot and that it cannot let go of a golden opportunity.

The reforms presented by Yariv Levin on January 4th, 2023, include the following:

  1. The government would handpick Supreme Court judges of its liking;
  2. The Court would in effect lose its power to strike down unconstitutional legislation because the Knesset would be able to re-legislate it with a simple majority of 61;
  3. The Court would no longer be able to use the principle of “unreasonableness” to strike down government decisions;
  4. The ruling of government legal advisors would cease to be binding, and ministers will be entitled to hire and fire their ministry’s legal advisor at will without the involvement of the Ministry of Justice.

In effect, the government would become mostly unrestricted.

Altogether, those four reforms go too far, and they would replace one imbalance with another instead of fixing the imbalance produced by the Court over the years. In order to improve checks-and-balances and to enjoy broad public support, the reform of Israel’s judicial system should include the five elements below:

  1. The principle of justiciability (i.e., the purview of the High Court) must be clearly delineated so as not to apply to all aspects of government policy and of Knesset legislation;
  2. The principle of “unreasonableness” should be restricted but not repealed altogether – as proposed in fact by Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg;
  3. Standing should be narrowed to petitioners who can prove that they are affected by a law or administrative decision;
  4. Both judicial review of legislation and the override of the Court should require a special majority, not a simple one. Israel should adopt a charter of basic rights and freedoms if it is to add an override clause to its mechanism of checks-and-balances;
  5. The override clause should not apply to the fundamental rights spelled out by the bill of rights. Basic laws should not be within the reach of judicial review, but the Knesset should not escape judicial review just by arbitrarily adding the adjective “basic” to any legislation.

Such reforms need to be discussed and to gather wide support. The current coalition controls 53% of the Knesset but only received 48.38% of the popular vote. It should not force radical reforms with the support of barely half of the electorate. Recent polls clearly show that most Israelis do not want an imbalanced and rushed reform.

As for the committee that appoints judges, it has already been reformed in a positive way. The committee is composed of nine members: the minister of justice, another cabinet member, two members of Knesset, two members of the lawyers’ association, and three Supreme Court judges (including the Court’s president). The assertion that “judges appoint themselves” was mostly true until 2008 because the three Justices would team up with the lawyers’ association to impose their picks.

But this is no longer the case. In 2008, the law was amended so as to require a majority of seven out of nine, thus breaking up the “automatic majority” of the judges. All members of the committee are now forced to compromise. This mechanism, which enabled conservative justice ministers such as Ayelet Shaked and Gideon Sa’ar to block overly activist judges and to nominate more moderate ones, shows that piecemeal and constructive reforms are possible. This being said, an additional reform of the committee can be discussed.

The compromise proposal of President Herzog, as a basis for discussion, is welcome. The State of Israel needs an agreed, clarified, and balanced constitutional order.

The Tragedy of Eric Zemmour (The Times of Israel, 3 April 2022)

Photo Credit: YouTube Screenshot

France has had two Jewish heads of government: Léon Blum between 1936 and 1937, and Pierre Mendès-France between 1954 and 1955 (Michel Debré, who served as prime minister between 1959 and 1962, had a Jewish father but not a Jewish mother; Laurent Fabius, who served between 1984 and 1986, is of Jewish descent but his family converted to Catholicism and he was raised as a Catholic). Though their Jewishness was a matter of controversy at the time, especially for Léon Blum, a Jewish prime minister would not raise eyebrows in France today. Being head of state is a different matter, however. In Europe, heads of state (whether hereditary monarchs or elected presidents) incarnate the nation. In France, they inherit the mantle of kings and emperors. Since the establishment of the Fifth Republic by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, French presidents have often been described as “Republican monarchs” because of their extended powers. By running for president, Eric Zemmour is setting a precedent of the first Jew vying for what the French call “la fonction suprême” (the supreme function).

One could have expected Catholics, monarchists, and ultra-conservatives object to a Jew claiming the virtual crown of French kings. After all, when Léon Blum became premier in June 1936, monarchist parliamentarian Xavier Vallat complained that “For the first time, this Gallo-Roman land is going to be governed by a Jew.” Yet the very opposite has happened with Zemmour, who has gathered the support of France’s most conservative figures. Zemmour’s maiden speech as candidate on 5 December 2021 was preceded by public endorsements. Among them was ultra-conservative politician and author Paul-Marie Coûteaux, who declared that Eric Zemmour shall “incarnate ‘the king’s second body’, the immemorial and immortal body of France” and become in effect “King of France.”

Anticipating the bewilderment of his audience, given Zemmour’s Jewishness, Coûteaux explained that Zemmour’s authentic love for France has granted him access to the Catholic anointment of French Kings: “This transubstantiation, which was once called ‘the king’s two bodies’, is a moral matter, and, like every moral matter in a Christian land, is a question of love. Yes, Zemmour is a love story, an unshakable love for this country.”

Coûteaux’s speech was altogether bizarre and telling. The Catholic and monarchist right, which eight decades ago vilified Léon Blum as a “Talmudist” unfit to rule over a “nation of peasants” (in Xavier Vallat’s words), is willing today to anoint an Algerian Jew because he has proven his indefectible love for France and because such love is needed to protect an old Christian nation from Islamization (whose main source, incidentally, is Zemmour’s native Algeria). Coûteaux is not an isolated and iconoclastic case. Zemmour has also been endorsed by Philippe de Villiers, a prominent Catholic and monarchist politician. France’s Catholic right is not endorsing Zemmour simply because his intellect and debating skills far surpass those of Marine Le Pen. Something deeper is at stake.

One of Zemmour’s leitmotivs is that France is not a race but a Catholic nation, and that immigrants must assimilate (and not merely integrate) into that nation by learning its language, by adopting its culture, by identifying with its history, and by keeping religious observance to the private sphere. Zemmour proudly reminds his audiences that he did just that as a “Berberian Jew,” and that today’s immigrants can and must do the same. Zemmour often quotes, and fully endorses, the famous formula of Count Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre who said during a debate at the French national assembly in 1789 that Jews “should be granted everything as individuals but nothing as a nation.” This formula was turned into policy by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1806 following the resolutions of the “Grand Sanhedrin.” Zemmour continues to endorse this policy of “replacing Jerusalem with Paris.”

Unlike Bruno Kreisky (a former Austrian chancellor who, despite having Jewish parents, said he had no connection whatsoever with Judaism), Zemmour openly identifies as a Jew. His wife is Jewish (so is his mistress…), he celebrates Jewish holidays, and he occasionally attends an Orthodox synagogue. Yet his identification as a Jew is solely religious and not national. His religious allegiance is to Judaism, but his national allegiance is to France. Hence is he not a Zionist.

When Zemmour advocates the preservation of French civilization, he sounds genuine because he has embraced that civilization. When he says that immigrants should give French names to their children, he cannot be accused of nativism since his family did just that after immigrating from Algeria. “Racism,” Zemmour explained in his abovementioned speech, means “claiming that those who are different from us are inferior because they are different, and that you can only be French if you descend from Clovis. How could I possibly believe that, me, a little Berberian Jew who came from the other side of the Mediterranean?” As an admirer of Bonaparte, Zemmour can think of another Mediterranean foreigner who fell in love with France and became its leader. Yet Zemmour owes his popularity among French nationalists not only to his assimilationist ideology, but also to his description of France as the “New Israel.”

In his book Destin français (“French destiny”), Zemmour has a chapter named “Saint-Louis, the Jewish king.” In it, he claims that, since the Carolingian dynasty, the Franks considered themselves the new chosen people and that the French monarchy took from the Hebrew Bible both its rituals (such as the king’s ointment) and its concepts (such as the chosen people and the divine source of power). For Zemmour, there is no contradiction between his religious allegiance to Judaism and his national allegiance to France, because “For centuries Israel was France’s model.” Moreover, Zemmour writes in this chapter, “It is no coincidence that Israel has been hated for decades by France’s post-Christian and post-colonial Left which, after having venerated Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China … has subjugated itself to Islam as the ultimate banner against nations … Israel is the mirror of a France they hate.”

Zemmour’s 2014 book Le suicide français (“The French Suicide”) was his first bestseller and made him a household name. The book dedicates eight pages out of 527 to the different historical perspectives on the Vichy regime. Those few pages are actually about US historian Robert Paxton, whose book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 (published in English in 1972 and in French in 1973) challenged traditional French historiography on Vichy. Zemmour dedicates 1.5 percent of his book to Paxton as part of his general thesis, which is that the French radical left failed to overthrow de Gaulle in May 1968 but managed to undo his legacy over the next forty years by way of systematic “deconstruction” in academia, the media, the judiciary, and the high civil service. According to Zemmour, the French left enthusiastically embraced Paxton because his book was a perfect fit for the “deconstruction” of French history.

Zemmour challenges Paxton’s thesis that the Vichy government was eager to collaborate with Germany. Until Paxton, the consensus among French historians was that Vichy had played a double-game to try and preserve the French people. Although Paxton challenges this thesis, he himself admits that three quarters of France’s Jews survived the Holocaust –as opposed to a quarter of Dutch Jews for example. Paxton claims that 75% of France’s Jews survived thanks to French civil society. Until Paxton, Zemmour explains, many historians agreed that Vichy’s double-game had played a role in preserving French Jews. Such was the opinion of French historian Robert Aron and of US historian Raul Hilberg (both of whom were Jewish).

In recent years, Paxton’s thesis has been challenged by Alain Michel, a Franco-Israeli historian and Conservative rabbi mentioned by Zemmour in his book. Michel holds a Ph.D. in history but he is not a history professor, and his 2011 book Vichy et la Shoah (“Vichy and the Shoah”) was published by an obscure publishing house. Michel claims that the Vichy government traded foreign Jews, or recently naturalized ones, to preserve “French Israelites.” In any case, all Zemmour does in Le suicide français is to confront Paxton’s thesis with that of three Jewish historians who claim that Vichy’s double-game did play a role in preserving some French Jews, in spite of Vichy’s antisemitic policies.

In his book Destin français (2018), Zemmour elaborates further on the distinction between French and foreign Jews (or recently naturalized ones) under the Vichy government. This distinction was sometimes advocated by Jews themselves. Zemmour quotes a letter from Jacques Helbronner, then president of the Consistoire (the institution established by Bonaparte in 1808 to administer Jewish worship and congregations in France) to Marshall Philippe Pétain. In it, Helbronner blamed the “invasion” of France by foreign Jews for understandably reviving an antisemitism now directed at “old French family of the Israelite religion.” Pétain promised Helbronner that he would distinguish between Jews “rooted” in France, especially war veterans, and recent Jewish immigrants.

There is, of course, a political motivation behind Zemmour’s efforts to posthumously reconcile the respective legacies of de Gaulle and Pétain. His aim is to unify the French right, which was split by the Algerian war. In the 1980s, President Mitterrand had cynically encouraged the ascendency of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s “national front” by changing the electoral law (he briefly replaced a first-past-the post system with proportional voting in 1986). While Mitterrand had no problem allying with the Communists, he branded Le Pen as illegitimate – thus undermining the right’s electoral prospects. Zemmour is trying to end this divide, which implies wooing the right that had welcomed Pétain in 1940, had opposed de Gaulle in 1962, and had raised the anti-immigration banner in the 1980s.

Zemmour’s efforts to legitimize the hitherto illegitimate right, however, have led him to murky waters. In his recent book La France n’a pas dit son dernier mot (“France hasn’t said its last word”), Zemmour laments the fact that the three Jewish children murdered by an Islamist terrorist in March 2012 in the city of Toulouse were buried in Israel and not in France. According to Zemmour, the parents and grandparents of the murdered children (the Sandler family) felt a stronger affiliation to Israel than to France, something Zemmour regrets. This statement was extremely insensitive toward the Sandler family and its tragedy. Zemmour could have argued that a growing number of French Jews prefer Israel to France for their burial by using official statistics and while leaving the Sandler family alone (Zemmour has since then called Samuel Sandler to apologize).

Another indication of how far Zemmour is ready to go to “kosherize” the deep right was his recent statement on the Dreyfus Affair. This legal and political drama tore France apart over a century ago, setting secularists against Catholics, republicans against monarchists, and advocates of principled justice against defenders of raison d’État. Zemmour recently declared that we shall never know the whole truth about the Dreyfus Affair, that it is not entirely clear whether Dreyfus was guilty or innocent, and that anyways Dreyfus had been accused not much as a Jew but as a German (Dreyfus was a native of Alsace, which Bismarck had annexed to the German Reich in 1871).

Zemmour seems to be aiming at army officers, 40% of which believe that Dreyfus was not innocent. Yet by casting doubt, out of cynical political calculation, on Dreyfus’ innocence as well as on the fact that Dreyfus was framed because he was Jewish, Zemmour is crossing a red line. That Dreyfus was innocent and that his false accusation was motivated by antisemitism is not a matter of debate among historians. Even Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his provocative and outrageous statements (he once described the Holocaust as “a detail” of World War II) has not tried to “reopen” the Dreyfus Affair

Hence is Zemmour accused by his opponents of absolving the antisemitic right with the seal of a Jew. Except that, in recent years, Jews in France have been attacked and murdered for being Jewish by Islamists, not by neo-Nazis or Vichy nostalgists. The gruesome list includes the barbarous murders of Sébastien Sellam in 2003, of Ilan Halimi in 2006, of the children of Toulouse’s Jewish school in 2012, of the customers of a kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015, of Sarah Halimi in 2017, and of Mireille Knoll in 2018.

While Zemmour is embraced by France’s most conservative figures, despite being open about his Jewishness, it is the French left that singles him out as a Jew (even as a Zionist). On 18 September 2021, Zemmour was heckled by “antifa” activists (a far-left movement) who yelled at him: “Zemmour, Zionist, go back to your country!” On 29 October 2021, far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélanchon said in a TV interview that Zemmour’s ideas were influenced by what he described as Judaism’s intrinsic conservatism and strong attachment to a particular identity. On 13 February 2022, environmentalist candidate Yannick Jadot accused Eric Zemmour of being “the antisemites’ useful Jew” (“Juif de service” in French).

Like Saint-Louis, Zemmour aspires to become France’s Jewish King. As he wrote in his book Destin français, “Israel is the mirror of a France they [the French left] hate.” But so is Zemmour himself. Hence the tragedy of Eric Zemmour. He may have achieved the tour de force of anointing “a little Berberian Jew” (to quote his own words) as the candidate of French Catholics and archconservatives. Yet Zemmour is still singled out as a Jew no matter how French he claims to be, thus replicating the lethal illusion of assimilated French Jews (such as Alfred Dreyfus) who sincerely believed that their love for France was mutual. It never was and never will be, as Theodor Herzl realized in Paris. And, incidentally, there is no more need for Zemmour to “replace Jerusalem with Paris”: Jerusalem has been rebuilt, while in Paris Jews are still singled out.

Has Israel’s China Policy Reached a Tipping Point? (The Times of Israel, 11 July 2021)

Israel’s relations with China have always been marred by dilemmas. Those dilemmas became more acute in recent years with the intensified geopolitical contest between the U.S. and China. As President Joe Biden is reaffirming Western cohesion to face off China, Israel may have reached the tipping point it had hoped to avoid: choose side and take the risk of alienating China. In June 2021, the Biden Administration asked the newly sworn Israeli government to add its voice to a joint statement by UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) members expressing concern over China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority. This American request faced Israel with a conundrum, which was discussed and assessed by Israel’s new foreign minister Yair Lapid and the top echelon of his ministry.

At stake was a classic case of foreign policy dilemma between realpolitik and principles. Israel has no interest in crossing China; but it is also has moral obligations as a Western democracy, as a state whose people suffered from persecution, and as a U.S. ally. After weighing the pros and cons, Yair Lapid decided to join the Western criticism of China – a decision for which he was thanked by the U.S. administration, but which raised the ire of China and its threat to retaliate (never mind that China systematically backs anti-Israel resolutions at the UN). China’s threats caused Ukraine to back down and to withdraw its signature from the joint statement. The fact that China imposed painful economic sanctions on Australia to punish it for advocating an international probe into Covid-19’s origins must have concentrated the mind of Ukraine’s president.

Israel, like other signatories of the joint statement, will likely pay a price for its principled decision. Hence does the United States have a responsibility toward democracies. The Biden administration is correct to coalesce the free world around an expanding and repressive China; but it must also complete its strategy by shielding its allies from China’s economic bullying. Ukraine’s flip-flop and Australia’s woes are but a reminder that America’s legitimate expectations cannot be a one-way street. As China threatened to interrupt its supply of Covid-19 vaccines to Ukraine, the U.S. should have stepped in with its own supplies. The fact that the U.S. has taken advantage of Australia’s ostracization by selling more American coal to China is both cynical and counterproductive.

Israel would have much to lose from downgrading its economic relations with China – relations that were built thanks many years of diplomatic efforts. Israel was the first Middle East country to recognize, in 1950, Mao Zedong’s government; yet it also refrained from establishing full diplomatic relations for fear of alienating the U.S. (which fought North Korea between 1950 and 1953) and France (which fought China-backed Vietnamese communists until 1954). After the 1955 Bandung Conference and the 1956 Suez war, China engaged in a resolutely pro-Arab policy. Yet the Sino-Soviet split, together with the severance of relations between the USSR and Israel in 1967, produced the conditions for a quiet rapprochement between China and Israel.

Abandoned by its former Soviet ally, China lost its only military supplier. Having fought and defeated Soviet-backed Arab armies, Israel was known for its expertise in upgrading Soviet military equipment. Hence did China initiate secret military ties with Israel in the late 1970s under the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping. By the late 1980s, military ties between Israel and China were reported to be worth billions of dollars. Israel publicly admitted to their existence in 1992. That same year, the two countries established full diplomatic relations. But Israel’s military ties with China caused tension with the United States.

In March 1992, the U.S. government accused Israel of transferring American military technology to China.  In 2000, America stopped Israel from selling its airborne early warning and control radar system (AEW&C) to China. Although this system had been developed exclusively by Israel and did not include American technology, the U.S. government feared the sale would alter the military balance in the Strait of Taiwan to China’s advantage. In December 2004, the U.S. government asked Israel not to sell drones to China.  Again, the technology was Israeli, but the U.S. feared it might provide too much of a qualitative military advantage to China. The same year, Israel and the U.S. signed an agreement in which Israel committed not to sell any military equipment to China that might include American technology.

While Israel had to downgrade its military ties with China, economic relations between the two countries flourished.  In 2013, it was announced that China would be involved in building the “Med-Red” project, a commercial railway planned to run from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. In 2015, Israel became one of the founding members of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite strong American reservations.  In March 2016, Israel and China announced the negotiation of a free-trade agreement.  In 2016 as well, China invested $21.5 billion in infrastructures in the Middle East and Africa. Its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), partly financed by AIIB, involves investing heavily in transportation infrastructures (such as roads, railroads, and seaports) to connect China to European and African markets.  China is also involved in building infrastructures in Israel, such as the Carmel tunnels in Haifa, the light rail in Tel Aviv, and the expansion of the Ashdod and Haifa ports.

China’s interest in Israel is related to Israel’s scientific excellence and innovation, especially in high-tech, agriculture, water technologies, and biotech. Even though Israel’s deepening ties with China are now mostly commercial and technological, they are still a source of concern for the United States.  Since the U.S. perceives China as an economic rival in the global sphere, senior U.S. officials have warned their Israeli counterparts that trade and technological relations between Israel and China are going too far. In January 2019, for example, U.S. national security advisor John Bolton expressed to Israeli leaders his government’s discomfort that the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE are investing in Israel, and that a Chinese company is building the new Haifa port.

Neither Israel nor China have an interest in economic decoupling. China is Israel’s third trade partner (after the EU and the U.S.), and Chinese investments in Israeli technology are mutually beneficial. Indeed, the U.S.-China trade is worth hundreds of billions of dollars despite acute disagreements between the two powers. Israel cannot reasonably be expected to disengage economically from China, but it does and will continue to coordinate with its U.S. ally Chinese investments in sensitive areas such as 5G and infrastructures.

While China used to separate between business and politics, and while its support for anti-Israel UN resolutions could be seen and forgiven as mere lip service to Chinese interests in the Muslim world, China’s Middle East policy has taken a worrying turn in recent months. During the May 2021 confrontation between Hamas and Israel, China adopted an aggressive stance vis-à-vis Israel both at the UN and in its state-controlled media: it co-sponsored (and not only supported) a biased UNHRC resolution against Israel; it initiated three Security Council emergency sessions aimed at condemning Israel; China’s foreign minister castigated the U.S. for shielding Israel and the Security Council (implying that Israel had no right to defend itself from Hamas); and Chinese media became replete with anti-Semitic slurs (typically accusing the Jews of controlling finance and the media).

In March 2021, shortly before the latest Israel-Hamas flare, China had signed a cooperation agreement with Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions. Sensing partial U.S. retreat from the Middle East, and aware of America’s determination to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, China is positioning itself as a competing power in the region. A China that openly challenges the U.S. and upgrades its ties with Iran can hardly be a neutral Middle East actor. Hence, it seems, China’s outspoken support for Hamas during the recent conflict with Israel.

If China can decouple between bilateral and multilateral relations (developing strong economic ties with Israel while supporting anti-Israel UN resolutions), so can Israel. Chinese officials claim that China’s voting pattern at the UN has not changed on the Middle East, but the evidence (detailed above) suggests otherwise. The same officials claim that votes on Xinjiang or Tibet constitute an interference in domestic Chinese affairs, but they refuse to apply the same logic to votes on the West Bank or Gaza. Seen from Jerusalem, this double-standard is disingenuous.

The Biden administration can count on Israel to close the ranks of Western democracies. At the same time, however, Israel’s economic relations with China must be allowed to grow within the range of U.S. strategic interests and security concerns. As for China, it must understand that decoupling (between bilateral and multilateral diplomacy) and interference (whether on Xinjiang or Gaza) can no longer be a one-way street, due to Israel’s strategic relations with the United States, to the expectations of the Biden administration from its allies, and to recent changes in China’s UN votes on the Middle East.