France - National Assembly Bill No. 2402

For several years now, France, the whole of Europe, but also almost all Western democracies, have been confronted with a resurgence of anti-Semitism, undoubtedly unprecedented since the Second World War.

Anti-Semitic acts indeed increased by 74% in 2018 in France. Again, for several years, anti-Semitism has been killing in France.

The hatred of the Jews still tends to be perpetuated today in its most terrible manifestations: murders, desecration of graves, kidnappings of fellow citizens of the Jewish faith on the sole ground that, because they are Jews, they "would have money."

It is also the daily assaults that are on the increase. Today in France, wearing a Kippah amounts to exposing oneself to insults or even physical attacks, which develop among our compatriots of the Jewish faith a feeling of insecurity and unease in our Republic.

21st century anti-Semitism has changed. If the old French anti-Semitism has persisted, new forms have developed.

Anti-Semitism is a denial of the Republic, a serious threat to national cohesion. It must be fought at its roots.

However, anti-Zionist acts can sometimes obscure anti-Semitic realities. To criticize the very existence of Israel in that it constitutes a collectivity of Jewish citizens amounts to expressing hatred towards the Jewish community as a whole, just as making the Jews collectively responsible for the policies carried out by the Jews. Israeli political authorities is a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Such abuses increasingly make anti-Zionism "one of the contemporary forms of anti-Semitism", to use the words of the President of the Republic. Pointing out such drifts does not in any way prevent free criticism of the policies and positions of Israeli governments.

These new expressions of anti-Semitism, perverse because they are masked, insidious because they are dishonest and hypocritical, have given rise to important work carried out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Its thirty-one member states, including France, adopted on May 26, 2016 an operational definition of anti-Semitism as follows:

“Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews which can manifest itself in hatred towards them. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism target Jewish and non-Jewish individuals and / or their property, community institutions and places of worship. "

While this definition qualifies anti-Zionist attacks motivated by hatred of Jews as anti-Semitic, it fails to recognize criticism of the policies of the State of Israel as anti-Semitic.

"It is a question of clarifying and strengthening the practices of our police forces, our magistrates, our teachers, to enable them to better fight against those who hide behind the rejection of Israel the very negation of the existence of Israel ”, as pointed out by the President of the Republic.

Faced with the return of the anti-Semitic scourge, the national representation must take a strong action and put words into what the new anti-Semitism is, in line with the European Parliament in 2017 and the Council of the European Union in 2018 , who recognized the correctness and effectiveness of the operational definition of the Alliance. This is the meaning of this motion for a resolution.