OMICRON, HARDER TO SPREAD THAN DELTA AND EXISTING COVID STRAINS?

[Note by Tom Gross]

This is another in an occasional series of dispatches relating to Covid-19.

As I argued in interviews at the start of this week - for example, this one on Turkish TV - Israel and other governments may have overreacted to the new omicron Covid variant in imposing often drastic restrictions even on the fully vaccinated, for example in relation to international travel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul8-APmyHmA

(This is not to say that people shouldn't get booster jabs against Covid. They absolutely should.)

For example, the New York Times reported on Wednesday evening:

"Dr. Elad Major of Israel's Sheba Medical Center initially feared that he might have exposed hundreds of people to the virus when he became the first Israeli to test positive for the new Omicron variant on Saturday morning.

"In the three days before his positive results, Dr. Maor, a cardiologist, had attended a large staff meeting at his hospital east of Tel Aviv. He had inserted stents into the arteries of 10 patients. And he had driven to a cardiology conference north of Tel Aviv, sharing the 90-minute car journey with a 70-year-old colleague, and lunched there with five others in a crowded canteen.

"Dr. Maor, 45, had attended a piano recital with dozens in the audience, where his 13-year-old played a short piece by Stephen Heller, a Hungarian composer. And finally, last Friday night, Dr. Maor had eaten sea bass at the home of his in-laws, together with his wife and nine other family members.

"But of these many people, most of whom had received three shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, only his 70-year-old colleague has so far tested positive for the Omicron variant in the five days since."

ISRAEL'S LEFT NOW SUPPORTS DIGITAL TRACKING

The second piece below, from the left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz (titled "The hypocrites' parade: Israel's Left is now koshering digital tracking") questions why the left-wing parties in Israel's governing coalition have voted for increased tracking of people's phones by Israel's Shin Bet security service, using the new Covid variant as an excuse.

When he was in opposition to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu last year, Meretz party leader and now Israel's Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, demanded that Israel's attorney general block the use of such means without parliamentary oversight. "This is the sort of thing done in dictatorships," he said. But now that he is in government himself, he voted for the new phone tracking measures this week.

"GOD'S GIFT TO THE LEFT"?

Tom Gross adds:

Interestingly, right-wing members of the new government such as Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar voted against the new measure, saying it impinged on people's civil liberties.

As actress and progressive activist Jane Fonda said in a video she posted last October, coronavirus is "God's gift to the left". Certainly there are elements of the authoritarian left in several democracies who have relished curtailing individual freedoms these past 22 months.

FIRST CLIMATE DOOMSDAY, NOW OMICRON

Some of the same politicians who were being most alarmist and stirring up fear about the new Omicron variant last week, were the same ones who many thought were being hysterical about climate change the week before ("it's one minute to midnight," claimed Boris Johnson; we have 18 months to save the human race, claimed Prince Charles, who interestingly has been claiming the same thing for about the last 18 years).

You don't have to be particularly cynical to ask whether it suits some politicians and public figures to whip up fear on certain issues to divert attention from their actual records on other matters.

"RESTRICTING CITIZENS' ABILITY TO TRAVEL IS A HALLMARK OF A POLICE STATE"

The third piece below, from today's Wall Street Journal, is by Eugene Kontorovich, who teaches constitutional law at George Mason University (and is also a subscriber to this list). He questions President Biden potential expansion of international travel bans to reduce the spread of Covid-19 to include U.S. citizens and permanent residents (who were exempt from previous travel bans under President Trump).

"The right to enter their country is an essential element of citizenship. In 1215 the Magna Carta proclaimed: 'It shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom.' In the 20th century, the Supreme Court declared that 'the right to travel is part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment? Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values'," writes Kontorovich.

"Restricting citizens' ability to travel is a hallmark of a police state. Infectious disease will always be with us. It cannot become an excuse to give the federal government carte blanche to control the lives of citizens."

DISCUSSING WHETHER TO MAKE VACCINATION COMPULSORY

In the fourth piece below, today's Haaretz discuss whether "Omicron may be the final straw in world leaders' patience with anti-vaxxers."

The outbreak of the omicron variant may be marked in the future as a seminal moment in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. It is pushing countries around the world toward a weighty decision that leaders, governments and health officials have so far managed to avoid or reject out of hand: whether to make vaccination compulsory.

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg has announced that from February 1, 2022, vaccination will be mandatory. A few days ago, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the European Union should consider making vaccination mandatory through the 27 nation bloc given omicron's spread.

CLOSING BORDERS

In the fifth piece, New York Times Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner (also a subscriber to this list), reports that Israel, Morocco and Japan have this week all reimposed temporary bans on all foreign travelers in response to the threat supposedly posed by the omicron variant.

Others, including the US, Britain, Canada and the EU, have all announced bans on travelers only from southern Africa.

THE BENNETT FAMILY GOES ON FOREIGN VACATION

In the sixth piece below, the Times of Israel reports that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been criticized across Israel's political spectrum after his wife and four children left yesterday for a vacation in an undisclosed foreign destination (believed to be Dubai) (Israeli schools are closed for a few days now during the Hannukah holiday). His family's trip comes just days after Bennett urged Israeli citizens to avoid any unnecessary foreign travel, and closed Israel to foreign tourists for the next two weeks.

FAKE CHINESE COVID ACCOUNTS SPREAD MISINFORMATION

The last piece below, from today's Guardian in London, reports that Facebook has taken down over 600 Chinese Facebook pages that were spreading misinformation based on a fake Swiss biologist invented by Chinese intelligence called Wilson Edwards. Facebook said the accounts, which first appeared on 24 July 2021, were run by a "coordinated cluster" of Chinese state employees.

IS ISRAEL OVERREACTING OVER OMICRON? TOM GROSS ON TURKISH TV

I am critical of Israel for its latest Covid measures here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul8-APmyHmA

Tom Gross on Turkish TV Anews (Nov 28, 2021)

(The Turkish TV caption means "Israel shuts down entry to most foreigners for the next two weeks". The country remains for the most part open domestically.)

CONTENTS

1. "An Israeli doctor with Omicron met dozens of people. Just one tested positive" (By Patrick Kingsley, New York Times, Dec. 2, 2021)
2. "The hypocrites' parade: Israel's Left is now koshering digital tracking" (By Noa Landau, Haaretz, Dec. 1, 2021)
3. "Covid-19 and the Right to Travel" (By Eugene Kontorovich, Wall St Journal, Dec. 3, 2021)
4. "Omicron may be the final straw in world leaders' patience with anti-vaxxers" (By Ido Efrati, Haaretz, Dec. 3, 2021)
5. "Responding to the Omicron variant, Israel and Morocco impose bans on all foreign travelers" (By Isabel Kershner, New York Times, Nov. 29, 2021)
6. "Bennett family vacation said to elicit grumblings from allies" (Times of Israel, Dec. 2, 2021)
7. "Facebook takes down Chinese network behind fake Swiss biologist Covid claims" (By Dan Milmo, The Guardian, Dec. 3, 2021)

In my previous dispatch on Eric Zemmour, I mentioned that the 63-year-old married father of three had denied having an affair with his 28-year-old chief adviser (and fellow Sephardi Jew) Sarah Knafo (above). Last week, he did not deny fresh media reports that she is now expecting his baby.

STIRRING THINGS UP

[Note by Tom Gross]

(This is a follow-up to my dispatch of October 31: The Jewish "useful idiot"endorsed by Jean-Marie Le Pen appeals to Les Deplorables.)

Yesterday hard right media pundit and intellectual Eric Zemmour officially launched his campaign for the French presidency, seeking to unseat Emmanuel Macron next spring.

"I have decided to take our destiny in my hands,"Zemmour said in a controversial YouTube video released to coincide with the launch. "It is no longer the time to reform France, but to save it,"Zemmour said, claiming that many voters "no longer recognize your country."

Macron currently remains ahead in the polls. Other potential candidates include former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, and Marine Le Pen, leader of the more established far-right National Rally.

Zemmour has been receiving a lot of media coverage, including in Britain, which he visited last week. You can see an interview with him by the Deputy editor of The Spectator magazine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ5lw4VeKpo

Below I attach a translation of an essay by French historian Simon Epstein titled "How Zemmour exploits his Jewishness: He uses my work to pour scorn on the Left."

This is followed by the same essay in its original French version published by DDV, the journal of the International League against Anti-Semitism, for those who prefer to read the original.

And finally there is a short piece published yesterday by American commentator and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes titled "What to make of Eric Zemmour?"

Pipes explains why, in spite of disliking Zemmour, he would vote for him were he French, because (says Pipes) Zemmour is unlikely to win but "he is, in a way unparalleled anywhere else among politicians in Western Europe or North America, raising and articulating civilizationist issues that need to be heard and that must, eventually, be addressed."

The first article below makes clear how dangerous many believe Zemmour to be.

ARTICLES

HOW ZEMMOUR EXPLOITS HIS JEWISHNESS

How Zemmour exploits his Jewishness
He uses my work to pour scorn on the Left
By Simon Epstein
Unherd
November 29, 2021

https://unherd.com/2021/11/how-zemmour-exploits-his-jewishness/

I have a problem with Eric Zemmour. He has the most astounding gall, like a character from a Balzac novel. The books which have made him famous are stuffed with sweeping judgements and cutting assertions. He has a knack for pithy one-liners and has mastered today's art of being harsh and simplistic. He does not know nuance. He flits easily from truth to untruth, with a clear predisposition towards exaggeration and downright falsity. Ever-ready to illustrate what he is saying with examples, he is not, to put it mildly, meticulous in the way he uses them. You feel an urge to pastiche his writing, so peppered is it with historical references, some appropriate and some not.

He likes to quote from two of my books. One follows the unusual fate of Dreyfus supporters who lived long enough to experience the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of France. The second book attempts to understand why so many former "anti-racist"activists from the Left and the far-Left became collaborators and why so many former anti-Semites of the Right and the far-Right took part in the Resistance. Sometimes, Zemmour quotes me accurately. Often, he adds his own selective emphasis to my work and attributes interpretations to me which are his and not mine. On occasion, he will start a sentence with "as historian Simon Epstein says,"before wheeling out a misrepresentation of something I have written or, worse, something I have not written at all.

I haven't registered my disapproval before. Firstly because I didn't really care enough. Zemmour, who I didn't think was such a bad egg, was not alone in using and abusing history for his own ends: this has been part and parcel of intellectual life, and especially of the polemic-obsessed media, for some time. I also used to find it funny - really funny - to see this old Gallo-Roman country, the Church's eldest daughter, rely on a Jew to fulfil the threefold mission of eulogising France's lost greatness, bemoaning its besmirched identity, and proudly raising its old standard once more. At times, it felt Zemmour was the new Joan of Arc. It was he who was holding the sword others had dropped and rallying the troops for battle.

I do not know what mark the man will leave on France's history. Will it be providential or tragic? Or - and this cannot be ruled out - fleeting and benign? Or perhaps even comical? But that is not why I am writing. What I am interested in here is the position he will occupy - and doubtless already does occupy - in the long and tormented history of the Jews of this country. France's Jews, like the rest of the diaspora, know they are exposed to anti-Semitism, an intractable problem which alternates between phases of remission, sometimes short and sometimes long, phases of acceleration, flare-ups, and then further remission. Jews also know that some among them - a minority thankfully - cave under pressure and accept anti-Semitism. In some cases, they even help to propagate it.

It used to be the far-Left that best illustrated this problem. In the winter of 1953, Jewish communists in the Soviet Union competed with one another to lend credibility to dark conspiracy theories about Jewish doctors. More recently, Left-wing apologists of Islamism have included Jews, who profess a radical hatred for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. These anti-Zionist Jews try to make themselves useful by mildly scolding their fellow activists - who profess to be humanitarians - for chanting "Death to Jews!"at pro-Palestine demonstrations. They explain, gently, that some demands are best kept to oneself, and that these especially should not be uttered in public - for obvious tactical reasons.

What's different with Zemmour is that he is on the far-Right and not on the far-Left. He is akin to Trump-supporting ideologues in the US and their Hungarian counterparts and is, in France, at the forefront of this new way of doing politics. His spin on Dreyfus (who, in his eyes, wasn't really innocent) has a rotten smell. His apology for Petain (who, in his eyes, wasn't guilty really) puts him firmly in the camp of the post-Vichy far-Right. It also positions him on the edge of the neo-Nazi, ultra-far-Right (only the edge, of course; as a Jew, he will never quite belong). The same goes for his opposition to the Pleven and Gayssot laws, without which racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial would be permissible. And then there were his comments about the Jewish children who were buried in Israel after being brutally killed in Toulouse, which were truly despicable.

When Zemmour castigates women, immigrants, homosexuals, socialists, centrists, elites, or metropolitan liberals, he does it out of profound conviction, fascinated as he is with the rhetorical heritage of the far-Right - which he has himself expanded, copiously, with his rants.

Media savviness, too, motivates his skewering of Jews. His historical mission, as he sees it, is to reconcile the patriotic bourgeoisie and the working classes. In concrete terms, this means that he is betting simultaneously - and this is difficult - on both traditional Right-wing voters and supporters of the populist far-Right. The fact that he is Jewish reassures the former group ("he can't be a fascist so we can vote for him!") The fact that he maligns Jews despite being one himself entices the latter ("there's no way he'll be bought off, we can trust him!").

The former bunch appreciate his harking back to author Charles Peguy and his admiration for De Gaulle. The latter like his scorn for Zola and his rehabilitation of Petain. His unconcealed Jewish roots help him plot out a march on Paris which, in a complete ideological mish-mash, passes through both London and Vichy.

If the trend revealed by recent polls is confirmed - in other words, if he manages to definitively capture the two groups of voters he needs to remain a contender - and if he also manages to recruit non-voters by using his swagger to pull them out of their apathy, he will have a supply of votes perfectly sufficient to shake up the 2022 presidential election. Given certain conditions, and with a little luck, he would be in a position to do what both Le Pens failed to do, namely to seduce republican voters without alienating anti-republican voters, and vice-versa. He would be in a position to shatter - or at least crack - the "glass ceiling"which has kept the far-Right out of power for so long. He would achieve this thanks to his patter, his strategic know-how and his stubbornness. But it would also be in part thanks to his Jewishness, which makes it impossible to call him a Nazi or a fascist. It gives him more leeway on everything controversial.

Unlike Henry IV, the French Renaissance King who was born a Protestant, Zemmour won't have to reason that "Paris is well worth a mass."Historically, he is perhaps in the tradition of Arthur Meyer, the editor of the Gaulois newspaper, who converted to Catholicism in 1901. He also borrows from Edmond Bloch, who rubbed shoulders with the French far-Right in the 1930s and also ended up converting to Catholicism. But Zemmour, who aspires to lasting renown where these two predecessors enjoyed only passing notoriety, will not have to follow them to the font. Far from being a hindrance to his irresistible rise, his Jewishness is his trump card. Let's be frank: this is both masterful and unprecedented. As a political observer, I find it fascinating. As a Jew, I must admit I find it disgusting.

TRIBUNE DE SIMON EPSTEIN: ZEMMOUR D'UN POINT DE VUE JUIF

Tribune de Simon Epstein: Zemmour d'un point de vue juif

Les travaux de l'historien israelien Simon Epstein ont souvent ete mis en avant par la droite nationalpopuliste, et par Eric Zemmour en particulier, pour discrediter la gauche, l'antiracisme, les dreyfusards, rehabiliter leurs adversaires et reecrire l'histoire. L'auteur, qui n'avait jusqu'alors jamais commente ces usages et mesusages, nous livre son point de vue sur le phenomene Zemmour.

2 novembre 2021
dans Tribune Temps de lecture

https://www.leddv.fr/opinion/tribune/zemmourdunpointdevuejuif20211102

J'ai un probleme avec Zemmour. C'est un personnage balzacien, qui fait montre d'un culot immense. Herisses de jugements peremptoires et d'assertions tranchantes, ses livres l'ont rendu celebre. Il a le sens de la formule, il est cassant et reducteur, comme on l'est aujourd'hui. Il ne pratique pas la nuance. Il voltige avec aisance entre le vrai et le faux, avec une predilection marquee pour l'excessif et pour le faux. Il est prodigue en documentation mais n'est pas pointilleux c'est un euphemisme dans l'usage qu'il en fait. On a envie de le pasticher tant il crepite de citations historiques, les unes appropriees et les autres non.

Il lui arrive, a ce sujet, de faire reference a deux de mes livres. L'un, qui retrace le destin insolite des dreyfusards qui vivront assez vieux pour conna?tre la Seconde Guerre mondiale et l'occupation de la France par les Allemands. L'autre, qui tente de comprendre pourquoi on trouvait tant d'ex"antiracistes"(venus de la gauche et de l'extreme gauche) dans la Collaboration et tant d'exantisemites (venus de la droite et de l'extreme droite) dans la Resistance. Zemmour me cite parfois a bon escient. Il me cite souvent en accentuant mon propos et en m'attribuant des conclusions qui sont siennes et non pas miennes. Il brandit de temps en temps un "comme l'ecrit l'historien Simon Epstein"pour enoncer quelque chose que je n'ai pas ecrit comme il le dit, ou pis encore, que je n'ai pas ecrit du tout.

Je ne m'en suis pas formalise. Avant tout, parce que "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn"1. Ensuite, parce que Zemmour, dont je pensais qu'il n'etait pas un mauvais bougre, n'etait pas seul a brutaliser l'Histoire : c'etait coutumier dans la vie intellectuelle en general et dans les debats politicomediatiques en particulier. Enfin, parce que je trouvais dr?le, vraiment dr?le, que "ce vieux pays galloromain"2 qui est aussi "la fille a?nee de l'Eglise"3 ait confie a un Juif eh oui la triple t?che de chanter sa grandeur d'antan, de pleurer son identite outragee et de hisser, a nouveau, sa vieille banniere. Zemmour avait remplace Jeanne. C'etait a lui, desormais, de ramasser "le troncon du glaive"4 et de "sonner la charge"5.

Je ne sais quelle marque (providentielle ou funeste, ou bien, ce qui n'est pas a exclure, fugace et inoffensive, ou bien meme, desopilante) il laissera dans l'histoire de France. Ce n'est pas l'objet de ces lignes. Je m'inquiete ici de la place qu'il tiendra, et qu'il tient sans doute deja, dans la longue et tumultueuse histoire des Juifs de ce pays? Les Juifs de France, comme ceux de toute la Diaspora, savent qu'ils s'exposent a l'antisemitisme, ce phenomene irreductible qui alterne ses phases de remission, parfois courtes et parfois longues, ses periodes de hausse, ses flambees d'exacerbation, puis de nouveau ses phases de remission. Les Juifs savent aussi que certains d'entre eux minoritaires, heureusement ne resistent pas a la pression et composent avec l'antisemitisme. Dans certains cas, ils participent a sa propagation.

C'etait souvent l'extreme gauche qui illustrait ce principe. J'evoquerai pour memoire l'hiver 1953, quand les communistes juifs rivalisaient de servilite pour fletrir le noir complot des medecins juifs sovietiques. Plus recemment, dans les mouvances islamogauchistes, on trouve des Juifs professant une haine radicale de l'Etat d'Isra?l et du peuple juif. Ces Juifs antisionistes sont charges de faire la lecon aux manifestants "humanitaires", soumis ou insoumis, qui crient "Mort aux Juifs !"dans les defiles pour la Palestine. Ils leur expliquent, avec toute la douceur qui s'impose, qu'il est des revendications qu'on doit se garder, pour d'evidentes raisons tactiques, d'exprimer en public.

La difference avec Zemmour est qu'il est a l'extreme droite et non a l'extreme gauche. Il s'apparente aux "trumpistes"americains et a leurs homologues hongrois et autres, et il est, en France, la figure de proue de cette nouvelle maniere de faire de la politique. Ses petites phrases sur Dreyfus (qui, a ses yeux, n'etait pas vraiment innocent) ont une mauvaise odeur de moisi. Son apologie de Petain (qui, selon lui, n'etait pas vraiment coupable) le localise dans l'extreme droite postvichyssoise. Elle le positionne aux lisieres (qu'il ne franchit pas, car Juif, il y serait mal recu) de l'ultradroite neonazie. Il en va de meme pour sa repudiation des lois Pleven et Gayssot, ces lois dont la suppression laisserait le champ totalement libre au racisme, a l'antisemitisme et au negationnisme. Quant a s'en prendre aux enfants juifs massacres a Toulouse, et qui reposent en terre d'Isra?l, c'est tout simplement abject? Lorsque Zemmour fustige les femmes, les immigres, les homosexuels, les socialistes, les centristes, les elites, les bobos, il le fait par conviction profonde, fascine qu'il est par cette rhetorique d'extreme droite qu'il a luimeme enrichie, fort copieusement fautil dire, d'elucubrations nouvelles.

Mais quand il etrille les Juifs, il le fait aussi par ingeniosite mediatique. Sa mission historique, telle qu'il la concoit, est en effet de reconcilier la bourgeoisie patriotique et les classes populaires. En langage decode, en politique de terrain, cela signifie qu'il mise a la fois, ce qui est difficile, sur les electeurs de la droite republicaine et sur ceux de l'extreme droite populiste. Or qu'il soit luimeme juif, voila qui rassure les premiers (il n'est pas un fasciste, on peut voter pour lui). Et qu'il soit juif tout en malmenant les Juifs, voila qui aguiche les seconds (il n'est pas un "vendu", on peut compter sur lui). Les premiers apprecient qu'il invoque Peguy et encense de Gaulle. Les seconds go?tent qu'il denigre Zola et rehabilite Petain? Son origine juive, dont il ne fait pas mystere, l'aide a programmer une marche sur Paris qui, en toute plasticite doctrinale, passerait a la fois par Londres et par Vichy.

Si la tendance revelee par les derniers sondages se confirmait, en d'autres termes, s'il parvenait a fideliser durablement les deux apports electoraux dont l'assemblage est essentiel a sa percee, et s'il leur adjoignait les abstentionnistes que son esbroufe a tire de leur apathie, il disposerait d'une masse de suffrages amplement suffisante a bouleverser la presidentielle de 2022. Sous certaines conditions, et avec un peu de chance, il serait en mesure de faire ce que les deux Le Pen, chacun en son style, n'avaient pas reussi a faire, a savoir seduire les votes republicains sans perdre les votes antirepublicains, et reciproquement. Il serait a meme de briser, ou tout au moins de fissurer le fameux "plafond de verre"qui, depuis de longues annees, faisait obstacle a l'extreme droite francaise. Ce resultat, il le devrait a son bagout, a son savoirfaire strategique et a son opini?trete. Il le devrait, aussi, a son origine juive, car "il est difficile de le qualifier de nazi ou de fasciste. Cela lui donne une plus grande liberte?6.

Zemmour n'aura donc pas a se demander si "Paris vaut bien une messe"7. Historiquement, il est de la lignee d'Arthur Meyer, le directeur du Gaulois, qui se convertit au catholicisme en 1901. Il prolonge aussi Edmond Bloch, qui frequenta l'extreme droite francaise des annees trente et qui, lui aussi, finit par se convertir au catholicisme. Mais Zemmour, qui aspire a un destin national quand ses deux devanciers n'avaient joui que d'une notoriete passagere, n'aura pas a les suivre jusqu'au benitier. Loin d'etre un handicap dans sa "resistible ascension"8, sa judeite lui sert, en quelque sorte, de joker imparable? C'est du grandart et du jamaisvu, reconnaissonsle. Au plan politique, c'est passionnant a observer. Au plan juif, "j'avoue que je suis epouvante"9.

Notes:

[1] Comme disait Rhett Butler.
[2] Comme disait Xavier Vallat.
[3] Comme disaient les rois de France.
[4] Comme disaient Paul et Victor Margueritte.
[5] Comme disait Paul Deroulede.
[6] Comme disait Jean-Marie Le Pen, tout recemment.
[7] Comme disait Henri de Navarre.
[8] Comme disait Berthold Brecht.
[9] Comme disait Leon Blum.

WHAT TO MAKE OF ERIC ZEMMOUR?

What to Make of Eric Zemmour?
By Daniel Pipes
November 30, 2021

https://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2021/11/what-to-make-of-eric-zemmour

His last name in Arabic means, perhaps suitably for an intellectual, honking, as what ducks and car horns do. His parents fled Algeria and he openly identifies as a Jew but presents himself as the representative of traditional Catholic Deep France and the scourge of immigrants and Islam. He adopts positions on Jewish issues so extreme that France's Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia called him an antisemite. He's been twice found guilty of hate speech and wears these condemnations proudly. His anti-feminist positions are antediluvian. He's pro-Russian and anti-American.

I experienced this last first-hand in Budapest in March 2019, when he and I attended the same conference. Seeing him a couple tables away at the breakfast room, I approached him and introduced myself in a decent French. With the classic Parisian disdain of a cafe waiter dealing with a boorish foreign customer, he snubbed me, quickly ending the conversation and leaving me slighted.

Despite my many criticisms, large and small, of Zemmour, I would vote for him were I a French citizen. That's because he grasps an essential truth, that France faces a scourge from immigration, that the country needs more babies, and that the elements which made France great are in peril of being overwhelmed by alien cultures. He speaks these realities eloquently and fearlessly, hoping thereby to revive a country that otherwise is heading toward a self-imposed crisis.

Zemmour's chances of reaching the second round of the presidential election are poor and his chance of prevailing in that second round are even smaller. In short, he is highly unlikely to become France's next leader. But he is, in a way unparalleled anywhere else among politicians in Western Europe or North America, raising and articulating civilizationist issues that need to be heard and that must, eventually, be addressed. Therein lies his role and his importance.

* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you "like"this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia

Maori, New Zealand, Israeli, and United Tribes flags are displayed during a 'ceremony of apology,' called a 'whakapaha.' It was held to express regret and to seek forgiveness for New Zealand's vote against Israel at the United Nations. (Photo by Perry Trotter.)

"IF YOU DENY JEWS THEIR INDIGENOUS RIGHTS, YOU UNDERMINE THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES EVERYWHERE"

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach a piece published yesterday by the Maori scholar Dr. Sheree Trotter, who is co-director of the "Indigenous Coalition for Israel" in New Zealand.

"If the Arabs who colonized Israel can claim indigeneity based on long-standing presence, then so can other colonizing groups, threatening all indigenous peoples," argues Dr. Trotter.

"From Mount Zion to Mount Tarawera, the connection between indigenous peoples and their land is one that endures and remains central to identity. You cannot deny Jews their indigenous rights and identity [like many in the BDS movement do] without undermining the arguments for the rights of indigenous peoples everywhere."

IN CANADA, TOO

Tom Gross adds: as I have written in the past, several leading Indigenous activist advocates in Canada have also said that they have based their struggles for Native rights over their ancestral lands, on the Zionist struggle.

"Everything that makes Jews Jewish - their spirituality, their traditions, their culture, their language, everything - it stems from Israel," says Ryan Bellerose, a leader of the Metis Aboriginal peoples in Northern Alberta in Canada.

His father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Metis Settlements Act of 1989, which the Alberta legislature passed in 1990, providing some Native land rights. Ryan is now a leader of the "Idle No More" movement, which campaigns for indigenous sovereignty.

ARTICLE

"WE MĀORIS TAKE INSPIRATION FROM ISRAEL AS WE FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS"

A Light for the Indigenous Nations
Despite what anti-Zionist ideologues might assume, the Jews of Israel are an inspiration for many Maori
By Sheree Trotter
Tablet magazine
November 28, 2021

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/light-indigenous-nations-maori-israel

In 1886, Mount Tarawera erupted on the island country of Aotearoa, now better known as New Zealand. It was so violent that the eruption was heard 300 kilometers away in Auckland. Some feared that the loud explosions were cannon fire and that the city was under assault from Russian warships.

Many of my people died in the Tarawera eruption. Most suffocated in the thick ash that descended upon the region. Destroyed, too, were our thriving tourist businesses. The Pink and White Terraces, till then considered an "eighth wonder" of the natural world, had attracted tourists from around the globe, and my people had built a strong local economy in their indigenous lands. Survivors of the catastrophe were taken in by nearby iwi (tribes) including Tapuika in the town of Te Puke. It was here that my mother and her family grew up.

For traditional Maori, mountains and land are supremely important to identity. Indeed, when we formally introduce ourselves, we do so first by referencing our mountains, waterways, and tribal affiliations, and then our genealogy. Last of all we declare our own names. We are known as tangata whenua, people of the land. Our indigenous identity gives us a strong sense of connection to our ancestral lands.

Though I am Maori, I have for many years worked in and around Jewish issues - the memory of the Holocaust, advocacy for Zionism, and fighting antisemitism. But it is only in more recent years that I have become increasingly aware of the parallels that exist between my own claim to indigeneity and that of Jews to the land of Israel.

There is no universally recognized definition of indigeneity. Indeed, there is much debate and a degree of fluidity on the question of definition. Some hold the view that a strict definition is unnecessary and undesirable. But a number of criteria have been established and are generally accepted: self-identification; historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies; strong links to territories and surrounding natural resources; distinct social, economic, or political systems; distinct language, culture, and beliefs; the formation of nondominant groups of society; resolve to maintain and reproduce ancestral environments and systems as distinct communities.

In Israel, the Jewish people clearly fulfil the established criteria for indigeneity. When a Maori person reads the genealogies in the Tanakh, it resonates with the practice that is kept alive in Maori gatherings, where much of the speechmaking revolves around whakapapa, recounting genealogy to establish the connections between peoples. When Hebrew literature speaks longingly of the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, we think of our mountains which we remember every time we present our pepeha (formal introduction). The places where our ancestors are buried are considered sacred, much like the reverence for the Tombs of the Patriarchs.

Though I did not grow up in the shadow of Mount Tarawera, it remains part of my identity. There is a similarity in the longing of Jews for Jerusalem, even (and especially) from the diaspora. One hundred and thirty-five years on from the Tarawera eruption, there is a movement among my people to reestablish a community in that region, where we still hold land. In Maori culture we have the concept of ahi kaa (keeping the fires burning). A remnant remains in the land to keep alive the fires of occupation. The fact that there has been a continuous presence of Jews in the land of Israel for well over 3,000 years meets the criterion of keeping ahi kaa. In the Maori worldview it affirms their mana whenua or historic right to the land.

My mother's generation was punished physically for speaking in their native tongue at school. It is only in recent decades that this unfortunate state of affairs has been reversed and the Maori language has experienced a strong resurgence. Interestingly, the Israeli ulpan served as an inspiration for one of the Maori leaders who established kohanga reo (Maori language preschools). Indeed, the revival of Hebrew serves as an inspiration to many indigenous peoples seeking to revitalize languages negatively impacted by colonization.

The development of a distinct language, culture, and belief system within a particular land prior to colonization is a defining feature of indigeneity, one shared by Maori and Jews. Many definitions of indigeneity include the characteristic of "nondominant groups of society." Some scholars have asserted that this provision was a later addition, aimed squarely at preventing Jews from claiming indigenous status. The notion that a people suddenly loses indigenous status by virtue of having achieved their long sought self-determination undermines the very concept of indigeneity. Fiji, for example, gained its independence in 1970, but this did not mean that indigenous Fijians thereby lost indigenous status. While the other aspects of indigeneity are intrinsic to identity as a people, the requirement to be nondominant in society is an external, political, and social feature that is subject to change. An aspiration (in this case self-determination) does not render a people nonindigenous by the attainment of its goal.

So, in regard to Israel, why does this matter? Because a colonialist narrative has taken hold in the popular imagination, by which Jews are seen as foreign colonizers who have displaced the indigenous Palestinian population. The colonialist narrative had its genesis in academia and has filtered down to politics and media. It has been promoted by historians of settler colonialism, Palestinian academics, politicians, and anti-Israel activists. Israel is portrayed as the archetypal intruder. The Palestinian American academic Rashid Khalidi has said, "the modern history of Palestine can best be understood in these terms: as a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will."

The wording may vary, but Khalidi's view is widely held. In 2016, for example, the Palestinian National Authority attempted to sue the British government over the Balfour Declaration, for supporting the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad-al Maliki stated that "hundreds of thousands of Jews were moved from Europe and elsewhere to Palestine at the expense of our Palestinian people whose parents and grandparents had lived for thousands of years on the soil of their homeland." This narrative has been strengthened mostly through long and frequent repetition, the most basic of classic propaganda techniques.

But maintaining the claim that Israel is the acme of a settler colonial state is false, and comes at great cost to our understanding of history. It is a politically motivated and highly selective rendering of the past, a distortion rather than a truthful account.

The Israeli historian Benny Morris, while deftly rebutting Khalidi's aforementioned thesis, has pointed out that the commonly understood notion that colonialism involves an imperial power gaining control over another country and "settling it with its sons" simply does not apply to the Zionist venture. "By any objective standard, Zionism fails to fit this definition," he argues. "Zionism was a movement of desperate, idealistic Jews from Eastern and Central Europe bent on immigrating to a country that had once been populated and ruled by Jews, not 'another' country, and regaining sovereignty over it."

Harvard historian Derek Penslar also challenges the colonialist narrative, pointing out that the Jews returned to their ancient homeland "not for its strategic value, natural resources, or productive capabilities but rather because of what Jews believed to be historic, religious, and cultural ties to the area known to them as the Land of Israel. Zionism was based in concepts of return, restoration, and re-inscription."

I would argue that settler colonialism has long been the wrong framework to use for understanding Israel's history. A better one is the growing field of indigenous studies.

Some scholars of indigenous studies have seen the importance of fighting for the recognition of Jewish indigeneity as a means to address "territorial disputes between Arabs and Jews, the protection of both Jewish and Arab rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples everywhere." Dr. Nan Greer, former adjunct professor at the University of Redlands, has argued that the indigenous rights of the Jewish people should be enshrined in law. She points out the importance of an indigenous people's connection to a distinct location rather than a broad, generalized region, "such as Arab-Muslim groups claiming lands in multiple nation-states throughout the Middle East."

If an ethnic group like the Arabs - who colonized Israel in the sixth century and imposed their language and religion on the conquered peoples - can claim indigeneity based on long-standing presence, then so can other colonizing groups. The rights and status of all indigenous peoples would be threatened by such an approach. In New Zealand, a few pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent) have sought to claim indigeneity. This effectively undermines any indigenous rights Maori might have, such as those articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

That the indigenous studies approach strengthens rather than weakens the Jewish people's claims to their historic homeland can provide an important foil to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Earlier this year, for example, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that invests taxpayer money for pensioners, decided to divest from Israeli banks because they provide mortgages to Israeli citizens wishing to build homes in the settlements. But according to Article 26 of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, "Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired." Preventing an indigenous people group from building in their indigenous homeland is a breach of indigenous rights.

Self-identification is an important aspect of indigeneity. Indigenous peoples reserve the right to assert their own understanding of what makes them indigenous. One Maori tribal elder has set out three criteria by which his people claim to be indigenous to Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Taketake (long established) E roa e noho a tatau i runga i te mata o tenei whenua he iwi taketake tatau. (We have long lived on the face of this land, thus we are indigenous.)

Nonamata (ancient) E tini nga pakiwaitara nonamata o tatau tupuna ki tenei whenua koia he iwi taketake, ka tu ai au hei tangata whenua ki tenei whenua. (I hold the many ancient narratives of our ancestors, which allow me to be indigenous and a person of the land.)

Toi (original) Ko te take hei iwi taketake e au ki tenei whenua i tataiheke e au mai nga Turehu me nga Patupaearahe ko nga iwi Toi o tenei whenua. (I am indigenous to this land because my genealogy descends from the Turehu and the Patupaearahi, the original peoples to this land.)

Many individual Jews and certain constituencies in Israel have asserted their indigeneity. Israel as a whole, however, has seldom made use of the language of indigeneity. But Greer points out that under the Basic Law, which says that Israel is the "nation-state of the Jewish people," Israeli Jews have self-declared as an indigenous people. "While not possessing the word 'indigenous' in the Hebrew language," she writes, "Israel has utilized all terminology under international law to declare itself indigenous to its homelands, the Nation-State of Israel. Through this self-declaration, Israel protects its indigenous population nationally as a distinct people. Israel also protects itself as an indigenous nation under the accepted working definition of the United Nations."

Indeed, the Basic Law affirms that "the land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established" and the "national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination." It asserts that "the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."

As much as some academics, politicians, and activists think that the Jews of Israel are colonizers, in reality, indigeneity helps connect the Jewish people to the experience of other indigenous peoples. It provides a counterweight to the false narrative that Jews are foreigners in their homeland, where their distinctive language, traditions, and religion developed. Strong connection to the land and ancestors has been maintained over millennia, and is further confirmed by archeological, literary, and genetic evidence. Embracing indigenous identity at least as much as the identity conferred by historical suffering and persecution in European and Arab lands could be an important tool in resolving various disputes, including perhaps over land ownership.

From Mount Zion to Mount Tarawera, the connection between indigenous peoples and their land is one that endures and remains central to individual and corporate identity. You cannot deny Jews their indigenous rights and identity without undermining the arguments for the rights of indigenous peoples everywhere.

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