Paris, 16 July
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre supports its French associate organization, the BNVCA (Bureau national de vigilance contre l’antisémitisme – the French National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism) in mutual outrage at a 15 July morning interview of BFM-RTL TV news outlet, featuring extreme left political leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon. Asked if the Police were supposed to stand back in the face of violent protest, “stay put like Jesus on the cross without reacting,” he responded, “I don’t know if Jesus was on a cross, but he was apparently put there by his own people,” thus repeating the centuries old accusation of deicide against Jews, a classical antisemitic canard.
The full interview (see minutes 21:37 to 21:47):
https://youtu.be/iEitFUsJ5P8
The Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, argued that, “the repeated accusation of deicide – throughout the Middle Ages – resulted in pogroms, torture and execution of Jewish communities. Its imagery fueled violence across Europe, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust,” adding, “these accusations were finally condemned by the Papal encyclical Nostra Aetate in 1965… Apparently, Melenchon didn’t get the memo!”
“Melenchon, could be seen as a French Corbyn in his following and his constant statements, maintaining that France bears no guilt in the Holocaust, his participation in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel rallies, accusing the French Jewish Community leadership (CRIF) of aggressive sectarianism and meddling in politics and, indeed, claiming that UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn “had to endure churlish antisemitism claims.”
“This apparent slip of the tongue demonstrates how ‘modern’ anti-Zionism is rooted in ‘ancient’ antisemitism… Melenchonism, an extreme left alliance with Jihadism, is a mirror image of the extreme right… We hope that the center-left and centre-right treat the television interview as a further step to the abyss,” concluded Samuels.