FRANCE: Three prominent French intellectuals, one of them an MEP, were cleared yesterday of "defamation on racial grounds" and "acting as apologists for terrorism".
The lawsuit was filed by two Jewish groups, Lawyers Without Borders and France-Israel, against Edgard Morin, Danièle Sallenave and Sami Naïr. Le Monde newspaper, which on June 4th, 2002, published an article signed by the three, criticising Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, was a co-defendant.
Mr Morin is an ageing sociologist and a Jew who changed his name from Nahoum during the second World War when he fought with the Resistance against the Nazis. Ms Sallenave is a novelist who recounted how her positive opinion of Israel changed in a book entitled Diary of a Journey to Palestine. Before he became an MEP, Mr Naïr, whose parents were of Algerian origin, was a professor of political science with a reputation as an expert on racial integration in France.
The article which prompted the case was written in the wake of Israel's assault on the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus. "We were saying it was inconceivable that Jewish people should behave in such a way, that they had no right to claim to represent the Jewish people," Mr Naïr said.
One of the two paragraphs to which the Jewish associations took exception reads: "It is difficult to imagine that a nation of fugitives, born of the longest persecuted people in the history of mankind . . . should be capable of transforming itself in two generations into a 'dominating, over-confident people' and, with the exception of an admirable minority, into a contemptful people who derive satisfaction from humiliating." ("Dominating, over-confident people" was the way Gen Charles de Gaulle described Israel.)
The other offending paragraph says: "The Jews of Israel, descendants of the victims of a form of apartheid known as the ghetto, have 'ghetto-ised' the Palestinians. The Jews who were humiliated, treated with contempt and persecuted now humiliate, treat with contempt and persecute the Palestinians. The Jews who were victims of a system without mercy now impose their merciless system on the Palestinians. The Jews, victims of inhumanity, show a terrible inhumanity. The Jews, scapegoats for all evils, have turned Arafat and the Palestinian Authority into scapegoats, held responsible for attacks that they are prevented from preventing."
The plaintiffs based their case against the three intellectuals on the verbal slippage from "the Jews of Israel" to simply "the Jews". William Bourdon, the lawyer for Ms Sallenave, denounced the argument as "a sophism" and accused the plaintiffs of trying to put pressure on and intimidate the defendants through "judiciary censorship".
Mr Naïr went further. "Their strategy is to sue people to terrorise anyone who wants to criticise (the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon," he said. "They terrorise people so they'll shut up."
In a telephone interview after the verdict was handed down by the high court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, Mr Naïr said the Jewish associations had made a mistake in attacking three people "known for their attachment to the State of Israel and their struggle against anti-Semitism". He dismissed Lawyers Without Borders as "one individual with the vision of the Israeli extreme right - William Goldnadel - who sues everybody."
In another cause célèbre instigated by Mr Goldnadel, the French radio journalist Daniel Mermet was sued for allowing listeners to criticise Israel on his programme. Mr Mermet won the case, but Mr Goldnadel has taken it to the appeals court.
