Bernard-Henry Lévy is wrong. He should hold his nose and vote for Rassemblement Nationale, as will, I'm pretty sure, a majority of French Jews. The right in France has a long and sordid history of Jew-hatred, but that Jew-hatred has now found a new home in the left with Melanchon and his party. It would be hard to find a party in France (or in the US) without its Jew-haters, but which party in France has as part of its main platform, a plank which supports Jew hatred?
It appears the same problem exists now in most Western countries. What is the source of this hate for each other? What is the source of this polarization. The left and the right have become the mirror image. Their only response is whataboutism. During the Cold War, the Russians exploited these and created civil wars in the Eastern Europe and Latin America. The left vs right became hot wars in these satellite countries. It appears this propaganda driven division is now hitting the Western countries hard. We cannot allow this to weaken us while the autocratic states all around the world are aligning against the free world.
The author's obsessing over political groups' DNA is fomenting just the hateful behaviors that he is attacking. However, it does works so well in US, especially with a media 24/7 echo chamber parroting one party and its state agencies. Negative campaigning does tend to drown out the dissidents and their leaders. Hopefully, France won't end up with a buck naked emperor like Joe Biden who showed the world that the US media had been the parrot of the Democrat Party, attacking any negative facts about Biden's abilities.
Here in Alberta my wife rails against this or that policy advanced by our current conservative government. I explain that there are no parties with which I agree on everything, I agree with st least some of her critiques.
But everything she is passionate about would fall apart without a strong economy to support it and on that basis I can never vote for the climate/insane union owned NDP alternative.
As long as a party and leader can get the big questions right the little stuff will sort itself out.
A very weak article from the normally outstanding Free Press. I actually lived seven years in France, had in-laws there, so have had a decent vantage point to observe the people. The definitions and appellation's Levy is using are sadly antiquated and not suitable or relevant for the present discourse. The canard ‘extreme-Right’ is banded around as though a disparate community of ordinary, decent people, who love their country, its history and culture, who want to work with a minimum of state intervention and are disorientated by the rate of change in societies, are actually a fascist brotherhood, is both offensive and childishly simplistic. The truth is, the ire of modern conservatives is towards the political class who have betrayed them as they cheerleadered the horrendous experiment of mass immigration. (In October 2010, Angela Merkel claimed the country's attempts to create a multicultural society had "utterly failed". Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.) To make an argument, like pre-2015-Syrian, et al migration-Merkel did, that the rapid introduction of tens of millions of people who might not admire European history, its culture and institutions, might not have the necessary skills to exercise their democratic DUTIES, is a legitimate concern, and certainly within the parameters of our humanist legacy, as simply, if our institutions are pauperized and indelibly changed, the West will no longer be able to do any good for peoples, their own, or around the world. As the Algerian President Houari Boumédiène warned us at the UN General Assembly, in 1974. "One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere and burst into the northern one, not as friends, but to conquer. They will conquer it with their children; victory will come to us from the wombs of our women." At least Levy alluded to the fact that the new vile antisemitism that has infected Europe is exclusively from the Left and the Muslim community that are a large part of the new ideological grouping.
Ahhh, BHL has a hard time choosing between people who are open about their disliking of his kind and have a history of horrific acts against Jews, vs the people who pretend to be nice and accommodating but are encouraging CURRENT ACTIVE forces that seek to destroy not only France's Jewry but the entire Judeo-Christian world and culture! This is like a person stranded on an island with a choice between drinking from a spring that has a California-esque sign next to it mentioning potential carcinogens may be present in it vs drinking sea water...
In the U.K. the Labor party steeped in JewHatred is about to take office. With it will come DEI & anti-Islamophobia nonsense. France is perhaps in a worse situation. As in Tsarist Russia & the Soviet Union it may be time for Jews to leave. It isn't & won't be safe no matter who wins control. As in the U.S. where are the centrists, the SANE? It's reminiscent of 1920's & early 1930's Germany where Marxist/socialists were battling fascists. We know how that turned out!
I just can't summon sympathy for Jews like Levy. I just can't. This author hasn't got the sense nor perceptivity of a celery stick. This man continues to sh*t his own bed and throw it at those who would help him --- and will help him when push comes to shove. Push is coming to shove in France, and these "immigrants" who are muslims that are dedicated to war and oppression of all others, and to slaughter of Jews wherever Jews are to be found, are his enemy. Time for Levy to grow the hell up.
Bari - This article is a shallow crock of fertilizer. You should be ashamed to have it appear on your pages. But you, Bari, like other Jews, are also prey to this same idiot world view that MUST display its credentials as "good liberal" and sh*t your own bed, over and over. It's what you gravitate back to every time, just like Jews around the world do. And it makes me so tired, so done with all the screams when the inevitable happens. D'oh, yeah. You woke up from your slumber... for a while. But this? You have shoved your face right back down into that same pillow of barnyard fertilizer by hosting this appalling piece of drivel.
The political is the distinction between friend and enemy, or in the sage words of Mao Zedong, "Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?"
I'd say that right now in France, the hard racist-sexist-homophobic right (add your own pejoratives to taste) are the friends of the Jews, even for tippy-top intellectual Jews like Lévy.
Mr. Levy's essay disappoints me. When I sat down to read I expected some insight about the stakes involved and what the various groups stand for. Instead I found myself in a fog about Jewishness and antisemitism. I had to stop myself and ask, "wait a minute . . . I thought this was going to be about the French election."
My sister is a citizen of France and has lived there for almost 60 years. She is a hippie and decamped for Paris in the 1960s when the USA got lumpy. She spawned three kids who also now live in Paris. They are all lefties, but good people and I like them. We just don't talk politics when we do see each other, which is like every five years. I had hoped to learn something about the choices they are facing (even though it is probably safe to assume they'll find the farthest left candidate and cast their lot with him/her/it). I learned nothing from this essay, except that antisemitism is bad, which I actually already knew.
Fun fact: my sister and her kids are also citizens of the USA and gleefully vote in our elections. You'll never guess how they vote. Correct. Leftist. They got a fever, and the only treatment is more leftism.
I finished the article a little frustrated by the author's six one way, half dozen the other stance. I know the feeling though as I am faced with the same dilemma in the upcoming U.S. elections. If I was he, I'd vote for the right though, as their much clearer pro Israel stance from the top leaders has a better chance of being the party platform.
Msr. Levy, I agree with your assessments absolutely. But, you haven't answered the question. What will you do? Nothing? And what will that do, both in the short run and the long run?
Bernard-Henry Lévy is wrong. He should hold his nose and vote for Rassemblement Nationale, as will, I'm pretty sure, a majority of French Jews. The right in France has a long and sordid history of Jew-hatred, but that Jew-hatred has now found a new home in the left with Melanchon and his party. It would be hard to find a party in France (or in the US) without its Jew-haters, but which party in France has as part of its main platform, a plank which supports Jew hatred?
Great analysis and writing, as usual.
It appears the same problem exists now in most Western countries. What is the source of this hate for each other? What is the source of this polarization. The left and the right have become the mirror image. Their only response is whataboutism. During the Cold War, the Russians exploited these and created civil wars in the Eastern Europe and Latin America. The left vs right became hot wars in these satellite countries. It appears this propaganda driven division is now hitting the Western countries hard. We cannot allow this to weaken us while the autocratic states all around the world are aligning against the free world.
The author's obsessing over political groups' DNA is fomenting just the hateful behaviors that he is attacking. However, it does works so well in US, especially with a media 24/7 echo chamber parroting one party and its state agencies. Negative campaigning does tend to drown out the dissidents and their leaders. Hopefully, France won't end up with a buck naked emperor like Joe Biden who showed the world that the US media had been the parrot of the Democrat Party, attacking any negative facts about Biden's abilities.
"What of the fact that this party was founded 50 years ago by former Nazi collaborators, if not by former Waffen-SS?"
The Democratic Party is the party of the Confederacy, Jim Crow and the KKK. It doesn't bother them either...
The Democratic Party of America, DELENDA EST!
I wonder who the French Muslims will vote for….
What's the common denominator here?
Finally, a war France can win!
It’s been how long since Napoleon?
The author seems to be a real zero sum type.
Here in Alberta my wife rails against this or that policy advanced by our current conservative government. I explain that there are no parties with which I agree on everything, I agree with st least some of her critiques.
But everything she is passionate about would fall apart without a strong economy to support it and on that basis I can never vote for the climate/insane union owned NDP alternative.
As long as a party and leader can get the big questions right the little stuff will sort itself out.
A very weak article from the normally outstanding Free Press. I actually lived seven years in France, had in-laws there, so have had a decent vantage point to observe the people. The definitions and appellation's Levy is using are sadly antiquated and not suitable or relevant for the present discourse. The canard ‘extreme-Right’ is banded around as though a disparate community of ordinary, decent people, who love their country, its history and culture, who want to work with a minimum of state intervention and are disorientated by the rate of change in societies, are actually a fascist brotherhood, is both offensive and childishly simplistic. The truth is, the ire of modern conservatives is towards the political class who have betrayed them as they cheerleadered the horrendous experiment of mass immigration. (In October 2010, Angela Merkel claimed the country's attempts to create a multicultural society had "utterly failed". Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.) To make an argument, like pre-2015-Syrian, et al migration-Merkel did, that the rapid introduction of tens of millions of people who might not admire European history, its culture and institutions, might not have the necessary skills to exercise their democratic DUTIES, is a legitimate concern, and certainly within the parameters of our humanist legacy, as simply, if our institutions are pauperized and indelibly changed, the West will no longer be able to do any good for peoples, their own, or around the world. As the Algerian President Houari Boumédiène warned us at the UN General Assembly, in 1974. "One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere and burst into the northern one, not as friends, but to conquer. They will conquer it with their children; victory will come to us from the wombs of our women." At least Levy alluded to the fact that the new vile antisemitism that has infected Europe is exclusively from the Left and the Muslim community that are a large part of the new ideological grouping.
It's a shame to allude at something that everyone is completely sure of.
Ahhh, BHL has a hard time choosing between people who are open about their disliking of his kind and have a history of horrific acts against Jews, vs the people who pretend to be nice and accommodating but are encouraging CURRENT ACTIVE forces that seek to destroy not only France's Jewry but the entire Judeo-Christian world and culture! This is like a person stranded on an island with a choice between drinking from a spring that has a California-esque sign next to it mentioning potential carcinogens may be present in it vs drinking sea water...
go look it up ---as it was policy to hurry the revolution
In the U.K. the Labor party steeped in JewHatred is about to take office. With it will come DEI & anti-Islamophobia nonsense. France is perhaps in a worse situation. As in Tsarist Russia & the Soviet Union it may be time for Jews to leave. It isn't & won't be safe no matter who wins control. As in the U.S. where are the centrists, the SANE? It's reminiscent of 1920's & early 1930's Germany where Marxist/socialists were battling fascists. We know how that turned out!
I just can't summon sympathy for Jews like Levy. I just can't. This author hasn't got the sense nor perceptivity of a celery stick. This man continues to sh*t his own bed and throw it at those who would help him --- and will help him when push comes to shove. Push is coming to shove in France, and these "immigrants" who are muslims that are dedicated to war and oppression of all others, and to slaughter of Jews wherever Jews are to be found, are his enemy. Time for Levy to grow the hell up.
Bari - This article is a shallow crock of fertilizer. You should be ashamed to have it appear on your pages. But you, Bari, like other Jews, are also prey to this same idiot world view that MUST display its credentials as "good liberal" and sh*t your own bed, over and over. It's what you gravitate back to every time, just like Jews around the world do. And it makes me so tired, so done with all the screams when the inevitable happens. D'oh, yeah. You woke up from your slumber... for a while. But this? You have shoved your face right back down into that same pillow of barnyard fertilizer by hosting this appalling piece of drivel.
The political is the distinction between friend and enemy, or in the sage words of Mao Zedong, "Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?"
I'd say that right now in France, the hard racist-sexist-homophobic right (add your own pejoratives to taste) are the friends of the Jews, even for tippy-top intellectual Jews like Lévy.
Mr. Levy's essay disappoints me. When I sat down to read I expected some insight about the stakes involved and what the various groups stand for. Instead I found myself in a fog about Jewishness and antisemitism. I had to stop myself and ask, "wait a minute . . . I thought this was going to be about the French election."
My sister is a citizen of France and has lived there for almost 60 years. She is a hippie and decamped for Paris in the 1960s when the USA got lumpy. She spawned three kids who also now live in Paris. They are all lefties, but good people and I like them. We just don't talk politics when we do see each other, which is like every five years. I had hoped to learn something about the choices they are facing (even though it is probably safe to assume they'll find the farthest left candidate and cast their lot with him/her/it). I learned nothing from this essay, except that antisemitism is bad, which I actually already knew.
Fun fact: my sister and her kids are also citizens of the USA and gleefully vote in our elections. You'll never guess how they vote. Correct. Leftist. They got a fever, and the only treatment is more leftism.
I finished the article a little frustrated by the author's six one way, half dozen the other stance. I know the feeling though as I am faced with the same dilemma in the upcoming U.S. elections. If I was he, I'd vote for the right though, as their much clearer pro Israel stance from the top leaders has a better chance of being the party platform.
Msr. Levy, I agree with your assessments absolutely. But, you haven't answered the question. What will you do? Nothing? And what will that do, both in the short run and the long run?