A briefing by David Pryce-Jones
November 2, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1636
David Pryce-Jones, senior editor of National Review, has also written for
the Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and the Spectator, while
contributing frequently to such publications as The Times of London, Wall
Street Journal, Commentary, and The New Republic. Pryce-Jones was educated
at Oxford and has taught at universities in California and Iowa. He has
authored nine novels and a dozen books of non-fiction. The latter treat
such themes as Middle Eastern politics and culture, the fall of the
Soviet Union, and literary biography and criticism. For more biographical
information, see http://www.davidpryce-jones.com. Mr. Pryce-Jones
addressed the Middle East Forum in New York on November 2, 2006.
The Middle East Forum presented the eminent author David Pryce-Jones to
discuss his new book, Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews
(Encounter, 2006). The goal in this study, he explained, was to "examine
the very strange behavior of the French" in their policy toward Arabs and
Jews since the nineteenth century. His narrative centers on the latter
half of the twentieth century, but with a look at its roots in France's
past.
Mr. Pryce-Jones pointed out a paradox in French left: As authors of the
Rights of Man and creators of the slogan Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
(Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), the French left a legacy of democratic
ideals to the West. So why is it, he asks, that in international crises
throughout the last three or four decades, "the French have obstructed
every major Western initiative and policy, and although they declare
themselves to be acting in the name of peace, they are in fact
encouraging, at best confusion, and at worst, war, and violence."
In Mr. Pryce-Jones's view, the West is locked in a serious confrontation
with Islam, in which deep historic forces are at play. The fragmentation
of the Muslim world, including strife between Sunni and Sh'ia and among
groups within those sects, is cause for the eventual defeat of Islam. He
believes that the West can win the struggle, but only if it stays united.
He suggests that the French are "fragmenting us and nullifying our
efforts."
Two themes are woven throughout Betrayal: the French conceptions of the
Muslims and the Jews. The phrase "la France est une puissance musulmane"
(France is a Muslim power), which came into common usage during the reign
of Napoleon III and was repeated generation after generation by the French
regime, sparked Mr. Pryce-Jones's interest in French foreign policy. This
ran contrary to centuries of France billing itself as a Christian power
and basing its policies upon protecting the Christians in the Holy Land,
then part of the Ottoman Empire. The idea of France as a Muslim power,
Mr. Pryce-Jones argues, is "a fantasy – France is not a Muslim power and
cannot be a Muslim power. It is a mirage that France can take advantage
of Arabs and the Muslims and incorporate them into its imperial designs."
He suggests that the French borrowed the phrase from the British, who at
the same period thought of Britain as a Muslim power through its
colonization of India. The British knew, however!
, that
they were not a Muslim power, and that they were actually ruling the
Indians.
The French conception of the Jews, Mr. Pryce-Jones points out, derives
from the French Revolution. Quoting the Conte de Clermont-Tonnerre's
famous saying to the General Assembly, 'To the Jews as individuals
everything, to the Jews as a nation nothing', he notes that the French
attitude toward the Jews is defined by what the French think they ought
to be, not by how Jews define themselves. Mr. Pryce-Jones has documented
centuries of "astonishing anti-Jewish animus" in the archives of the Quai
d'Orsay. The tenor of the bias against the Jews is that they cannot act
independently; they are the pawns of a hostile external power which
varies along with the circumstances, be it the British, the Germans, or
the Russians.
Therefore, the rise of Zionism in the nineteenth century is a shock to the
French, who suddenly discover that the Jews have agency. The French do
everything they can to stifle Zionism, inventing conspiracy theories
blaming the Jews. The French sought to impede the creation of the Jewish
state, and later opposed Israeli foreign policy. Mr. Pryce-Jones traces
this "extraordinarily fantastic interpretation of what's going on in the
Arab world and in the Jewish world" among generations of French
diplomats, who "believe rubbish" despite their being among the most
sophisticated people in the world.
Mr. Pryce-Jones centers his account on the split in French foreign policy
circles during a brief period in the 1950s when French and Israeli
interests coincided. Arab nationalism threatened the French position in
North Africa and Israel during the Suez crisis. But while the French
Ministry of Defense supported Israel, the Quai d'Orsay did all it could
to stop the ministry's arms sales and pro-Israel attitude. By 1958, when
Charles De Gaulle came back to office, he adopted the Quai's viewpoint
and French foreign policy reverted to its anti-Israel position. By 1967,
the French were outright opponents of Israel.
The French supported Qaddafi, even selling him arms when they had
sanctions against Israel, but he was too unstable a figure on which to
base policy. So they chose Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat, who as Mr.
Pryce-Jones points out, "are the two pillars of French foreign policy.
Both Hussein and Arafat run strictly counter to every value France has
produced … they are a couple of bloodstained tyrants. They've done
nothing but damage to their own people and yet France has given Saddam
Hussein every opportunity," hosting him in France, selling Iraq billions
of arms he used against his own people, and funding the Osirak nuclear
plant which the Israelis had to destroy in 1981. But when Iran sponsored
terrorist attacks in France to protest France's support of Iraq, Mr.
Pryce-Jones explained, the French were surprised, thinking they had an
understanding with the Iranians not to retaliate while they supported
Iraq.
Mr. Pryce-Jones emphasizes France's disturbing role in bringing about the
Iranian Revolution, which he calls the "most important revolution in
modern times". France received Khomeini in 1978, when it was clear he was
planning an insurrection against the shah, and provided him lines of
communication through which to mobilize demonstrations. This is the most
dramatic example of the French penchant for harboring Islamic extremists,
Mr. Pryce-Jones points out, noting that they granted a safe haven to Haj
Amin el-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, returning him to the Middle
East when he was wanted as a war criminal in 1945. He concludes that
"twice now the world has been handicapped by French-harbored monsters –
Haj Amin and Khomeini – who were fascists."
Mr. Pryce-Jones discussed the immigration of Muslims and Arabs into
France, which began after WWII and accelerated greatly after French
rights and welfare benefits were granted them in 1974. Today, Muslims
constitute 10 percent of the French population, not including illegal
immigrants. The problem, Mr. Pryce-Jones points out, is that the Muslim
population is not assimilated because the French government makes little
effort to integrate it, and Muslims live with 60-70 percent unemployment
in slummy suburbs with drug and crime problems. They live in a society
apart from the French, factors that contributed to the rioting and
violence in France in late 2005.
It is "safe to say that the French state lost control of these people, to
the Muslim street" which to the Jews of France is a serious matter. Some
Jewish reactions are reminiscent of the 1930s, with the chief rabbi
cautioning Jews not to wear their yarmulkes in the street. The French
state is critical of Israel, but "does everything appeasing and
surrendering to Arabs." The two themes – France as a "puissance
musulmane" and no nationality for the Jews – have collided, and as Mr.
Pryce-Jones notes, the French government has refused to stand by its
Jewish population.
Iran, which threatens genocide and death to Americans and Jews, will
present "a test of our whole civilization," says Mr. Pryce-Jones. France
is once again blocking U.S. efforts, choosing to appease a genocidal
state. During the July 2006 fighting in the Middle East, France stopped
short of siding with Hizbullah, but justified it and criticized Israel.
"To understand how France got into this muddle is the purpose of Betrayal,
how they have taken this position that the Jews are not a nation, must
never be a nation, while incorporating Muslims into their nation." The
problem, argues Mr. Pryce-Jones, is that the French "believe their own
fairy tale."
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