{"id":32731,"date":"2019-02-21T12:28:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T12:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32731"},"modified":"2019-02-21T12:28:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T12:28:02","slug":"french-president-plans-measures-to-tackle-anti-semitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32731","title":{"rendered":"French president plans measures to tackle anti-Semitism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> has announced measures including legislation to combat online hate speech, adding that the scourge of\u00a0anti-Semitism\u00a0has grown in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Our country, and for that matter all of Europe and most Western democracies, seems to be facing a resurgence of anti-Semitism unseen since World War II,” Macron said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

France<\/a>, home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community, is reeling after a string of attacks that have made global headlines.<\/p>\n

New legislation will be introduced in May to force social media<\/a> companies to withdraw hate speech posted online and use all available means to identify the authors “as quickly as possible”.<\/p>\n

Zionism emerged as a modern settler-colonial, nationalist movement which, in the forms it has been exercised by the Israeli state, is incompatible with universal human rights and international law<\/p>\n

Dr Denijal Jegic, a researcher with Muftah<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Addressing the annual dinner of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), the French leader\u00a0pledged that he will recognise anti-Zionism as a modern form of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

“Behind the negation of Israel’s existence, what is hiding is the hatred of Jews,” said Macron.<\/p>\n

French president added that anti-Semitism is based on “radical Islamism” as a rampant ideology in France’s multiethnic, poor neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

‘Incompatible with universal human rights’<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

“Macron’s comments imply a false and dangerous equation of Zionism and Judaism,” said Dr Denijal Jegic, a researcher with Muftah – a Middle East-focused publication.<\/p>\n

“Zionism emerged as a modern settler-colonial, nationalist movement which, in the forms it has been exercised by the Israeli state, is incompatible with universal human rights and international law,” he said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Macron visited a Jewish graveyard in the Alsace region where 80 gravestones were vandalised and painted with swastikas, the symbol of Nazi Germany, while thousands of people across the country demonstrated against anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

The episode is one of many that shook France in\u00a0the past weeks<\/a>. A torrent of hate speech was directed at Jewish philosopher\u00a0Alain Finkielkraut<\/a>\u00a0during a Saturday march by yellow vest protesters.<\/p>\n

The insults included words like “Zionist!” and “Go back to Tel Aviv!” and “We are France!”<\/p>\n

The number of anti-Semitic attacks in France has jumped recently, rising by 74 percent year on year in 2018, to reach 541.<\/p>\n

‘Definition of anti-Semitism’<\/span><\/h2>\n

The government will adopt an international organisation’s definition of anti-Semitism drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the French president said.<\/p>\n

The definition states that anti-Semitism can take the form of “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> expressed his appreciation at France’s adoption of the international definition of anti-Semitism, in a phone call with the French leader before the speech, Netanyahu’s office said.<\/p>\n

However, since the intergovernmental organisation approved the wording in 2016, some critics of Israel have raised their concerns as it could be used to suppress Palestinian rights activists.<\/p>\n

The IHRA code has been challenged as well by groups such as the\u00a0ACLU<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jewish Voice for Peace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twitter criticised<\/h2>\n

Macron said a similar bill already in\u00a0force in\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0was efficient and pragmatic.<\/p>\n

The German law states that hate speech must be removed from websites within 24 hours of being reported and in certain cases can result in millions of euros in fines.<\/p>\n

The French president denounced Twitter, in particular, for waiting days, sometimes weeks, to remove hate content.<\/p>\n

He also said he had asked Interior Minister Christophe Castaner to dissolve groups or associations that incite hatred or violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced measures including legislation to combat online hate speech, adding that the scourge of\u00a0anti-Semitism\u00a0has grown in recent years. “Our country, and for that matter all of Europe and most Western democracies, seems to be facing a resurgence of anti-Semitism unseen since World War II,” Macron said on Wednesday. France, home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}