In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the US media became preoccupied with a key question: "Why do they hate us so much?" A fair-minded people, the Americans believed there must be a good, rational explanation why 19 educated, economically comfortable young men would ram planes into buildings, killing themselves along with thousands of innocents.
Youths at the scene of the Paris riots.
Photo: AP
Among the many reasons proffered, one that appeared frequently - and drew concern in Jerusalem - was that it was all due to US support for Israel. If the US would only toe a more pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian line, this argument ran, then the Arab and Muslim masses wouldn't hate it so.
The events in Paris over the last 12 days have confirmed the vacuity of this argument.
Since the mid-1960s, France has consistently been among the most pro-Arab countries in western Europe.
Indeed, one can make a compelling argument that one reason French President Jacques Chirac was so opposed to the US war in Iraq was that he believed this would give France special status among the world's Muslims.
France, unlike the US, cannot be accused of a pro-Israeli slant. Nevertheless, its Muslim youth are rioting in the banlieues of Paris. Though it is too early to dissect this ongoing French revolution, one thing that can already be said is that these rioters hate France - otherwise they wouldn't be destroying its property and setting fire to its towns and suburbs.
* Readers' talkbacks appear at the end of the article
And this hatred of France has nothing to do with Israel.
Why is this important to state? Because for too long much of the West, with France at the vanguard, has tried to paper over its real conflict with radical Islam with the argument that if only a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict could be found, then all would be well with the world and Islamic enmity would disappear.
Not so. The Muslim youth in France are not rioting as a sign of solidarity with their Palestinian or Iraqi brothers. They are rioting in large part because they feel discriminated against, alienated, and cut out of that great French "liberte, egalite, fraternite" pie.
The French would be wise to pay attention to the fact that these flames of alienation are being fanned and leveraged for their own use by Islamic radicals who - as the homegrown London bombers proved in July - are thriving on the streets of Europe.
Parallels can be found with our reality. At one time the Arab-Israeli conflict looked predominantly like a territorial one. Indeed, this thinking underpinned UN Security Council Resolution 242, which created the territories-for-peace rubric.
What was ignored was the religious and ideological component of the conflict. It is not coincidental that the recent Palestinian paroxysm of violence here goes by the name of al-Aksa Intifada - and not, for instance, the Gaza intifada, or the West Bank intifada.
Naming the violence after the mosque on the Temple Mount, and not one or other of the disputed territories, underlines that religious component, a component that - with the help of Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad - has made the conflict much more violent, volatile and intractable. Land-for-peace, for the radical Islamic groups, has always been obsolete.
France - yes, ironically, France - has now awakened to find itself facing a similar dilemma.
The instinctive reaction in France to the rioting has been twofold: a pledge to restore security and to address the "causes" of the rioting: the deprivation, discrimination, alienation and rootlessness of the rampaging, largely Muslim, youth. One cannot argue with either of these two points.
But French policy makers would be unwise to overlook the religious, ideological dimensions of the battle, and the way Islamic radicals preaching from the mosques and spewing out hatred via the Internet are able to prey on this disaffection and import a toxic ideology into France and the heart of Europe.
True, the current riots in France may be about rootlessness and alienation of minority youth, but they are not only about rootlessness and alienation. Radical Islam is part of the mix as well, and the French will ignore that at their own peril.
Send us your comments >>
Asad, Liverpool, UK:It was interesting to read a Jewish perspective on riots in France which were amusing to say the least. The ground reality is that the rioters are not just Arab Muslims as Czechs and other eastern European immigrants are involved in it as well. This however does not take away from the fact that disparity in income between two social groups and lack of integration are the roots of this problem. The blame for the riots eventually lies at the foot of liberal French governments who do not have a viable opposition other than the extreme right of Le Pen's National Front.
Islamic radicalism is a problem for the world but the riots in France cannot be attributed to it. The harsh reality of life is multiculturalism does not work.
Al Ramey, USA: Very well written overview. Readers should remember that not too long ago in an unguarded moment, France's Ambassador to the United Kingdom - a guest at a private dinner - called Israel 'that shitty little country'. He was so out of it, that he did not have a clue that his hostess was a prominent London Jewish socialite. Unconstrained by diplomatic or journalistic ethics (her husband is a well known publisher) she let it be known.
As far as he and his associates are concerned, if only Israel did not exists all problems in the region could be solved. (Readers can refer to a recent take eloquently assembled by David Price Jones, a contributor to Benador and Associates, free, on the web, who extensively wrote about the problem of French attitude towards Israel and the Jews.)
