French ambassador to Israel calls Sharon a punk (UK)

[NickDanger]

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=439003

The new French ambassador to Israel was involved in a diplomatic row yesterday after a report that he had called Israel a "paranoid country" and its Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, "a punk".

....

The report said M. Araud had "repeatedly" used the word "voyou" of Mr Sharon and had criticised the controversial fence being built to cut off the Palestinian territories.

....

The dispute may partly focus on the meaning of voyou - a term sometimes used by parents of misbehaving children. Mr Bismout's report says the French-Hebrew dictionary defines the word as "punk, thug, hooligan, criminal, crook".

[lcordero]

1. lol

I love smashmouth politics:D

[madrchsod]

2. i guess if the shoe fits...

at least the french aren`t kissing sharon`s old ass like the bush gang does...

[cherryperry]

3. Anything the French ambassador

has to say is really of no consequence.

Yes, a country born out of a holocaust might be considered paranoid by the French, but then again, they were so helpful in WWII that they really need to shut their traps.

:grr: Can anyone say hypocrites? I knew that you could!

:kick:

[Jim Sagle]

5. What you said.

But at least he's not trashing Israel altogether the way that other French ambassador did.

[Nay]

7. Uh, Cherryperry, the French in WWII

had the premier anti-Nazi underground. They died by the thousands. They were reknowned for their courage, and to say that "the French" should shut up because a part of their government acted at the time like a doormat is insulting. The Jews themselves in Germany and Austria acted like total doormats, too, and it was their lives on the line. Luckily the Jews have learned from their mistake in WWI, but that doesn't give them the right to act like the paranoid oppressors they suffered under.

Secondly, even a person you despise (like the French ambassador) may come out with some points worth pondering. So don't dump the message because you don't like the messenger.

[The Magistrate]

8. The French Resistance, Sir

Is one of the most over-blown phenomena of World War Two.

Far and away the premier partisan fighters of the West in that war were the Yugoslavs, who can make a reasonable claim, with only slight exaggeration, to have evicted the Germans from their country by their own efforts. Partisan resistance in occuppied Russia was sufficient to stress German manpower reserves in that theater, and effect operational planning in some instances. The resistance of the Chinese Communists to the Japanese was of titanic scale, extending even to the establishment and maintainance of civil governments, including tax collection and a circulating currency, in vast stretched of the country that were, on the surface, controlled by Japanese arms.

The suggestion Jews in Germany and Austria somehow encompassed their own destruction by being "doormats" is offensive. You might want to consult census figures, to discover what a miniscule proportion of the population in both countries were Jews. It was precisely because they had no capability whatever of affecting events that they could be so easily scape-goated, and made targets for destruction.

As for your likening Jews in Israel to "the paranoid oppressors they suffered under", the less said, the better.

[cherryperry]

9. Outstanding, Magistrate!

Some forget the lovely Vichy government of France, don't they?


:pals:

[Violet_Crumble]

19. Uh, I didn't see the Magistrate agreeing with the France-bashathon...

He basically said what's a hard, cold fact about resistance in most of Western Europe during WWII and I didn't see him indulging in France-bashing based on nothing but a shallow and simplistic view of events that took place during that time. If he did, well, I've lost a lot of respect for him on the spot, but I'm extremely confident that he wasn't jumping on the bandwagon where the folk riding it think that bringing up the Vichy govt in order to try to deflect attention away from the very real concerns that were raised in the article convinces those of us reading that we should start chowing down on some Freedom Fries, bitching about how France tried to hijack the Security Council with its veto power while we ignore the many times the US has done it for much more questionable reasons, and discarding anything said by a diplomat of any country whose actions in WWII were questionable. Personally, if I were you, I'd save my breath and trot out that line about not listening to anything someone has to say next time ANY US diplomat opens their mouth. After all, keep in mind that the US was sitting on its collective isolationist hands while France and the rest of Western Europe was over-run and let Britain and the Commonwealth fight the Nazis for the first few years of the war till the US finally realised that fascism was a graver danger to the world than those pesky Commies were...

Violet...

[The Magistrate]

22. The French Are Fine With Me, Ma'am

As you stated, my only point was to correct a certain exaggeration of the accomplishments of the resistance there during Nazi occupation.

The Vichy government is a complex phenomenon. Marshall Petain strikes me as a tragic character in the classic definition: a great man brought low by the defects of his virtues. He was far and away the best Allied general of the Great War, the first to have a real appreciation of the changed conditions of warfare, and the only one who managd to convince the ordinary soldiers he commanded that he had some concern for their lives, and that his plans did all that could be done to husband them. Had he had the good fortune to die at, say, eighty years of age, between the wars, he would surely be considered one of the greatest Frenchmen to have ever lived, but he was blessed with an extraordinarily sturdy constitution. His politics were reactionary, as is commonly the case with old officers, and he believed socialist ideas in particular were rotting France from the inside, but it was both the genuine affection of the people for him, and his own belief that he could mitigate their sufferings under the Germans, that moved him to assume government on the nation's defeat, and led him to the infamy his memory now labors under.

What others have said about the record of Free French forces in combat alongside their allies is true. The downfall of the French army in 1940 owes much more to failures of generalship than of fighting men, and much as well to flawed design of major equipments.

French policy towards Israel today is not too congenial to me, but it should be recalled that French assistance and armaments were essential to the establishment and maintainance of that nation through its first two decades, and that Gen. DeGaulle's predictions of the long-term consequences of the '67 war were close to the mark. French policy towards Iraq in the recent dispute at the United Nations was clearly correct.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tinnypriv]

11. I agree (mostly) about the French, but

You forgot the Italians.

[The Magistrate]

16. While On Which Side, Sir?

Italian forces fielded from areas under Allied control fought, certainly, and in the relatively brief period of German occupation in northern Italy after the Italian volte face there was certainly some effective resistance. In Yugoslavia, some Italian garrisson forces went over to the partisans.

[bemildred]

21. Doormat allegation.

I have long considered the "doormat" allegation a gross canard.
They gave as good an account of themselves as anyone in the
circumstances. Thank you for setting that straight.

None of this has Jack Squat to do with whether Sharon is or is
not a punk; but I must say I find it to be a subject worthy of
prolonged consideration ...
:-)

[newyorican]

10. "a country born out of a holocaust"

What country would this be. Zionism (with an eye on the Levant)predates Nazism by several decades. The Holocaust added a great deal of momentum to the idea of a jewish homeland, but Israel was not "born" out of the Holocaust.

But the French Am. has definitely hit a nerve, the wall is an inexcusable act of colonization. Not the behavior anyone expects from a so-called democracy.

Note: To all that wish to add, "but the terrorists are bombing innocents" as a rationalization, it won't work. Just as a suicide bombing is an inexcusable act *period*, no buts. So is this annexation.

[Scurrilous]

15. Shutting traps.

If every country that was conquered by the German Blitzkrieg shut their traps, a vast silence would fall over much of Europe.
As for the French being 'no help' in WW2, the Free French (not to be confused with the Maquis or FFI French Forces Inside France) and the French Corps (8 divisions of Frenchmen armed by US Lend-Lease) fought many a bloody battle alongside Allied troops in N. Africa and Europe. It would be a shame to belittle or forget their contribution and sacrifice for the Allied war effort.

[Tinoire]

18. Welcome to F/A Scurrilous

:toast:

Excellent points but wasted I fear. Historical accuracy is not a requisite for posting here.

[The Magistrate]

23. It Is My Endeavor, Ma'am

To make it at least adviseable....

[tinnypriv]

4. Excellent

Criminal, thug, and crook are all accurate :D

More of the same please.

[Forkboy]

6. What an insult

to fine upstanding punks!

[Violet_Crumble]

20. Joey Ramone would be rolling in his grave right now!!

n/t

[Tinoire]

12. Well, well, well, All this name calling

And horror of horrors- he "had criticised the controversial fence being built to cut off the Palestinian territories".

Gee, I remember two other stories concerning horrible name-calling and not a peep from anyone...

January 2002...

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- An Israeli legislator has caused an outcry in the Knesset after calling the U.S. ambassador to Israel "a Jew-boy."

Knesset member Zvi Hendel, a member of the National Union-Israel, Our Home faction, was reacting to Daniel Kurtzer's remarks that Israel should allocate funds for the disabled and not for Jewish settlements.

<snip>

The dispute mirrors one several years ago when right-wing legislator Rehavam Ze'evi called then-U.S. ambassador Martin Indyk, one of the architects of the peace process, a "Jew-boy" for not supporting a more nationalist Israeli line.

The last time someone called me that, he got a punch in the face, Indyk replied, and the two almost came to blows.

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk020111/i18.shtml


WASHINGTON — The religion of the U.S. ambassador to Israel is becoming an issue with right-wing American critics of his stance on Israel's settlement policies, with one critic going so far as to demand that President Bush never appoint another Jew as envoy.

The Zionist Organization of America is calling for the dismissal of the ambassador, Daniel Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew, citing his "gross interference with Israel's internal affairs" and mentioning his religion.

Meanwhile, the former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Morris Amitay, asked Mr. Bush in an open letter Monday to "make it an unwritten rule, of course, never again to appoint a Jewish American as our Ambassador to Israel."


<snip>

"Yehudon," the Hebrew word Mr. Hendel used to describe Mr. Kurtzer, is generally translated as "kike," "Jew boy," or "Yid," and has a long and ugly history in Israeli politics. (See Philologos, Page 12) The name was flung at Secretary of State Henry Kissinger by protestors in 1975 as he pushed Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula. It was also used by outspoken Knesset member Rehavam Ze'evi, murdered by Palestinian terrorists last year, to characterize Mr. Indyk in 1997.

While the name-calling subsided this week, the larger issue of how Israel will spend its $3 billion in U.S. aid money remained.

<snip>

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.01.18/news1.html

When an American diplomat is the target of an anti-Semitic slur, one would expect a hue and cry from Jewish organizations, but when the curse was hurled last week by a far-right Israeli legislator there was barely a whimper from the defenders of the faith.

Zvi Hendel, a Knesset member from the National Union-Israel Our Home Party, called U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew, yehudon, a Hebrew insult meaning "little Jew boy." Hendel, who apologized several days later, conceded that the term had "Nazi connotation," but denied that was his intent.

<snip>

http://www.peacenow.org/nia/news/bloomfield0102.html

Two weeks later Indyk encountered the legislator in person at a memorial service for the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. “The last time someone called me a ‘Jew boy,’” Indyk told retired Israel Gen. Rehavam Zeevi, “I was 15 years old and he got a punch in the face.”

“Try me,” replied Zeevi, who is chief of Israel’s ultranationalist Moledet party. Then he used the same slur again, twice: “yehudon, yehudon.” The Hebrew term, according to The Washington Post’s Barton Gellman, who reported the incident, can be translated “Jew boy,” “yid” or “kike.” Since Zeevi used the term three times in all, perhaps he meant all three. In any case, Indyk then switched the conversation, held two seats away from Israel’s chief rabbi Meir Lau and only a few seats further away from Leah Rabin, to English. “You are a disgrace to the state of Israel,” Indyk told the member of the Knesset. “And you,” responded Zeevi, “are a son of a bitch.”

At the end of the memorial service, Zeevi apologized at the urging of fellow Knesset member Binyamin Ben Eliezer. Asked about the incident later, Indyk told Gellman, “I’m not interested in getting into the details, but what’s important here is that a member of the Knesset, leader of a political party, is attacking with an anti-Semitic slur the representative of the United States of America in Israel.” Said labor MP Ephraim Sneh, who witnessed the incident in which the two men nearly came to blows, “I’m not a psychologist, but it seems to me the ambassador used the utmost of his self-restraint not to do it.” So we stand corrected. Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Israel.

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0497/9704052.htm

[Darranar]

14. I guess I missed these...

but sadly enough, they don't surprise me. Many in the right-wing pro-israel (not to say that all who are pro-Isarel are right-wing, or vice versa) often insult those that they disagree with. There's the whole issue of criticism of Israel and anti-semitism, for the most blatant example.

[newyorican]

13. Mr Ambassador

I have known many punks in my day and Ariel is no punk.

But his criticism, again, centers on the wall. That wall has become a growing problem for the Israelis, who seem to act like they don't give a rats ass about the rest of the world anyway.

Of course, it's much easier to abuse your keyboards ragging on cheese-eating, surrender-monkeys, than to address the actual issues that were raised by the french ambassador.

[Tinoire]

17. Punk is not a good translation of the word - Thug is more accurate

Voyou is closer to thug. A trashy thug.