Charles Enderlin Again Protected By The French Courts

Apparently in France, denouncing Anti-Semitism can make you an Anti-Semite.

In "Are the Al-Dura Critics Anti-Semites?" John Rosenthal details the case of Nicolas Ciarapica, who blogs at Blogdei. Ciarapica quoted from the article “French Jews Are Completely Fed Up,” by the editor-in-chief The Metula News Agency, Stéphane Juffa--and was accused of the “racial defamation” of Charles Enderlin:

“French Jews Are Completely Fed Up” consists precisely of a denunciation of anti-Semitism in France. Indeed, the immediate context for Juffa’s piece is the most heinous anti-Semitic crime in recent French history: the murder of Ilan Halimi. Halimi was the young French Jew who in early 2006 was kidnapped and then savagely tortured over a period of three weeks by a gang from Bagneux in the Parisian banlieues. Interrogated by the police, members of the gang - appropriately enough called the “Barbarians” - made no secret of the anti-Semitic prejudice that animated the group.

In the first part of “French Jews Are Completely Fed Up”, Stéphane Juffa connects the open anti-Semitism of Ilan Halimi’s tormentors to the distorted representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the French media and, in particular, to Charles Enderlin’s Al-Dura report on France2. “Is it so hard to understand,” he writes,

that the Islamist-wannabe thugs of Bagneux imagined that in torturing to death Ilan Halimi, they were avenging, among others, the “martyrdom” of little Mohammed Al-Dura, which was staged by Talal Abu-Rahma with commentary by Enderlin and broadcast for free in France and to the four corners of the globe by [the French public broadcasting company] France Télévisions.

In part two, Juffa connects the distortions of the French media in turn to France’s traditionally pro-Arab Middle East policy: commonly known as “la politique arabe de la France” or “French Arab Policy.” He then returns to the question of the consequences for French Jews: offering a typology of different ways that French Jews respond to the anti-Semitism in their environment. The passage is worth translating at some length: both for its own sake and so that the reader - apparently unlike Nicolas Bonnal, the presiding judge in the Ciarapica case - can appreciate the context of the passage that the Parisian court would judge to be anti-Semitic. Enderlin’s name appears amidst a list of several French Jewish journalists, all of whom are accused by Juffa of having incited anti-Jewish hatred through false or tendentious reporting. [emphasis added]

When Nicolas Ciarapica was found guilty in February of having “racially defamed” Charles Enderlin, he had to pay 1 euro in damages plus court costs.

But the French court required him to do one more thing:

In addition, Ciarapica has been required to publicize the judgment on his website for two months. Visitors to Blogdei are currently greeted on the homepage and indeed all pages by a boxed message in all capital letters that reads: “NICOLAS CIARAPICA, THE DIRECTOR OF THIS PUBLICATION, HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF RACIAL OR RELIGIOUS DEFAMATION WITH REGARDS TO CHARLES ENDERLIN.” When one clicks on the box, a window opens up containing a somewhat longer message, which specifies that Ciarapica’s offense was to have insulted Enderlin “by virtue of his belonging to the Jewish community.” Nicolas Ciarapica has thus been obliged by the court to wear a sort of electronic scarlet letter, clearly branding him as an anti-Semite.

Whatever else may be happening in the actual Al-Dura trial, elsewhere the French judicial system is still intent on protecting Charles Enderlin from criticism.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Charles Enderlin and Nicolas Ciarapica.