The trial of Geert Wilders has resulted in a guilty verdict. The court – which was located in a maximum security courthouse in the Netherlands near Schipol airport – found the leader of the PVV (Freedom Party) guilty of ‘insulting a group’ and of ‘inciting discrimination’. The trial began with a number of complaints, but the proceedings gradually honed down onto one single comment made by Wilders at a party rally in March 2014. This was the occasion when Wilders asked the crowd whether they wanted ‘fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands’. The crowd of supporters shouted ‘Fewer’.

On Friday morning the court decided not to impose a jail sentence or a fine, as prosecutors had requested. The intention of the court is clearly that the ‘guilty’ sentence should be enough.

For Wilders himself this will have been another unpleasant ordeal. But he may have become used to them by now. Five years ago Wilders was put on trial for insulting a religion. The first trial fell apart after one of the judges was found to have attempted to influence the evidence of one of Wilders’s defence witnesses. Once the trial restarted, it resulted in an acquittal. So the Dutch Justice system turn out to have been “second-time lucky” in getting the conviction they appear to have so badly wanted.

This is apparent from remarks, incomparably more damning than “fewer Moroccans”, made by members of the Netherlands’ Labour Party, who of course were never prosecuted:

• “We also have s*** Moroccans over here.” Rob Oudkerk, Dutch Labour Party (PvDA) politician.
• “We must humiliate Moroccans.” Hans Spekman, PvDA politician.
• “Moroccans have the ethnic monopoly on trouble-making.” Diederik Samsom, PvDA politician.

Wilders’s legal trials are perhaps the least of it. For more than a decade Wilders has had to live under permanent security protection because of the threat to his life from Muslim extremists in the Netherlands. One might agree or disagree with a person who believes there should be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, but it requires an extraordinary degree of callousness to prosecute someone whose life is in danger from parts of such a community for voicing a desire not to see that community grow. The irony cannot have been lost on the wider world that on the same day that news of Wilders’s conviction came out the other news from Holland was the arrest of a 30 year-old terror suspect in Rotterdam suspected of being about to carry out ‘an act of terrorism’.

There are two aspects to this verdict which matter. The first is what it will do for Wilders himself. Domestically, within the Netherlands, it is hard to say. On the one hand it is possible that his supporters and others will be galvanised by the intrusion of the judiciary into politics and by the nakedly partisan and political nature of this trial. Many observers predict a boost in the polls for Wilders, who may benefit from this further proof of what he has often said – that it is Wilders against the Dutch establishment.

But internationally and among a good many Dutch nationals the conviction will carry a stigma. Internationally it will continuously be used against Wilders that he has been convicted of ‘inciting discrimination’ even though the charge is about a proto-crime – a crime that has not even occurred: like charging the makers of a car chase movie for ‘inciting speeding’. As with many ‘hate-crime’ trials across the free world, from Denmark to Canada, the aim of the proceedings is to blacken the name of the party on trial so that they are afterwards formally tagged as a lesser, or non-person. If this sounds Stalinist it is because it is.

In the long-term, though, there is something even more insidious about this trial. For as we have noted here before, if you prosecute somebody for saying that they want fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands then the only legal views able to be expressed about the matter are that the number of Moroccans in the country must remain at precisely present numbers or that you would only like more Moroccans in the country. In a democratic society this sort of matter ought to be debatable. But the judges in the Wilders case have tried to make it un-debatable. By prosecuting somebody for expressing one opinion they have sent out a message to all citizens. And that is where the stifling effect of the Wilders trial will be felt.

It will be felt by all those Dutch men and women who have concerns about the direction their country is going in, including concerns that the rate of immigration has been too high in recent years. Many of these people will already have felt a certain social pressure not to air their views and now there is the additional restraining factor that their views have been made illegal. At social gatherings across the land the people who believe that there should only ever be more Moroccans in the Netherlands will have an additional card to play against anyone who believes the opposite. For their conversational partner will not merely be risking a social embarrassment but will be standing on the verge of committing a crime.

Any half-way civilised society – as the Netherlands most certainly is – must see that trying to squash contrary views in such a manner is the behaviour of tyrants. This gang-up of the courts and the political elite in an effort to crush dissenting opinion is unbecoming for a great and distinguished nation such as The Netherlands. But they may yet have their comeuppance.

If there is one great mental note of which 2016 ought to have reminded the world, it is how deeply unwise it is to try to police opinion. For when you do so you not only make your society less free, but you disable yourself from being able to learn what your fellow citizens are actually – perhaps ever more secretly – feeling. Then one day you will hear them. And only then – when it is too late – will you remember why you should have listened.

Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England

Welcome to the progressive “next frontier of ‘liberation'”, where the most urgent question in Western democracies is “genderism”.

North Carolina was subjected to a year of being boycotted, until it withdrew its transgender bathroom law. Last month, the National Union of Teachers in Great Britain asked the government to teach children as young as two new transgender theories. New York recently presented the first “trans-doll“. American universities are wracked with hysteria over the correct use of neutral pronouns. Even National Geographic, instead of writing about lions and elephants, started covering the “Gender Revolution”. One of the first announcements of Emmanuel Macron, as the French President-elect, was that he would appoint officials from a “gender equal” list.

(Image source: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

What does it mean that this gender mania is permeating every corner of Western societies and culture? According to Camille Paglia, the contrarian feminist, it is a sign of the decline of Western civilization. In her new book, Free Women, Free Men, she writes:

“Civilizations have gone through recurrent cycles. Extravaganzas of gender experimentation sometimes precede cultural collapse, as they certainly did in Weimar Germany. Now as then, there are forces aligning outside the borders, scattered fanatical hordes where the cult of heroic masculinity still has tremendous force”.

She then asks:

“How has it happened that so many of today’s most daring and radical young people now define themselves by sexual identity alone? There has been a collapse of perspective here that will surely have mixed consequences for our art and culture and that may perhaps undermine the ability of Western societies to understand or react to the vehemently contrary beliefs of others who do not wish us well. Transgender phenomena multiply and spread in ‘late’ phases of culture, as religious, political, and family traditions weaken and civilizations begin to decline”.

It is not a coincidence that this obsession with gender grew out of Western culture during the 1990s, the decade of peace and prosperity before 9/11. The decade was free of any existential angst, consumed by the Monica Lewinski scandal and dominated by Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History”. According to Rusty Reno, editor of First Things, gender ideology is a symbol of our epoch of “weakening”, pointing to a globalized future “governed by the hearth gods of health, wealth, and pleasure”. The high priests of this ideology, however, did not take into account the rise of radical Islam.

Before the French cities of Paris, Nice and Rouen came under the assault of jihadist groups, the French Socialist government had just one cultural priority: the “ABC of gender equality“. The name came from a controversial program that France’s women’s rights minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, had launched in 500 schools.

After approving same-sex marriage, the French government apparently thought it also had to promote a cultural revolution. According to Education Minister Benoît Hamon, who failed miserably in the recent presidential elections, schools are “a battlefield“. Half the pupils boycotted “gender theory” lessons. Then French authorities imposed on students ridiculous books such as Daddy Wears a Dress. It would have been comical if the following years would not have been so tragic. What, in fact, wrecked these French illusions was Islamic terrorism.

The effect on Western culture of this gender ideology is the rejection of the critical spirit combined with a kitsch appeal to sentiment against reason. The same gender-obsessed culture refuses to see the burkini as an Islamist tool, and instead turns it into a symbol of human rights. The consequence is that the jihadist threat is perceived merely as an unacceptable disruption of Western lifestyles. Europe risks to losing all its historic gifts: human dignity, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and its colossal culture.

The erotocratic French élites were not prepared for what turned out to be the most severe terror assault since 9/11. France, obsessed with the “ABC of equality”, was caught off-guard and ready to be disarmed when terrorists attacked it during the day that celebrates equality. In France, there was simply no public resistance to sharia law and jihadist ideology. Intoxicated with the obsolescence of identity, the only enemy these French élites knew were patriarchal privileges, since for them “domination” comes only from the white male Europeans.

The presidency of Emmanuel Macron has already been hailed by gender activists. “Macron is like a breath of fresh air in this country,” said Natacha Henry, a writer on gender issues, at the New York Times. “I think he won because he didn’t do any kind of macho performance, and that’s what we need.”

Anesthetization by an obsession with gender rights further seems to have become a fixture of countries after terror attacks. Soon after jihadists targeted Spain in 2004 and forced it to withdraw troops from Iraq, the Socialist government of Jorge Louis Zapatero embraced the titillation of gender ideology, including gay-friendly “diversity” training at elementary schools. The “Zapatero Project” was based on the “scorn of nature, reinvention of what is human, exaltation of desire”. Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s years were also marked by an “obsession” with transgender rights. Obsession with gender is a convenient distraction to avoid facing matters that are more difficult and less pleasant.

There is a saying that civilizations can be destroyed from within, rather than by armies from without. If the West will not commit itself to preserving Western societies and values, it will fall. And its extraordinary progress will be blanketed over by darkness, along with all those gender rights.

According to Camille Paglia, “a purely secular culture risks hollowness and, paradoxically, sets itself up for the rise of fundamentalist movements that ominously promise to purify and discipline”. Such as — name it — radical Islam.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

The European Commission has published a document outlining five scenarios for how the European Union could evolve within the next ten years.

The so-called White Paper on the Future of Europe, which will be presented at the Rome Summit on March 25, 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the European Union, is intended to be “the starting point for a wider public debate on the future of our continent.”

Each of the five scenarios is based on the premise that “the 27 Member States move forward together as a Union.” The document does not consider the possibility that the EU could collapse or break apart, or even that the powers of the EU be significantly curtailed. The document states:

“Too often, the discussion on Europe’s future has been boiled down to a binary choice between more or less Europe. That approach is misleading and simplistic. The possibilities covered here range from the status quo, to a change of scope and priorities, to a partial or collective leap forward.”

Nevertheless, for the European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, publicly to even consider alternatives to full-blown European federalism is a testament to the growing power and influence of anti-EU political movements in Europe.

A “family photo” of the European Commission, headed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in 2014. (Image source: European Parliament)

Indeed, a document such as this would have been unthinkable before Brexit — an abbreviation for “British exit,” which refers to the June 23, 2016, referendum by which British citizens voted to exit the European Union — and the rise of anti-EU populist parties in Austria, Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, among others. The document admits:

“Europe’s challenges show no sign of abating. Our economy is recovering from the global financial crisis but this is still not felt evenly enough. Parts of our neighborhood are destabilized, resulting in the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Terrorist attacks have struck at the heart of our cities. New global powers are emerging as old ones face new realities. And last year, one of our Member States voted to leave the Union.”

The five scenarios for the EU by 2025 are: 1) carrying on; 2) nothing but the single market; 3) those who want more do more; 4) doing less more efficiently; and, 5) doing much more together.

Scenario 1: Carrying On.

This scenario envisions the status quo, with the EU plodding ahead with “incremental progress” from crisis to crisis. The document explains:

“Priorities are regularly updated, problems are tackled as they arise and new legislation is rolled out accordingly. The speed of decision-making depends on overcoming differences of views in order to deliver on collective long-term priorities.”

Scenario 2: Nothing but the Single Market.

This scenario envisions a European Union re-focused on the single market, which refers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people within the bloc:

“In a scenario where the EU27 cannot agree to do more in many policy areas, it increasingly focuses on deepening certain key aspects of the single market. There is no shared resolve to work more together in areas such as migration, security or defense. The functioning of the single market becomes the main ‘raison d’être’ of the EU27.”

Scenario 3: Those Who Want to do More.

This scenario envisions a so-called multi-speed Europe in which some member states proceed with integration in certain areas while other member states do not:

“In a scenario where the EU27 proceeds as today but where certain Member States want to do more in common, one or several ‘coalitions of the willing’ emerge to work together in specific policy areas. These may cover policies such as defense, internal security, taxation or social matters.”

Scenario 4: Doing Less More Efficiently.

This scenario envisions the EU placing greater emphasis on some policy areas, while reducing its focus on others:

“The EU27 decides to focus its attention and limited resources on a reduced number of areas…. As a result, the EU27 is able to act much quicker and more decisively in its chosen priority areas…. Elsewhere, the EU27 stops acting or does less…. The EU’s weight in the world changes in line with its recalibrated responsibilities.”

Scenario 5: Doing Much More Together

This scenario is the European Commission’s preferred option: European federalism:

“In a scenario where there is consensus that neither the EU27 as it is, nor European countries on their own, are well-equipped enough to face the challenges of the day, Member States decide to share more power, resources and decision-making across the board.

“As a result, cooperation between all Member States goes further than ever before in all domains…. Decisions are agreed faster at European level and are rapidly enforced.

“On the international scene, Europe speaks and acts as one in trade and is represented by one seat in most international fora. The European Parliament has the final say on international trade agreements. Defence and security are prioritized. In full complementarity with NATO, a European Defence Union is created. Cooperation in security matters is routine.”

The document also offers a glimpse into what European federalism may look like in practice:

“Citizens travelling abroad receive consular protection and assistance from EU embassies, which in some parts of the world have replaced national ones. Non-EU citizens wishing to travel to Europe can process visa applications through the same network.”

The European Commission, in a rare instance of candor, admits that European federalism risks “alienating parts of society which feel that the EU lacks legitimacy or has taken too much power away from national authorities.”

The document does not, however, contemplate a scenario in which the European Union faces collapse, or in which major member states decide to follow the British example and exit the bloc.

In France and the Netherlands — two of the EU’s original six founding members — anti-EU presidential candidates are leading in the polls. Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders have both promised to call referenda on continued EU membership. If one or both of those countries were to leave the EU, this at a time when Italy and Greece are at a fiscal breaking point, a collapse of the bloc seems increasingly possible.

The European Commission says its White Paper marks “the beginning of a process for the EU27 to decide together on the future of their Union.” The Commission does not, however, consider the possibility that in 2025 it may not even exist.

When I hear about the current French peace initiative for Israel and the Palestinians, I have to keep pinching myself to make sure that I am not dreaming. After the powerful United States tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to bring peace between these protagonists, what makes the French think that they can do better?

France’s boldness is particularly shocking, since France long ago lost the right to be considered a friend of Israel. In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on Israel when the Jewish nation was under threat from a coalition of Arab countries. In doing so, de Gaulle threw the Jews under the bus in order to improve France’s relations with the Arab world. Thanks to Israeli ingenuity and resiliency, Israel still defeated the Arab coalition in the Six Day War and impressed the United States, which then replaced France as Israel’s main ally.

France’s peace initiative, which includes an international summit in Paris on May 30 to discuss the “parameters” of a peace deal, is French President François Hollande’s equivalent of de Gaulle’s betrayal of Israel. France has already announced that if the peace initiative fails, France will recognize a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rightly concluded that “this ensures that a conference will fail.”

France’s peace initiative, which includes an international summit in Paris on May 30 to discuss the “parameters” of a peace deal, is French President François Hollande’s equivalent of de Gaulle’s betrayal of Israel.

It is clear that no solution would be acceptable to Israel unless it protects Israel against continued Arab aggression, and unless it finds a solution to the millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees with which the Arab world insists on flooding Israel.

There is no sign that the Arab world, including the Palestinians, are anywhere close to accepting these conditions. France’s recognition of “Palestine” without any deal would mean that France does not consider those two conditions necessary.

France’s recognition of “Palestine” without any deal would provide no solution for Palestinian refugees. It would provide no solution to Palestinian terrorism. It would not make the concept of a Palestinian state any more real than it is today. It would not provide Israel with secure borders.

France’s unilateral recognition of “Palestine” would simply provide one more moral victory for the corrupt Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and one less reason for him to negotiate peace in good faith or to give his people what they really need: a thriving economy and a functioning civil society.

If France’s initiative had any chance of success at all (which is doubtful considering the U.S. failures under more favorable circumstances, when the Palestinian leadership was keener on negotiations and when Hamas was weaker), France eliminated that chance by announcing that it would recognize “Palestine” regardless of what happens.

Is the French government so naïve that it would play into Abbas’ hands and sabotage its own initiative? Maybe, but the more likely explanation seems to be that France knows that the peace initiative is pointless, but it is using it for theatrical value to embarrass Israel’s government and curry favor with Arab regimes.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which is often more “pro-Palestinian” (read anti-Israel) than the Palestinians, demands that Netanyahu accept the French initiative.

Haaretz takes the position that “there is no reason to reject the French initiative, which, even if it doesn’t resolve the fundamentals of the conflict, will at least put it back on the global agenda.” The theory that the conflict remains unresolved due to it not being on the “global agenda” is mind-boggling, considering the vocal and vicious worldwide anti-Israel movement. The conflict is very much on the “global agenda” — too much so, in fact — compared to other conflicts that are deadlier and get far less attention.

Haaretz claims that the French initiative “may also generate some original ideas and steps toward a solution.” Considering the attention that this conflict receives, the lack of “ideas” is far from being the problem. Pro-Israel and anti-Israel editorialists and bloggers have generated an immense body of “ideas,” most of which are totally impractical, and all of which are unrealistic until the Arab side of the conflict stops promoting hate against Israel and starts negotiating in good faith.

Haaretz‘s pathetic defense of the French initiative is followed by wholesale accusations, which have no substance, against Netanyahu. Haaretz, for instance, tries to convince readers that Netanyahu’s willingness to negotiate without conditions is itself a condition! As Haaretz is into the business of redefining words, why not say that the conflict is not really a conflict and be done with it!

Haaretz concludes by saying that Netanyahu “should give it [the French initiative] substance that will ensure the security and well-being of Israel’s citizens.” If this were possible, that would indeed be commendable, but as France, by promising the Palestinians recognition without negotiation, destroyed what little chance of success the initiative might have had. Asking Netanyahu miraculously to give the initiative “substance” is at best naïve, and at worst treacherous.

It could also be a trap to set Netanyahu up for failure, which, considering Haaretz‘s antipathy towards Israel’s Prime Minister, is likely.

Contrary to Haaretz‘s assertion that “there is no reason to reject the French initiative,” as the initiative is almost certain to fail, its failure will be one more weapon used by anti-Israel activists to demonize Israel, so there is every reason to not lend the initiative a legitimacy it does not deserve.

Israel survived de Gaulle’s betrayal, and it will likely survive Hollande’s betrayal. But one more failed initiative and one more meaningless recognition of “Palestine” will push peace and Palestinian statehood even farther away.

As Alan Dershowitz wrote recently, those who aided the Nazis in killing Jews, even indirectly, hold a part of the responsibility for the Holocaust. Those — in France, at Haaretz, or elsewhere — who claim to support peace but in fact work to undermine it, are partly responsible for the anti-Semitic campaign against Israel. They should be prominently named and exposed for collaborating with bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorists.

Fred Maroun, a left-leaning Arab based in Canada, has authored op-eds for New Canadian Media, among other outlets. From 1961-1984, he lived in Lebanon.

An important red line in France has just been crossed. In true dhimmi fashion, in a move reminiscent of both the Inquisition and the Dreyfus Trial, all of France’s so-called “anti-racist” organizations have joined a jihad against free speech and against truth.

On January 25, 2017, France’s “anti-racist” organizations — all of them, even the Jewish LICRA (International League against Racism and anti-Semitism) — joined the Islamist CCIF (Collective against Islamophobia) in court against Georges Bensoussan, a highly regarded Jewish historian of Moroccan extraction, and an expert on the history of Jews in Arab countries.

Georges Bensoussan, a highly regarded Jewish historian of Moroccan extraction, and an expert on the history of Jews in Arab countries. (Image source: Jusqu’au dernier video screenshot)

Not only did the Islamist CCIF and the Jewish LICRA unite against him, but also the French Human Rights League, SOS Racism and MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship with People).

Bensoussan is being prosecuted for remarks he made during a “France Culture” radio debate, about antisemitism among French Arabs:

“An Algerian sociologist, Smaïn Laacher, with great courage, just said in a documentary aired on Channel 3: It is a shame to deny this taboo, namely that in the Arab families in France, and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it, anti-Semitism is sucked with mother’s milk.”

The documentary that Bensoussan was referring to was called “Teachers in the Lost Territories of the Republic,” and was aired in October 2015, on Channel 3. In this documentary, Laacher, who is a French professor of Algerian origin, said:

“Antisemitism is already awash in the domestic space… It… rolls almost naturally off the tongue, awash in the language… It is an insult. When parents shout at their children, when they want to reprimand them, they call them Jews. Yes. All Arab families know this. It is monumental hypocrisy not to see that this anti-Semitism begins as a domestic one.”

No complaint was filed against Laacher. But as soon as Bensoussan, in the heat of a radio debate, referred to Arab anti-Smitism as “sucked in with mother’s milk”, CCIF, followed by all anti-racist associations, brought Bensoussan to supposed justice. Their accusation was simple: “mother’s milk” is not a metaphor for cultural anti-Semitism transmitted through education, but a genetic and “essentialist” accusation. It means: “all Arabs are anti-Semitic” — in other words, Bensoussan is a racist.

Professor Smaïn Laacher, of the University of Strasbourg, denied the quote and told the website Mediapart. “I have never said nor written that kind of ignominy”. He filed a complaint against Bensoussan, but later withdrew it.

Judgment will be rendered March 7.

This witch-hunt against Bensoussan is symptomatic of the state of free speech today in France. With the leading Islamist CCIF stalking “Islamophobia”, intellectual intimidation is the rule. Complaints are filed against everyone not saying that Muslims are the main victim of racism in France.

In December 2016, Pascal Bruckner, a writer and philosopher, was also brought to court for saying in 2015, on Arte TV, “We need to make the record of collaborators of Charlie Hebdo’s murderers”. He named people in France who had instilled a climate of hatred against Charlie: the entertainer Guy Bedos, the rap singer Nekfeu, anti-racist organizations like The Indivisibles, or the journalist Rokhaya Diallo and the supremacist movement for “people of color” known as Les Indigènes de la République (“The Indigenous of the Republic”).

It was not the first time that Islamists filed complaints against people they dislike. Charlie Hebdo was twice brought to court by Islamist organizations. Twice, the accusations of Charlie’s Islamist accusers were dismissed.

But with the Bensoussan trial, we are entering in a new era. The most venerable, the most authentic anti-racist organizations — some of them are older than a century — are, shamefully, lining up with Islamist organizations.

This tipping point was initiated in the 1980s by with SOS Racism. This organization, founded to organize young Muslims and help them to assimilate into French society rapidly, became a political movement, manipulated by the Socialist Party. SOS Racism and its slogan, “Don’t hurt my buddy”, rapidly became a new direction to the working class. With the working class attracted by the far-right party Front National, the Socialist party needed a new “clientele”. They chose Muslims, especially young Muslims, as the new revolutionary labor class. It did not matter that most of them were unemployed: they were “victims”.

Thirty years later, it is easy for Islamist organizations to take the reins of this ideology of victimization, and to transform “anti-racism” into a fight against “Islamophobia”.

In 2016, at a symposium in Paris dedicated to “False Friends and Useful Idiots of Secularism”, Alain Jakubowicz, president of the Jewish anti-racist group LICRA, described the anti-racist field war:

“Today, CCIF (Collective against Islamophobia) is the leading anti-racist organization. This is terrifying. Today, CCIF and Indigenous of the Republic are the leading fighters against racism… not against anti-Semitism, because they do not care. This is not the question for them. And they are very clever to recruit “useful idiots” like rap singers. And Muslim youths, who have good reason to protest being those “left behind” in French society, see their idols promoting CCIF and its accusations of “state racism”. In 2016, how is it possible to talk about a racism practiced by the state in the French Republic ? This is unbelievable!”

In 2017, what is unbelievable is to see the same Alain Jakubowicz and the Jewish LICRA sitting side by side in court with CCIF to file a complaint against a prominent historian who simply speaks what he sees about the cultural transmission of anti-Semitism within the French Arab and French Muslim community.

Richard Abitbol, president of the Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel, accused Jakubowicz and LICRA of obeying the “necessity for them to find a Jewish scapegoat to build a virginity in order to comply with those who fight Islamophobia”.

To evaluate the treason of this Jewish anti-racist movement colluding with its worst enemy, it is important to remember that LICRA has been created to defend Samuel Schwartzbard. In 1920, in Paris, Schwartzbard had killed Simon Petlioura, a Cossack leader responsible for killing thousands of Jews in Ukraine. Schwartzbard was acquitted. LICRA militants were also famous in the 1930s for their street-fights against far-right anti-Semitic “Camelots du roi”.

But the LICRA disarray can be generalized to all the “anti-racist” movements. SOS Racism — which in 2008 supported the firing of a veiled Muslim employee by her employer — is today a follower of CCIF.

The venerable French League of the Human Rights (LDH), in 2006, had two prominent members — Antoine Spire and Cedric Porin — resign from the LDH and publish an op-ed in Le Monde accusing the LDH “of responding to the racism experienced by young people of immigrant background by showing complacency towards the Islamist organizations that claim to represent them”.

When the French philosopher Robert Redeker received death threats from Islamist terrorists because he criticized Islam, the LDH stated that it did not share the “noxious ideas” of Mr Redeker, but conceded that, “whatever one thinks of the writings of Mr Redeker, there is no reason for him to undergo such treatment”.

Regarding the MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship with People), it is enough to say that its leader, Mouloud Aounit , publicly joins Tariq Ramadan of the Muslim Brotherhood to fight “Islamophobia”.

In September 2009, Sihem Habchi, president of the feminist association Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Doormats), wrote in France Soir: “When I see MRAP, LDH, and Ligue de l’Enseignement accept female genital mutilation as a cultural practice, I realize that these people are not ready to help me to be free”.

In court, in defense of Bensoussan, Alain Finkielkraut, philosopher and academic, explained to the judge:

“A rogue anti-racism makes you to criminalize a concern instead of fighting the cause of this concern. If the court obeys to this injunction, it will be a moral and an intellectual catastrophe”.

Finkielkraut should have added: a political and civilizational catastrophe.

Later, at the radio Finkielkraut added: “Anti-racist vigilance became a gag rule…. For a long time, racism in France had only a white face and his victims were Arabs, Blacks and Romas”. In other words, it is forbidden today in France to say that anti-Semitism comes essentially from the (not all, but a big part of) Muslim population. “Anti-racist organizations are in denial of ‘Muslim racism’. And LICRA today is joining the denial of an anti-racist party”. Finkielkraut, a senior member of LICRA, sent his resignation to the organization’s board.

Yves Mamou is a journalist and author based in France. He worked for two decades for the daily, Le Monde, before his retirement.