CNN recently made the same distinction. What illness has overtaken these people? Have they learned nothing? Do they not see what is coming, in Europe and elsewhere?
“French Ambassador to US Outrages Jewish Expats Over Post-Paris-Attack Message,” by Ruthie Blum, Algemeiner, November 25, 2015:
Last week, French citizens residing in America received a letter from Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador to the US, responding to the tragic event in Paris on November 13.
The letter expressed horror in the face of the coordinated ISIS attacks on innocent people, without mentioning the name of the terrorist organization, and an appeal for unity and solidarity during these trying times.
A debate on social media among French Jews ensued, due to a particular passage in the missive.
After expressing solidarity with the people of France and praising the United States and President Obama for “being on our side in the fight against extremism and terrorism,” Araud wrote: “These are the foundations of our model of society that the terrorists seek to destroy: Yesterday journalists and Jews; now ordinary citizens whose only crime was to enjoy life on a Friday night in Paris.”
One Jewish ex-pat, Ron Agam, a French-born Israeli artist and activist living in New York, posted his outrage on Facebook.
“Tonight French people in the US received a letter from the French Ambassador about the events in Paris. To my surprise I learned that I — the Jew that I am — was not a regular French citizen, I was a Jew.”
Another French Jew, Schlomoh Brodowicz, an academic who immigrated to Israel, explained to The Algemeiner this week why the ambassador’s statement was so vexing.
“This man [Araud], is supposed to represent France in a major country which hosts the third-largest Jewish community in the world,” he said. “And his message clearly sets the Jews apart from other French citizens. When one recalls the slaughter committed by Islamists on January 9, 2015 in the HyperCasher kosher grocery store — where four Jews doing their shopping for Shabbat were killed – this message sounds like: ‘Those who were killed while they enjoyed entertainment on Friday night were ordinary citizens, while those who were shopping for Shabbat on Friday afternoon were not ordinary citizens; they were merely Jews.’”
This, said Brodowicz, “is reminiscent of a similar remark made by then-Prime Minister Raymond Barre after the bombing of a Paris synagogue in 1980: ‘This heinous attack was aimed at Israelites who go to synagogue, but struck innocent French people crossing the street.’”…

JawsV says
Wow. A distinction between Jews and “ordinary citizens.” People really don’t learn from history.
Don McKellar says
The Ambassador would have had a valid comment in that if he had not used the word “ordinary”. Because, just like the Nazis, the Islamic supremacists are going after the Jews and the Journalists first and then on to everybody else in their reign of terror to try and seize power.
ECAW says
But let’s hope that the politicians who caused all this are next on their list. Fat chance!
Spot On says
If there were a popular Nazi movement, I presume this Ambassador would join with them.
Adam S. says
It’s because French authorities are PC down to every molecule of every cell of their bodies.
Jihadi attack on Journalists dissing islam is nothing new nor unexpected (In other words: “They asked for it by joking about Muhammad”).
Jihadi attack on Jews isn’t new nor unexpected also, because Israel is the greatest oppressor in the Middle East. Jews are killing poor, starved and abused Palestinians left and right and provoking every neighboring islamist coutry with their warmongering.
Another sign of democracy failing by member of political caste which lost touch with voters, life and in general with reality.
Dr. Divinity says
With statements like this l can see how Europe is drowning in the murky waters of Islam.
wildjew says
Europeans (many) have an intense or pathological hatred for Israel; a hatred that has infected the American left and some on the far right here in the U.S. The hatred is so intense, they draw a distinction between Muslim or jihad violence against Israeli Jews (or Jews in general) on the one hand and against “ordinary” citizens here in the West on the other.
Spot On says
Wildjew, You are correct. We also have many of the same ilk that have been raised with hatred of Christian people or raised as bigots of another sort. Bigots are bigots. Some stupid Christians even have hatred for Jews and they too, are bigots.
The fact is that when reasonably smart people hate Jews, they will soon include Christians in their hate. Muslims use this aspect of human nature very cleverly. They kill Jews and Christians at will and when challenged, they accuse the accuser of bigotry aka Islamophobia.
When Marxists erased good vs. evil from society, the distinction between the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian philosophy was also erased by them. Next we will see the argument against killing people go away. It will be only a matter of who to kill.
Kepha says
Speaking as a Christian Rightist who believes not only the Bible from cover to cover, but also that in a state with smaller government there is room to respect your neighbor’s differing beliefs even while disagreeing with them, I note the unhappy situation with some of my ilk.
As for the Left, it seems that Johann Gottfried Herder’s comment about “that strange people out of Asia” back in the 18th century (and some say that Herder used it in an admiring rather than derogatory way) dies hard. Did not Hannah Arendt point out that for much of the 19th century, the Jews were “good Europeans” (but at the price of being the people who did not belong to a specific nation)? Now, perhaps, it seems that the Left has degraded them to the position of permanent bourgeoisie (or whatever they call the “oppressor” class these days).
And I fear that Spot On is right about the fruits of Marxist elimination of the good v. evil distinction.
But to this, I think we should all keep in mind Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This was spoken in reply to the question “Who is my neighbor?” The Lord used the parable of a man (presumably a Jew, like Jesus’ hearers) who is attacked and injured by robbers, ignored by a Kohen and a Levite, but helped by a “them”–a Samaritan. It is a reminder that while God distinguishes His own, he does not give them free reign to consider those outside the covenanted community as lacking a claim on our ethical behavior. I believe a similar teaching is found in Judaism, given that Jesus himself is a Jew (and perhaps in some religions of which I know less); but it is conspicuously absent from Islam, in which the outsider is a “Harbi”, or legitimate target for jihad and all the evil-doing it entails.
As for France’s Ambassador, it strikes me that either the Cremieux laws way back when have yet to truly take effect in the mind of official France (as a former diplomat for the USA, I know that a diplomat speaks the mind of his government), or that the Hon. M. Araud may possibly be thinking in parallel to Martin Niemoeller’s ‘First they came for the….’ and reminding all that being non-Jewish is no protection. I hope for all of our sakes’ that it is the latter.
ECAW says
Calm down. He didn’t say “merely Jews” any more than he said “merely journalists”.
Karen says
Translation: ‘yes, we expect Jews to be targets (yawn), but now real, actual French citizens are being harmed, and this must stop’. Truly disgusting. Funny how prohibitions of ‘incitement to hatred’ never seem to include hating Jews in practical reality.
RonaldB says
I wasn’t able to find a copy of the French ambassador’s letter, but it seems he not only didn’t mention the Islamic State, but didn’t mention Islam at all.
NPR did the same thing a few years ago, when they had a “memorial” program for the responders of 9/11. Shedding gallons and gallons of crocodile tears, the announcer treated the attack like it was a natural disaster, never mentioning Islam and naming al-qaeda once during the entire broadcast.
I never listened to NPR after that. Instead of listening to the news, I listen to music while working out.
Don McKellar says
The only thing he said offensive was to use the word “ordinary” before other citizens. A better word could have been chosen — perhaps it is a translation thing.
In any case, it is ASTOUNDING that the haven’t figured out what’s going on here or EXACTLY where this is all headed. First the nazis/moslems go for the journalists and Jews, then they go for everybody else. Today, right now, they have 20/20 hindsight available to gaze into the future like a crystal ball and they simply won’t because it’s not politically correct. WELL I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU. AMBASSADOR, come next election you and a whole lot of your brain dead leftist idiot pals are all going to be removed from office. They general population is waking up, murder by murder, lie by lie, cover-up by cover-up to what’s going on and realizing that it’s ALL ABOUT ISLAM and they need to do something about it.
mortimer says
WRONG! Why didn’t Ambassador Araud read the manifesto published by ISIS in which they CLEARLY STATED they were targeting “CRUSADERS” (Christians) and “PROSTITUTION” (venues where unchaperoned men and women mingled freely…i.e. WOMEN’S RIGHTS).
ISIS just declared war on WOMEN’S RIGHTS and the secular state of France, but the French elites are unable to understand Islamic law and the jihad doctrine and they are criminally negligent in their lack of interest in LEARNING ABOUT THEM!
Anna says
There’s no end no? how many bras do we have to burn this century to make it clear….WE DON’T NEED A MAN TO MAKE OUR LIVES COMPLETE 😉
Afraid they are winning the war on Christians though….seems like a no contest…with all the cross pulling down business.
Guest says
Yes, they have. I totally agree with you, Mortimer.
Sally says
I read on Jewish Library the other day about crusades and all the Jews merrily slaughtered along the way by the slap-happy soldiers, never mind what happened in Jeruselem. Nevermind what happened in Germany centuries later and never mind what’s happening now. The overwhelming, sustaining goodwill of the Jews in our battle against evil notwithstanding, I wouldn’t be surprised if the short reign of terror following 1000 years of peace doesn’t come at the hands of the Jews theselves. They would be justified.
JawsV says
The Koran is filled with Jew-hating. Muhammad mass-murdered the Jewish tribes in Arabia. Did you read about those? Jews are called the “worst enemies of the believers” (Koran 5:82).
Guest says
Nobody is ‘justified’ in taking intergenerational revenge! That’s what causes way too much anger and violence. Luckily, most jewish people are intelligent enough to know this and focus their minds on improving the world, not on taking revenge.
Captain says
Maybe. God is taking the revenge. I will curse those who curse my people. If they don’t wake up soon the German and French nations may disappear.
AntiPC says
You’ve obviously bought into all of the anti-Catholic propaganda. The crusades spanned five centuries. In all of those centuries, there are a few years where Jewish communities were targeted, often by misbegotten peasants (not actual crusaders who were often wealthy highborn). Rather, instead of knights in armor, these occurrences would include mobs with pitchforks. During some of these instances of mob violence, the Church would provide sanctuary and shelter to the Jews. Some of the inspiration for the mob violence included rumors of Jewish slave traders kidnapping Christian children and selling them in the Muslim slave markets (many slave traders during the middle ages who would go between Christian and Muslim markets were Jewish).
Many of the Jews that were slaughtered by the crusaders weren’t killed because they were Jewish, but because they supported the Caliphates against Christian Kingdoms. More often then not, when the crusaders retook land from the Caliphates, they would expel (as opposed to slaughter) who they saw as co-conspirators of the Caliphate. Occasionally, this included entire Jewish communities. This is not to say that slaughter didn’t happen (these were the middle ages after all), but certainly not in the way your imagination would have it, nor in the imaginations of those who would retell the events to either demonize the crusaders or boast of their biblical deeds.
The problem is that the tales of the crusades have been perverted throughout history by various self-serving parties, be they anti-Catholic propagandists (such as Queen Elizabeth I of England) who wanted to highlight the Church’s hypocrisy and increase their legitimacy for the protestant cause, be they 19th century European colonialists who wanted to justify the morality of their own actions by comparing themselves to crusaders, be they pan-Arab nationalists who wish to justify anti-Zionist sentiment as an ongoing struggle against crusaders, be they Islamists who wish to justify their terror, be they pro-Zionist groups who wished to justify their arms against the British for Israeli independence as a Jewish state, be they secular leftists who wish to highlight the evils of religion, etc. Each of these parties have maintained some of the urban legends surrounding the crusades for various purposes. My favorite of all these ridiculous narratives, however, is that used by the pan-Arabs and Islamists – to them, Zionism is another incarnation of the Crusaders.
History is full of victims, villains and heroes. All three of these categories are represented by individuals from every single religion, culture and ethnicity.
NYgal says
Jewish communities were not targeted, most were wiped up completely.
And Zionism is not recreation of Crusades, it is national liberation movement of Jews. That’s why comparing Zionism to Nazism is so evil. It denies Jews the right to live in their ancestral home in their own country, the right given all other people.
Kepha says
In fact, some of the Crusades targeted the Jews in the Rhine Valley, who could scarcely have supported Muslim rulers. The survivors moved east, which is why the Slavic Knaanic Jewish dialect of Bhemia and Moravia gave way to Judaeo-German/Yiddish; and why the bulk of the Jews of Eastern Europe traditionally spoke Yiddish, a Germanic language, rather than Slavic or Turkic languages.
There is no shame in recognizing the sins and wrongdoings of our forefathers–especially if we can learn to avoid them in our own little stretch of time.
The wonder will be when the Muslims recognize that their community has wronged Kufr; or when the evolutionary materialists own up to how the 20th century’s mass murders were theirs.
Angemon says
Gonna play Devil’s advocate on this one: the guy could very well just be saying “in the past they targeted Jews, whom they associate with Israel and the plight of their palestinian coreligionists, and journalists on a newspaper who they considered to have offended their prophet, but now they went and murdered people who had done them no wrong”. Sure, he picked the worst possible way to say so, but I won’t so easily attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity – Hanlon’s razor, etc.
NYgal says
Thus the implication that targeting and killing Jews is justifiable, while killing non- Jewish Frenchment is not. Would you say the same about a Muslim attack on Jews in synagogue as opposed on Christians in church?
Peggy says
Maybe Israel should seek clarification from this silly man.
UNCLE VLADDI says
What do you mean, “have these people learned nothing?”! They learned “disguise.”
Leftists are plainclothes nazis and the hippy look is their ‘new’ uniform.
Casual-Friday fascists are still fascists, Robert.
😉
(Dr.) Sandy Kramer says
First they came for the Jews…
Enragedsince1999 says
What starts with the Jews does not end with the Jews. This is a lesson the world should have learned from Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and WWII. Now, the world is very slow to learn the same lesson from the Global Jihad.