Is Paris Burning?
As Germany’s defeat in World War II became inevitable, Adolf Hitler, true to his scorched-earth brutality and determination to destroy his enemies, ordered Paris burned to the ground rather than surrendered intact. The chilling question he asked his underlings associated with his order was: “Is Paris Burning?”
Today, one might ask the same question not merely about Paris, but about France itself. Images of rioters brandishing —black, white, red, and green—Palestinian Arab and Hamas flags, stand in stark contrast to the conspicuous absence of France’s own red, white, and blue banner.
One might wonder whether the riots are occurring in France, or Tehran.
The current wave of riots, looting, and arson has prompted scrutiny of the organizations behind France’s October student protests and their wider networks of supporters and international activists. A reported investigation identified 54 organizations and movements, ranging from communist parties, revolutionary socialist groups, labor unions, and environmental activists to Muslim student associations, pro-Palestinian Arab organizations, community organizers, and international media outlets.
Only 16 of the 54 organizations were student or youth groups. The remaining 38 included adult-led communist organizations, labor unions, political parties, revolutionary-left movements, Palestinian Arab advocacy groups, and media outlets. From the outset, far-left, communist, and Islamist groups helped organize and amplify the demonstrations, using grievances over school conditions as a springboard for a broader struggle against capitalism, austerity, policing, military spending, and Israel.
Videos from Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Strasbourg, show smoke-filled streets with a canopy of Palestinian Arab flags flying above the crowds. The question is whether these demonstrations have become a vehicle for something more troubling than student grievances or opposition to government policy.
Investigations are continuing, and no official determination has classified the protests as antisemitic. Nevertheless, reports of a disproportionate number of attacks on Jewish establishments and places of worship raise serious questions about the selection of targets.
To wit, Marseille has approximately 98,000 non-Jewish-owned businesses, compared with just 100 Jewish-owned businesses. The city also has approximately 150 churches, 15 Protestant temples, 70 mosques, and seven synagogues. If reports are true that Jewish sites were attacked while mosques were left unscathed are confirmed, that disparity warrants serious scrutiny. Were the acts of vandalism random, or did antisemitism influence the choice of targets? The evidence must determine the answer, but the question cannot simply be dismissed.
Antisemitism has historically served as a common denominator among otherwise incompatible political movements. Revolutionary socialists, communists, Islamists, and other factions may disagree on everything else, yet hostility toward Israel can provide common ground. The Jewish state becomes a convenient target through which disparate grievances are expressed and legitimized. When opposition to Israeli government policy becomes a pretext for demonizing Jews, celebrating violence against Israelis, or holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, political criticism crosses into antisemitism.
The danger is not merely that antisemitism may surface at the margins of a protest. It is that it can become the glue binding together movements that otherwise share little. History offers ample warning of what happens when Jews are cast as the common enemy of competing political factions. Slogans change and ideological justifications evolve, but the impulse to isolate and demonize Jews remains disturbingly familiar.
When hostility toward Jews becomes the cause around which otherwise divided movements unite, antisemitism is no longer incidental to political mobilization. It risks becoming its organizing principle. That possibility demands scrutiny and, wherever antisemitism is established, unequivocal condemnation—not rationalizations, excuses, or silence must prevail.
