Three Cheers for US Ambassador Charles Kushner | The American Spectator

Well bravo.

The United States Ambassador to France, Charles Kushner by name, has made bold to stand up in public — in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal — and call on French President Emmanuel Macron to address what Kushner calls “the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it.”

Among other things, the Ambassador notes:

On the 81st anniversary of the Allied Liberation of Paris, which ended the deportation of Jews from French soil, I write out of deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it. Antisemitism has long scarred French life, but it has exploded since Hamas’s barbaric assault on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, pro-Hamas extremists and radical activists have waged a campaign of intimidation and violence across Europe. In France, not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized. Your own Interior Ministry has reported antisemitic incidents even at preschools.

Having recently returned from a Newsmax-sponsored trip to Israel myself, the importance of Kushner’s message to Macron cannot be missed.

To recall, I noted in this space here in The American Spectator:

“For certain, it is safe to say that most Americans have no idea of the deep and lasting impression the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel has made on the Israeli population. The assault was so brutal and murderous that the only thing comparable to it in America is 9/11.

• The attack came on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.

• Over 4,000 rockets were fired into Israel. They targeted military bases and civilians alike in over 20 communities. Over 1,000 Israelis were slaughtered. The toll included women and children along with men.

• Our tour guides took us to the site of the Nova music festival, where on that day, a concert was ongoing as the terrorists raided the grounds and massacred almost 400 concert attendees. The American Spectator, being a family publication, I will not link to the Wikipedia Entry on the Nova festival as it contains extremely graphic footage of Israeli soldiers arriving after the attack and finding the place strewn with dead bodies. By the time of our visit, the place had been cleaned up, and it was filled with smiling photos and memorabilia associated with the slaughtered concert goers.

• Also, that day, we saw the place where the terrorist group Hezbollah attacked a soccer field where young Israeli kids were playing soccer. The rockets hit the soccer field directly, instantly killing twelve kids.”

To understand all this — and then realize France’s President Macron is, in Kushner’s words — issuing “Public statements haranguing Israel and [making] gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state [that] embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France. In today’s world, anti-Zionism is antisemitism — plain and simple.”

Bingo.

For the unaware, the history of France on this subject is worthy of recall. It isn’t good, either.

When Hitler’s Germany occupied France during World War II, the Vichy government was set up in France to run the country. And in the doing, the Vichy government collaborated with the occupiers in deporting large numbers of French Jews to concentration camps. History records that by the end of the war, some 25 percent of France’s Jewish population had perished in the Holocaust.

Current records show that “France today has the third largest Jewish population in the world.”

Again, history chronicles a long record of French maltreatment of Jews. Whether it was the French King Philip II in 1182 or on through the centuries by later monarchs and rulers, Jews in France have been repeatedly mistreated. Synagogues were targeted, one as recently as 1980, the first since World War II ended. In 2002, there was a series of attacks on various French Jewish targets during Passover.

One could go on. But the bottom line here is that United States Ambassador Charles Kushner has publicly called on French President Macron to stand up and act, to quite publicly oppose what Kushner and doubtless others see as the current wave of French anti-semitism.

Kushner ends by saying this:

Mr. President, I urge you to act decisively: enforce hate-crime laws without exception; ensure the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses, prosecute offenders to the fullest extent; and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.

As U.S. ambassador to France, I stand ready to work with you and with leaders across French society to forge a serious plan that addresses the roots of antisemitism and defeats it.

Amen

Three cheers for America’s Ambassador Charles Kushner. He represents our country well.

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