    On October 29, 2005, in the prestigious Hotel de l’Industrie in Saint
    Germain des Pres in Paris, there was a meeting of Israel Shamir with his
    French readers. The meeting room was full, but nobody was refused. The
    audience consisted of improbable mixture from Communists to Front
    National to the Black and Caribbean activists united in their rejection
    of the new world order and of Zionism. There was some tension for the
    lawyers warned of a possible police raid and imminent arrest of Shamir
    as LICRA, French Jewish ADL-like body, pressed the charges against him
    and his publisher M. Cherifi, but the evening passed without these
    complications.

    Shamir was asked about the Iranian President’s remarks, and he said:

      There is nothing unusual that states get wiped off the map. The country
      I was born in, the Soviet Union was wiped off the map. Yugoslavia was
      wiped off the map with help of NATO bombers. Prussia was wiped off the
      map by the decision of the World War victors. Palestine was wiped off
      the map so completely that it is difficult to find a map containing it.
      In the French history, Aquitaine and Languedoc were wiped off the map.
      What is unusual is the mass hysteria that surrounded the Iranian
      statement. This brouhaha proves that the Western world suffers from
      philosemitic neurosis. Things that can be said about anybody, can’t be
      said about Jews. I can call to wipe off France and create something
      different in her stead, (voices from the audience: France is already
      wiped off!) but a call to wipe off the Jewish state may lead to a real
      war against Iran. I may say: you stupid Breton; I may say: Corsicans
      took over the police force, or Sicilian mafia rules the casinos. But
      were I to change Breton or Corsican for a Jew, I’d find myself in
      handcuffs on the way to jail.

      Our struggle for equality of a Jew and non-Jew in Palestine is connected
      to the same struggle elsewhere. Jews should be equal, not superior to
      Bretons or Corsicans. But there is a complication: the Jews form a
      competing church, and their perceived superiority and overprotection
      creates the conditions for this church’s victory over the Christian
      Church. I can say whatever I want about the Christian Church, even
      things that are perfectly annoying to a Christian, But if I say things
      annoying to the Jewish church, I’ll go to prison. This unfair situation
      is unbearable. Voltaire did not hesitate to release you from the
      clutches of the Church by writing blasphemous verses about the
      Immaculate Conception. Now you may follow his lead and obtain freedom
      from the clutches of the Judaic Church. The Great Revolution
      disestablished the Catholic Church not in order to establish the Judaic
      Church in France. This is a new taboo that has to be broken, and the
      Iranian president did an important step in this direction. If it is
      permissible to wipe Palestine, the state of all people, Jews and
      non-Jews, off the map, it should be permissible to call for wiping a
      Jewish state off the map, as well.

      Unanimity of the media is frightening phenomenon. Once, it was supposed
      to be a Stalinist feature, but the uniform reaction to the Iranian
      statement shows that Stalinism came back with vengeance. Though I was a
      journalist all my life, I feel about the mainstream media as once I felt
      about the KGB – this is the enforcer of the power, not a voice of
      people.

    Our friend Paul Eisen wrote: “I find nothing wrong with the Iranian
    President's remarks. They're pretty standard stuff in such a context.
    What is more noteworthy is the huge fuss everyone is making. Yes of
    course they're looking for excuses to attack Iran but victims can't
    fight an oppressor by just avoiding giving them excuses. If the object
    is to avoid giving them excuses, then the best thing is to just give in.
    My feeling is that Israel and Jewish power can't be challenged by
    strategising. Israel and Jewish power can't be "undercut". You can't
    make Israel "look bad" because it doesn't matter if Israel does look
    bad, Israel still does what it wants. My feeling is that only defiance
    and resistance will do. I support the President of Iran in making his
    remarks.”

    He is right: defiance is the way to obtain freedom we lost. Do not
    submit, and you will win. This is the way to stop the forthcoming attack
    on Iran and to regain freedom in France and in Palestine.

    Shamir also called for unity of the Left and the Right against
    globalising imperialism.

    Shamir was asked about the late Israel Shahak whose book Three Thousand
    Years of Jewish Religion was an important step in undermining the Judaic
    paradigm. He said:

      In the Jewish tradition, there is a concept: a righteous man does not
      die unless there is a new one ready to take his place. It is based on
      the words of Ecclesiastes: ‘The sun rises and the sun sets’. Thus,
      before the setting of the sun of Eli, the sun of Samuel had risen, in
      the book of Samuel. Likewise, I began to write on this subject when
      Israel Shahak died. In a way, I took his place after he was gone. I have
      immense respect to him, but I went further: he debunked the Jewish
      paradigm in the name of liberalism and of open society, I added that the
      Open society of George Soros and its liberalism is but another name for
      Jewish paradigm.

    The Black activists asked for Shamir’s stand on the problem of
    Negrophobia being stirred up in France. He said:

      In Palestine, there are Black soldiers who man the checkpoints on the
      roads, and there are Black Palestinians who queue at the checkpoints.
      There are white and black Jews, white and black Palestinians. So the
      colour of one’s skin is not an important factor for us, the people of
      the Middle East. Similar to my countrymen, I am a colour-blind
      Daltonian, and I do not feel about the colour of skin more than about
      the colour of eyes: there are blue-eyed and brown-eyed people, of black
      and white skin, but it is as important as the colour of cat’s fur. It is
      not necessary to imitate Jewish talk about anti-Semitism by speaking of
      Negrophobia. You are French, of whatever shade of skin, and that is
      important. So you may repeat, like in the schools of old, ‘our Gallic
      ancestors’ whether your real ancestors were Franks, Dutch or Africans.
      Naturally, I am against all discrimination on the base of skin colour;
      people should be equal; but one should not encourage divisive ideas.
      Again, I do not know much about your situation here, and I am read to
      learn as much as I am ready to teach.

    On Wednesday, a decision of the French court on the case of Shamir’s
    publisher is expected.