[Beretta_Vexee]

There is an element of theatre involved, but it is also a way of sending a very clear signal that the France is not satisfied with the ambassador's behaviour.

When everything is going well, meetings between the Foreign Office and ambassadors remain private.The fact that the ambassador did not attend the meeting himself but sent a subordinate is a public affront.

What is strange is that the US ambassador's communication is not really intended for the French or French jews, but is merely a sign of support for Israel.

There is currently an Israeli media offensive in France followin President Macron's comments on the recognition of a Palestinian state. The Israeli state and its supporters are buying advertising spots on YouTube and Instagram to encourage French Jews to do their ahria with free money.

There are regular attempts to exploit anti-Semitic crimes or news stories to claim that France is hell on earth for Jews and that Israel is there to save them. But then again, we haven't yet seen Belgian commandos coming to kidnap people in France or Luxembourgers launching rockets.

The only new thing is that the US ambassador is taking part in this type of operation and behaving like an arsehole with the French Foreign Office.

[zeroq]

It is theater and it's more about sending messages to everyone else.

A state can vocalize it's disapproval directly in a more direct and meaningful way using back channels and political ways, but this is more about giving a clear signal to everyone else.

It's PR basically.

[dragonwriter]

> It is theater and it's more about sending messages to everyone else.

"More about", I think, ignores the degree to which sending the message publicly to everyone else can be a very important part of sending the message to the obvious direct target.

> A state can vocalize it's disapproval directly in a more direct and meaningful way using back channels and political ways

Yeah, but "we are not allowing you to publicly save face by restricting our protest to private back channels" is itself an important way of communicating the severity of the message to the direct target.

[zeroq]

Yes, but as a state, if you're not happy you can impose tarrifs, play a dirty game by revoking visas to athletes or Putin's favourite actress, or use any other indirect way to show your disapproval. And use back channels to make sure they know exactly why this is happening. Plenty of ways.

This is Kabuki theatre, it is to show everyone else that you're dissatisfied.

[jltsiren]

Etiquette, norms, and formal communications are fundamentally about precision. You send only the message you intended, while minimizing the risk of unintended consequences.

If your actions have real-world consequences, they are guaranteed to send other messages beyond the one you intended. Tariffs, visa revocations, assassinations, wars, and whatever impact other people beyond their direct targets, and those people may change their behavior in unpredictable ways.

[umanwizard]

> Etiquette, norms, and formal communications are fundamentally about precision.

Not at all, in fact often exactly the opposite is true. The French president could have posted “fuck you for writing that letter, our recognition of Palestine has nothing to do with antisemitism” on his Twitter account. That would be a lot more precise than this diplomatic act.

[jltsiren]

That would have sent a bunch of unintended messages. By not using formal diplomatic channels, he would have made the statement look less serious. People might have asked if it represents the opinion of the president as an individual rather as a representative of the state. And the unexpected vulgar tone might have changed people's opinions on him, perhaps making them less interested in dealing with him in the future.

[fortzi]

> we haven't yet seen Belgian commandos coming to kidnap people in France or Luxembourgers launching rockets

Not all hate crimes involve rockets. I know a few Jews who grew up in France, and all of them report antisemitic incidents that happened to them personally, some physically violent. I’m talking mid-day paris, not some otherwise sketchy circumstances. They all fear being identified as jews in the streets of Paris.

[fortzi]

Every French jew that I know has been dealing with direct antisemitism in France, sometimes violent. Your comment seems to downplay that.

[tptacek]

I have no idea how universal these observations are and cringe at things like "every X I know in Y sees Z" but I'll add I have friends in similar positions in France and the atmosphere there seems significantly worse than in the US. I don't believe I have any friends friends in Europe that are openly supportive of the current Israeli government.

Of course, that's not all Kushner said; he also apparently cast support for Palestinian statehood as antisemitic, which is obviously inflammatory. The more grounded in fact concerns about European antisemitism are, the more unfortunate Kushner's statement is.

[yodsanklai]

That's sounds like an exaggeration: most jewish people won't deal with any type of discrimination simply because they aren't identifiable as jewish.

Regardless, antisemitism exists in France and elsewhere. It's just not the case that France doesn't do anything about it. These crimes are punished. Maybe not as severely as one would hope, but by French standards, it's pretty serious.

But as parent comment mentioned, the current situation has little to do with that.

[prmoustache]

> That's sounds like an exaggeration: most jewish people won't deal with any type of discrimination simply because they aren't identifiable as jewish.

As an identity, yes they still receive a lot of hate.

As individuals unless they wear distincrive signs like a kipa they will probably receive less hate and discrimination than say...people with red/ginger hair which is still super common. If they are transexuals and gay black redhead jews with rumanian nationality and and live with an asian partner, they are fucked.

[fencepost]

And of the ones identifiable as Jewish, the ones where it's just because they wear a yarmulke or something similar probably also don't have problems.

And then there are going to be the ones festooned with Stars of David, and pushing for every conflict they can possibly get into so they can claim antisemitism. Those? Those I'd believe having problems, but they're not having problems because they're Jewish - they're having problems because they're assholes.

Is there antisemitism in France? I'm positive there is. Is there anti-Muslim sentiment as well? I'm positive there is. (side note, aren't middle-eastern Muslims generally considered Semites as in descendants of Shem?)

[woodruffw]

> (side note, aren't middle-eastern Muslims generally considered Semites as in descendants of Shem?)

Arabs and Jews are both Semitic (in the sense of speaking Semitic languages and having Levantine origins), but the word “antisemitism” refers specifically to Jew hatred. This is mostly a historical quirk of 19th century Germans trying to come up with a more scientific sounding phrase than Judenhass.

(Also, to be pedantic: there are non-Semitic middle-eastern Muslims, as well as semitic middle-eastern non-Muslims/Jews. It turns out that “semitic” itself isn’t a super useful category, which is why “antisemitism” should really be read as a single lexeme rather than “hatred of all semites”.)

[umanwizard]

> aren't middle-eastern Muslims generally considered Semites as in descendants of Shem?

This has the same energy as “technically Elon Musk is African-American”.

Sometimes words have come to mean something specific that doesn’t precisely correspond to their literal components or etymology, and pretending not to understand this just impedes communication.

[fencepost]

Connotation vs denotation indeed.

But I'll stick by my position that for a lot of people feeling put-upon it's because they're generally unpleasant not because of their ethnic, religious or other background but because of their personalities.

Personally, I'd call the current Israeli government one of the "sovereign citizens" of the world - and while there's a certain "duh" element to that because indeed nations are sovereign, the connotation I'm trying to get at here is that they have the same "doesn't play well with others" energy of the US 'sovcits'

[huhkerrf]

This comment has a real big, "it doesn't exist, but if it does they were asking for it" energy that you wouldn't see for other groups.

[maest]

Counterpoint: all my french Jewish friends have reported no such thing. The group is not large, but relatively diverse, spread across 2-3 almost disjoint circles.

[liotier]

French Jew here. Antisemitism exists in France, like everywhere in Europe - we have some history about that going back at least a millennium. But Israel's propaganda interpretation of what antisemitism is and how much of it exists is laughably exaggerated... And it is used as a pretext by the far right to discriminate against Muslims.

[Beretta_Vexee]

The French far right only cares about anti-Semitism, women's rights and even LGBT+ rights when it allows them to bash immigrants and Muslims. In a bizarre twist, activists from the far-right National Rally party set up a fake LGBT+ association that marched in the Paris Gay Pride parade with anti-Palestinian slogans.

It was such a mess that they were protected by three rows of riot police. You'd have to be very naive to believe that such false and hateful people could be allies to anyone.

We sometimes make fun of Americans, but we also have some great bingo cards too.

[sir0010010]

May I ask: does this group wear yarmulkes, star of David symbols or otherwise have a way for people to visually identify them as Jewish?

[dolmen]

I guess a more common discrimination is related to people's names.

[sir0010010]

How would people they are passing on the street know their names though? Even then, not every Jewish person has a Jewish sounding name, just like not every Jewish person is visually identifiable as such.

[wredcoll]

Yay, dueling anecdotes!

[nsriv]

Kushner's piece in the WSJ [1] makes the claim that the French government's recognition of Palestine and public statements "haranguing Israel" has uniquely exacerbated this and asserts October 7th is the genesis of this behavior, with no mention of the behavior that Israel is being "harangued" for, which your comment seems to downplay.

The letter is a clear attempt to bully an ally into US style speech suppression by using someone that has both official position and a personal Presidential imprimatur.

[1] https://archive.fo/wzVUR

[bambax]

This Kushner is a convicted felon and a major crook. He only got where he is because his son married Trump's daughter, and then he got pardoned, and then he gave some money to Trump.

It's insane that anyone listens to what he has to say. He should just be slapped in the face and sent home.

[ggm]

Not to minimise modern French antisemitism, it has deep roots which transcend this immediate political crisis. I am sure you know this. Dreyfus wasn't an origin event, antisemitism had been rife in French culture for ages before. I stop at that point because there is at least some political continuity to turn of the 19th century politics, the downfall of the third Republic aside.

I see modern day French antisemitism as a bizarre union of right wing echt French, le pen-type and modern era Islamic migration from Francophone former French colonies. Former enemies united in a common hatred.

[Beretta_Vexee]

Let's not forget the strange mix of conspiracy theories, extreme right-wing views, and anti-colonialism, like Dieudonné.

[ggm]

Absolutely! But my (very implicit) point of substance is that for a US ambassador to declare fatwa NOW rather than at about 2000 points in the past, also not forgetting deep historical American institutional antisemitism, it's just bizarre. It's opportunist political theatre.

[tptacek]

I don't think it's bizarre; I think there's been a step function in overt antisemitism in Europe, which is what he's seizing on. That he's an awful and ineffective messenger for that concern shouldn't blind us to the legitimacy of the underlying claim.

[ggm]

There has indeed been a step function. Fuelled from Russia and Iran amongst others. For example, Australia has just expelled the Iranian ambassador (the first expulsion of diplomats since WWII) for paying criminals to firebomb synagogues.

France's problems are a function both of history, and push politics. Some of it is endogenous, some of it is externally driven. I have no doubt the same is true in Germany, Netherlands, the UK. Sure, an underlying mass migration pressure is feeding this, but many of the migrants in france pass through, seeking better times in the UK. The ones who stay, are in the main francophone, and appear to bring with them weaker guard lines against radicalism. Thats a huge bummer.

He isn't signalling this because of conviction, he's signalling this because his government wants him to, to continue to back the Netenyahu government. I wouldn't cease trade or relations with France or any EU country on these grounds, its a political dispute about recognition of Palestine, not a statement for or against antisemitism.

You know, and I know, after this evil war ends, Netenyahu is in big domestic trouble. There will probably be another weak, rightist dominated government but the court system will catch up with Bibi. Now .. what does that parallel in the USA?

[fsckboy]

there has been antisemitism historically all over Christendom and Islamdom (in a similar way to the Jews of Jewdom declaring themselves God's chosen people). Viewed in that context, it's an error to describe American antisemitism as deep, it was always shallower than all the rest. As a result, America has a proportionately very high Jewish population, and with the 20th century decline of "class based" discrimination (generally in the form of WASP-control of social institutions) Jews in the US have flourished and appear at very high rates throughout the knowledge economy meritocracy.

[tln]

What does this mean "to encourage French Jews to do their ahria with free money"

Despite Googling, I'm lost on what "ahria" means

[avar]

It's a misspelling of "aliyah", which is a term for jews outside of Israel immigrating to Israel.

They're saying Israel's currently spending advertising money in France hoping to convince French jews to move to Israel.

[Beretta_Vexee]

Alyah, Alya, aliyah, Arhia, I don't know how it's supposed to be spelled in English. The wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah

I haven't looked into the details, but Israel state and other entites promise housing assistance of up to €1,500 per month, Hebrew lessons, tax exemptions, etc. Literally free money.

[edanm]

There's no "r" in the word in Hebrew. I think "aliyah" comes closest to how a Hebrew speaker would say the word.

[umanwizard]

Possibly they meant "Aliyah" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah

[ciconia]

Maybe "aliah" - immigrating to Israel.

[saubeidl]

Sounds to me like the ambassador should be kicked out of the country - they are actively conspiring against their host country with a foreign power.