At first we were heartened...
June 5. 2005 (Metula News Agency) - Yesterday, Friday, after a long ontological and juridical debate, that started with a series of articles by various journalists of the Ména, the Versailles appeal court, overturning the ruling by the Nanterre court, declared Edgar Nahum, alias Morin, Danièle Sallenave, Sami Naïr as well as the publishing company Le Monde guilty of racial defamation.The court :
"Declares constitutive of racial defamation according to the articles 29 paragraph 1 and 32 paragraph 2 of 29 July 1881 the following passages of the article entitled "Israel-Palestine : the Cancer" signed by Edgar MORIN, Danièle SALLENAVE, Sami(r) NAIR and published in the daily edition of Le Monde dated 4 June 2002:
"It is hard to imagine that a nation of fugitives born of a people that has been subjected to the most long-standing persecution in the history of humanity, that has endured the worst humiliations and the worst contempt, would be capable of transforming itself in the space of two generations into a dominating and self-assured people and, with the exception of an admirable minority, into a contemptuous people that takes satisfaction in humiliating.
"The Jews of Israel, descendants of the victims of an Apartheid called the ghetto, ghettoise the Palestinians. The Jews who were humiliated, despised, persecuted, humiliated, despise, persecute the Palestinians. The Jews who were victims of a merciless rule impose their merciless rule on the Palestinians. The Jews, victims of inhumanity, demonstrate terrible inhumanity. The Jews, scapegoats for all wrongs, make scapegoats of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority that are made responsible for bomb attacks that they hinder them from intercepting."
[Translated from the French by Llewellyn Brown.]
Then came the court's punishing blow against anti-Semitism and its agents...
June 2. 2005 (WSJ) - The writers of the article, Edgar Morin (a well-known sociologist), Danièle Sallenave (a senior lecturer at Nanterre University) and Sami Nair (a member of the European parliament), as well as Le Monde's publisher, Jean-Marie Colombani, were ordered to pay symbolic damages of one euro to a human-rights group and to the Franco-Israeli association. Le Monde was also ordered to publish a condemnation of the article, which it has yet to do.
[Emphases added. Hat tip: Mara Schiffren]
For those with the wherewithal for a WSJ online subscription (only $79 -- roughly the cost to Le Monde for 64½ anti-Semitic slurs), the article can be found here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4091956.stm
