Bad News from France (??)

One of the hazards of the Electronic Age is the easy propagation of viruses – and more insidiously – of hoaxes. The latter art form has become so prevalent that, as the virus disables your computer, so the hoax email disables one’s ability to trust the content of anything on the web, without undergoing a stringent and time-consuming confirmation procedure. Perhaps this latter is not without its benefits, as of course as far as the print media are concerned one has long since learned not to accept anything on trust.

One hoax-virus which circulates incessantly, seemingly from the United States, is entitled “Bad news from France” (sometimes adding “Real Bad News?”)

This HOAX has been circulating since at least 2002 - when there were serious (but not anti-Jewish) riots in France, but probably before that, since some of the events it details date from much earlier. I have been receiving it for some time and have responded on several occasions. Usually a boycott of French goods is proposed .

The French Bad News Hoax was reported as "current news" by Arutz Sheva in 2005 but when their reporter asked a French Jewish community representative about the accuracy of such "reports" they write

Manek Weintraub, a leader in the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) told the British website TotallyJewish.com, "So far nothing has happened. There was a Molotov cocktail that seems to have been hurled at a small synagogue but nobody really knows about it. It [the riots] will concern the public authorities but Jews are largely absent from the story, which is welcome."

Several attacks worldwide - including France- were reported against Jewish targets in 2002 (this year appears to be a peak for such incidents when some events apparently related to those of the hoax email may have happened) reflecting events in the Middle East and largely instigated by Muslims: the following events appear verbatim in a 2002 Blog

In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire.
In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed
Jewish sports club in Toulouse attacked
In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team
A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France.
A Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France.

and so date from at least pre-2002.


But how far do you go back? During World War II there were of course much worse events to report - but this hoax purports to report current events. If you add all the anti-Semitic attacks in any one country over a long enough period you would come up with a horrific catalogue - but France has been extremely good in recent times both at living up to its WWII past, and also for its robust actions against Islamic extremists - unlike, say, the UK or Scandinavian countries.

Arguably one of the most anti-Semitic states in the West today, on a numerical basis, is the United States. Universities all over the US are centres of Jew-baiting and anti-Zionist activity. Charges against Jews are made by "academics" (Walt, Mearsheimer) , even an ex-president (Carter), culminating with the recent near-appointment of Charles Freeman to the Obama administration. Nobody of Jewish origin has ever been or ever could be head of State in the US, unlike France where President Sarkozy loudly proclaimed his Jewish origins before his election – and France has already had one fully-Jewish President (Alexandre Millerand) and several Jewish Prime Ministers. In the United States, for example, Madeleine Albright was confirmed as the 64th Secretary of State, but had concealed the fact that she was Jewish in order to obtain this office (although as a historian she should have known her origins and had stayed with her sister – an Orthodox Jew).

However, as far as I can ascertain, nobody is circulating “Bad news from the U.S.” nor advocating a boycott of American goods.