Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, first secretary of the republic’s ruling party, said on Twitter that he “did not compare Israel to ISIS” when, during a radio interview Sunday, he said: “I am against identifying a community with a state. We identify the Jewish community with Israel and the Muslims with Daesh. It’s the same reasoning.”
The acronym Daesh is how many in France refer to Islamic State terrorist group.
France has seen a steady rise in anti-Semitic incidents, many of which were perpetrated against French Jews by people from Muslim or Arab background as payback for Israel’s actions.
Cambadelis’ mentioning of Israel and ISIS in the same sentence drew angry reactions, including from the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, which in a statement on Monday accused Cambadelis of “clearly comparing” the two entities.
But Cambadelis rejected this assertion on his Twitter account, in which he wrote: “I reject the vision that sees Jews as Israel or Muslims as Daesh. And I am not comparing Israel to Daesh.”
During the radio interview, Cambadelis also reiterated the party line about the need to combat rising anti-Semitism.
The issue has received more coverage recently in French media following the slaying of four Jews on January 9 at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket near Paris. The attack was perpetrated by an Islamist who was an associate of two jihadists who two days earlier had killed 12 people at the office of the Charlie Hebdo weekly over its lampooning of Islam. All three attackers were killed in police raids.
This week, the Jewish Federations of North America sent a solidarity mission to France with leaders representing 18 communities throughout North America.
They concluded their visit by meeting with the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo and the Israeli and US ambassadors to France as well as one of the women held hostage at the Hyper Cacher market and the policeman who secured her release.