Earlier this week, Paris hosted a state memorial ceremony marking the 77th anniversary of the July 16 roundup of Jews in the city during World War II. Over 13,000 Jews – many of them women and children wearing yellow Stars of David – were rounded up by French police officers in organized raids and transferred to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a bicycle velodrome that was converted into a mass detention center for Paris' Jews ahead of their being deported to German concentration and death camps.
It took the French 50 years to admit their part in those mass arrests and the decimation of France's Jews.
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"We must never forget that France betrayed its own children," Defense Minister Florence Parly declared at the memorial ceremony. And yet this very same week, French police forbade fans of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team from waving Israeli flags or wearing shirts or any other items bearing the team of the team they came to support at a game against local club, RC Strasbourg Alsace, Thursday.
There is a direct connection between the yellow badges of 1942 and the ban on waving blue-and-white flags in Strasbourg in 2019, and it is France's French betrayal of the Jews, and even more troubling, France's betrayal of France itself, its values and its national dignity. Out of fear of violence from extremist elements, mainly Arabs and Muslims, and concerns they would be accused of hypocrisy and double standards, the French also banned their own national flag from the match. Through their actions, the French police have in effect hoisted a great white flag of national surrender to a new foreign occupation above Strasbourg, one that also hates the Jews.
While in Gulf Arab countries that do not officially recognize Israel, the Jewish State has succeeded in conditioning the hosting of sporting events on Israelis' official participation, and should they win, the raising of the Israeli flag and the playing of Israel's national anthem, "Hatikvah," in Western Europe, the waving of the Israeli flag is being banned – whether officially or in practice.
The waving of the Israeli flag has become "a threat to public security," given the fear of violent reprisals by groups of Arab and Muslim immigrants who impose an atmosphere of terror throughout the continent. This is a total failure by local authorities, who are meant to maintain public order. There is no difference between a ban on waving Israeli flags in public and a ban on wearing the kippah. It is the same submission to terrorism and the same collaboration with the hatred of Israel and the Jews. France has returned to 1942; if it ever left it in the first place.
