A Jewish student group petitioned a French court to order the removal of a YouTube video in which the comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala celebrates the quenelle.
The petition filed this week with the Paris Court of Grands Instances by the Union of Jewish Students of France, or UEJF, concerns a video posted Dec. 31 by Dieudonne, who has been convicted seven times for inciting racial hatred against Jews. In the video, Dieudonne declares that 2014 will be “the year of the quenelle.”More: JTA
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| Laurent Louis, doing the Quenelle, JSS News |
Kick It Out, the organisation charged with tackling racism in football, reacted to concerns over its failure to condemn Nicolas Anelka’s quenelle gesture by threatening to take legal action against the JC.
The newspaper had questioned the group’s commitment to fighting antisemitism in the game in an article published last Thursday.
In response, Kick It Out chairman, Lord Ouseley sent an email demanding that the paper “withdraw all references to Kick It Out, failing which we will take such action as we deem appropriate, including instructing our solicitors.”
More: IOL
Shirt sponsor Zoopla has warned West Bromwich Albion it will cancel a three million pounds deal with the club if Nicolas Anelka plays against Everton in the Premier League on Monday, British media reported.
Zoopla, a property website company co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman, is unhappy the former France striker has been playing despite making an alleged anti-Semitic 'quenelle' gesture in the game with West Ham United three weeks ago.
Shoah pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple, you take me by the shoah, I take you by the pineapple, Shoah pineapple.
We mustn’t forget. There’s a way to make money. Sho sho sho pineapple.
Shoah pineapple, shoah apricot. Shoah anise, shoah maggot, shoah artichoke. Shoah strawberry, shoah ice cream. Shoah chocolate. Shoah.
Shoah pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple. You take me by the shoah, I’ll take you by the pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple.
Darling pineapple I’ll never forget you. You’ve suffered so much. And for everything that you’ve suffered we want to give you reparations. We want you to be given a country in the sun, and millions of dollars for the millions of pineapples that were deported: for the millions of pineapples who lost their families let’s sing forever. Sho sho sho pineapple.
Supporters of the anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonne hijacked three French pro-Israel websites in a coordinated cyber attack.
The attack Thursday paralyzed the websites Israel-Flash.com, Europe-Israel.org and liguedefensejuive.com, the website of the French Jewish Defense League, and replaced their content with messages of support for Dieudonne, Le Nouvel Observateur reported.
In the quenelle, then, we may be facing a graver threat than we might first be inclined to perceive. Having switched his allegiance from the far left to the far right, and having repeatedly failed at his attempts to win public office, M’bala M’bala is unlikely to triumph in the old and ossified contest of politics. But in the new battlefield, which shapes culture by inundating it with images and words that defy explanation and are immune to denunciation, he’s already won. The Anti-Defamation League is right to have demanded and received an apology from Parker, but citing history and invoking decency and initiating conversation do little if anything to stop a meme. The garçons who quenelled by a large photograph of Anne Frank aren’t going to be mended by more or better education.
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has indicated that the quenelle, the quasi-Nazi salute widely seen as anti-Semitic, violates his country’s anti-hate laws.
Valls said the quenelle is a form of incitement to hatred despite claims that it is merely anti-establishment rather than anti-Semitic.
“This gesture is a gesture of hatred, it’s an anti-Semitic gesture and all those who perform it should know — they can’t deny knowledge — that they are performing an anti-Semitic gesture, an inverted Nazi gesture,” Valls said at a Tuesday news conference in Paris.
"Originally it was used by Dieudonne in his first shows. But the 'quenelle' has been used in front of Auschwitz and in front of the (Jewish) school in Toulouse," added Makonnen, referring to the Ohr Torah school where three children and a teacher were murdered last year.
"If you look closer these people say they are willing to fight the system, but it's a system they say is controlled by Jewish people."
Philippe Auclair, the England correspondent of France Football magazine, said that Anelka and Nasri's support for anti-establishment views were very much in vogue in France.
"The idea that you are against the system invariably means that you are against anyone who disagrees with your point of view," he told CNN. "It has little to do with social or ethnic origin. You have young, white middle-class men and women saying the same thing.
"When I go back to France it is like there are two parallel universes; a government that is widely perceived as incompetent, with a social situation that is like a powder keg.
"Ultra-nationalism is on the rise and it has become completely acceptable to be openly anti-Semitic and to say that there is a global Zionist conspiracy."
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor is asking soccer authorities to strengthen their fight against racism and anti-Semitism in the wake of Nicolas Anelka’s controversial goal celebration in a Premier League match.
In a letter sent both to the English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke and UEFA president Michel Platini, Kantor wrote that his organization often receives reports of “attacks on Jews, whether verbal or physical, which also include acts of anti-Semitism at matches involving English and European football clubs.”
A picture of the Blues midfielder making the controversial 'quenelle' sign emerged 24 hours after fellow Frenchman Nicolas Anelka caused outrage when he used the gesture in a goal celebration.
The gesture was created in 2004 by French comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a friend of West Brom striker Anelka, who claims it is anti-establishment and not racist.
The picture of Nasri was taken around six weeks ago at City's Carrington training ground.
It features Nasri and a man thought to be a friend of Dieudonne and was posted on a Facebook page created in support of two French soldiers who were sanctioned for making the sign in front of a Paris synagogue.
However after the picture was widely shared on social media, Nasri today used his official Twitter feed to refute the suggestion it had anti-Semitic connotations saying it represented 'being against the stsytem.
He told his more than 1.8 million followers in a series of tweets:
"The pose in the picture i posted over 2 months ago symbolises being against the system.
"Its has absolutely nothing to do with being anti semitic or against jewish people. I apologise for causing any hurt to anyone who might have
"...been mislead into thinking this means anything of that nature."
French basketball star Tony Parker has come under fire over pictures and video of him performing the “quenelle,” which is considered a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic gesture derived from the Nazi salute. Criticism of Parker’s use of the gesture came a day after top French soccer player Nicolas Anelka flashed the “quenelle” to celebrate a goal in the English Premier League on Saturday.
French academic and far-right expert Jean-Yves Camus, in an interview in left-leaning daily newspaper Libération in September, called the quenelle a “badge of identity, especially among the young, although it is difficult to say whether they really understand its meaning”.
Camus added that Dieudonné has become the focus of a “broad movement that is anti-system and prone to conspiracy theories, but which has anti-Semitism as its backbone”.
“Their conviction is that there is a world order dominated by Washington and Tel Aviv,” he said. “Behind speeches that are critical of NATO and global finance, and supportive of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad and [late Venezuelan president] Hugo Chavez, there is the underlying conviction that it is the Jews who are pulling all the strings.”
