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Is it true that between a Le Pen-type leader and the Islamization of France, there is no choice?
Yesterday I criticized Stephen Steinlight for saying, “Between French fascism [by which he meant Le Pen] and Islamic fascism, there is no choice.” I took this to mean that Steinlight would sooner let the Islamization of France continue apace, than elect a leader whom Steinlight considers fascist, and who would save France from that fate. Yet my own criticism of Steinlight is not beyond criticism. What if Le Pen really is a fascist? What if he really is a pro-Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer? In that case, isn’t my objection to Steinlight’s position highly objectionable? Since the condemnations of Le Pen that I have kept hearing from various sources were too vague and general, and since I am not willing to accept that Le Pen is an anti-Semite and pro-Nazi solely on the basis of people self-assuredly telling me that he is, I’ve been doing some research on him. I ran into the same phenomenon over and over, in which an article would ritually call Le Pen bad names on the basis of one or two fragmentary, context-free quotes uttered over a 40-year-long political career. However, as I read further and found longer quotes, a pattern did start to emerge in which Le Pen makes comments that provoke the Jews about the Holocaust, and that indicate something like sympathy for the Nazis, almost denying that the Nazis did anything wrong. Most notable are his statement that the gas chambers were “a detail” in the history of the Second World War, and his remark in a January 2005 interview that the Nazi occupation of France (in which 75,000 Jews were rounded up and shipped to camps, with only a couple of thousand of them returning alive) was “not particularly inhumane.” (Perhaps I will discuss these quotes in more detail at some point.) Also, I have not yet seen any evidence indicating that Le Pen’s party, the National Front, has what could be reasonably called a fascist program. If anything, the NF’s platform to withdraw France from the European Union would reduce the power of the state and make it more accountable to the people of France than it now is. In order to clarify the moral and political issue that I’m trying to get at here, and that was raised by Steinlight’s comment, I need to abstract it from Le Pen himself. Le Pen the man is not our actual concern, as he’s in his late 70s and probably will not run again for president of France, and, also, as it’s not clear to me how serious he really is about his anti-Islamic agenda. So let’s say there was a political leader who had the same record that Le Pen has, that is, he makes deliberately provocative comments from time to time dismissing the importance of the Nazi genocide, yet, by all the evidence, he has no actual agenda against Jews, and, unlike the whole European establishment, he supports Israel’s actions in self-defense against Muslim terrorism, and, most importantly, he is committed to reversing the Muslimization of France, including the ongoing removal of Muslims from France. Let’s say the choice is between electing this hypothetical leader and staying with France’s present, pro-Muslim leadership. If this leader—who, as I stipulate, clearly does not like Jews yet does not have any political program against them either—is committed to doing what is necessary to save France, along with its Jews, from an Islamic takeover, would it be wrong to support him?
To provide background for readers who may want to think further about this question and perhaps send me their views, here are some articles about Le Pen: a collection of Le Pen quotes, an article by the ADL which keeps repeating the same two or three quotes, an article in Ha’aretz about Jews who voted for Le Pen, an interview with Le Pen in Ha’aretz in 2002, and the New York Times article on the Le Pen interview in January 2005 in which he said that the Nazi occupation of France was “not particularly inhumane.” Email entry |