You didn’t answer the question. How does the parents’ lawsuit contribute to Anti-Semitic sentiment in France?
milroyj, I think that was rather my point.
Also, if my post came off as condoning the actions I described, let me make the obvious effort now to say that I don’t support that train of reasoning, just that I can see how, given a different mindset from mine, how that might happen.
's that clear it up?
Gah. Mind falling asleep. “I don’t support that train of reasoning” … edit to add “reasoning as it is borne out in actions”. IE they are allowed to believe something like that but I would condemn its physical results. Because, of course, people are allowed to believe whatever they want as long as … well, y’know:)
Suprisingly, december beats once again on the drums of racism with tenous accusations that don’t hold up upon further examination. And suprisingly, yet again the example he uses to further his (however noble it may be) cause doesn’t hold water.
I’m shocked.
I commend your crusade against racism, but do your homework before you fling accusations at entire nations (France in this case) or entire political parties (Democrats for not supporting an ultra conservative hispanic judge). mmmkay?
Even if I grant that there’s a “pattern of attacks by Arabs against Jews in France” it does not mean that every attack by an Arab on a Jew is a hate-crime.
**
Gaaahh…anti-semite is not a “sarcastic comment”. It is (or should be, despite your repeated attempts to water it down) the equivilant of a full nuclear strike. Use it only when it applies, dammit! Can you even grasp how damning this statement was to/about you? How it shredded any credibility you might have had? “I tap-danced around saying the actual words, but I called him a racist/anti-semite as sarcasm.” There are some terms…some phrases…that should not be tossed around for hyperbole. Anti-semite is one.
Look: you got Eva and me. We’re both Jews and we’re at pretty much polar opposites of the political spectrum. And we’re both telling you the same thing. What does that say?
Fenris
That you obviously haven’t read the scholarly, well-referenced and unbiased article december cited on page 1, Fenris, or you’d be on a plane to France RIGHT NOW to right all the anti-Jew wrongs purpetrated by the evil democrats, led by their Evil Dictator Bill “I love blow jobs from unattractive interns” Clinton and his Evil Democratic Anti-Jew Army of Muslims. All of whom are so anti-semitic they’d kill themselves if they weren’t so bent on killing every Jew.
Look, december, you are being extremely fucking ignorant here, in a multitude of ways:
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Though anti-Semitism is both a serious and repugnant problem in France, that doesn’t mean that every fucking attack by an Arab on a Jew is anti-Semitic in nature. I am opposed to hate crimes laws, but even if you were for it (you were rather evasive, or at least non-committal, about your stance), the accused have still not been lawfully and fairly committed of such a crime.
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Your comment about those who think it was a fair (or at least lawful) decision as being anti-Semitic, or unsympathetic to the victims of anti-Semitism, is offensive, presumptuous, and crass. one can support the communists’ right to free spech, or a fair trial, and still not be a communist.
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You did not respond to my points, so I am assuming you agree with them. If so, why do you continue to consider this Web site’s classification of the judgment as “stupifying” as having any bearing on the real nature of the judgment?
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I already explained to you, with a citation directly from the article what the basis for the judgment was. Hell, Sqube translated the entire article for your benefit, showing your accusations to be without substance. Even if the judge’s own personal motivation was anti-Semitism (which, not being a mind-reader, you have no ability to decide one way or the other), the fact that there is a valid basis under French law other than anti-Semitism is enough to justify the judgment.
Jesus Christ, december, you are wrong. Just be a little damn mature and admit it. You owe an apology to the posters (including wring, rjung, and Twist, all of whom I frequently disagree with) you have insulted with your accusations. There is no proof that this was an anti-Semitic attack, and even if there were, that doesn’t mean it’s why the parents were fined, and even if it were, that doesn’t mean it’s not a valid decision according to French law, the judge’s personal motivation not bearing on the legal reasoning behind the decision. Many people who frequently agree with the causes you support, generally speaking (myself included), have criticized your position and actions in this thread. Just be a fucking man and concede that you were wrong.
Ack…in the first item, “committed” should obviously be “convicted”.
Headline in the Fredonia Times:
december admits entire premise of thread was misplaced amti-semite bashing. Says, ‘At least I didn’t start another thread about those evil Democrats’. Full story, pages A1-6.
Dodo shit found inside Loch Ness Monster. How it survived a year inside the belly of the beast. Full story, page B5
Pope Out! Gay, Jewish 89-year-old Polish woman streaks at heavy metal concert, stays after for five-hour Q&A session. Story all of C section.
Liberal Arts major reveals secrets to Cold Fusion. Story, E5.
Cubs, Red Sox to meet up in World Series. Story, F1
Cecil Adams and Marilyn vos Savant revealed: siblings and married! Why Cecil says she’s the brains of the operation, G3.
actually, december did specifically withdraw his accusations against **Twisty ** & me. (many thanks to all who spoke up. it bothers me indeed that december has ‘graduated’ from making odious, unsupported, insulting accusations against groups (Dems, liberals, and other assorted ne’er do wells), to making the same sort of odious, unsupported and insulting accusations against specific posters)
I didn’t mean to accuse anyone on this board of being anti-semitic. I apologize to all who were insulted.
What steamed me was the posts like Eva Luna’s, which begin with the presumption that justice was done. That presumption contradicts my rant, since my main complaint was that justice wasn’t done. The trouble is, no poster has made a case that justice was done.
Eva Luna says the the group of students who committed the assault last June apparently haven’t been prosecuted. The article mentions that one of the individuals involved was 15 years old. I would guess that the authorities would not want to file charges over a relatively minor incident involving children. In fact, I’d guess that the school never called in the police, nor should they have IMHO.
From the POV of the Camus school, it’s an internal disipline matter. I hope that the school has disciplined the perps in some way. However, from the POV of the victims it’s a serious problem, especially if its seen as part of an ongoing pattern of harassment.
Fang, I grant you that not every attack by an Arab on a Jew is based on anti-semitism. If you think this attack wasn’t based on anti-semitism, I invite you to explain why not.
Here’s a google translation of a description of the incident:
It’s hard to make sense of this. I would entreat Fang or Sqube to get a better translation from the original French version of the March 12 article.
What I make of the machine translation is that there was animosity between the Arab and Jewish students, and it was based on ethnicity. There seems to be no question that Arab students physically attacked the Jewish students. It appears that Jewish (Beit Rivka) girls said that the Assistant Principal was informed of the attack, but did not act to stop it, although that point is apparently disputed.
My understanding of the google translation would seem to show that the suit did have some merit. The Beit Rivka girls’ testimony seems to be that the Assistant Principal knew that the attack was going on, but did not act to stop it. That would seem to make a prima facie case of negligence by the school.
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I believe that anit Semitism exists in France.
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I believe it’s a large problem.
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It’s entirely possible that the altercation spoken of here had it’s roots in ethnicity.
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that has not been proven as yet.
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december is not at all qualified to judge what actually happened there (he was not there, written accounts are in a different language which he does not speak)
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december is even less qualified to judge if what actually transpired (in the courts etc.) was a fair application of French law and/or just, since : a. he does not know the facts of the case and b. he does not know the outcome of the case and most importantly, c. he knows diddly squat about French law and it’s applications. (him not being French, not speaking the language, not being a lawyer and all.)
december, this was your OP:
Young girl beaten in anti-Semitic attack; French fine her parents!
Below that you wrote unsubstantiated misinformation intended to stir hatred against a people. How is it not a hate crime and you not a racist hate criminal ?
On what basis? You don’t know French law and you don’t have (at best) more than a passing knowledge of the facts of the case. The manufactured outrage of one reporter is hardly enough to say the ruling was incorrect in any meaningful way.
Look, the point is not that the judge was necessarily correct; like all fallible humans, he may not be. But neither you nor I are in a position to know that. We know neither the law nor the facts. Accordingly, the French courts, who do after all deal with the application of French law to facts occurring in France on a daily basis, are entitled to a measure of deference. I’m inclined to say they got it right unless fairly substantial evidence is presented to the contrary, something you just haven’t done. **
Not hardly. It would take more proof than the happenstance occurance that aggressor and victim were of different races/religions, that sometimes racially motivated crimes happen in the US, and a government official has said that racially motivated crimes are a problem. The latter two items are totally irrelevant to the facts of a specific case, and the first item doesn’t prove a goddamn thing.
The fact that you think this “evidence” should be enough to garner a hate crime conviction really shows you flip-flopping on the typical conservative position: concerns that the law could be twisted by an aggressive prosecutor and sympathetic jury to mean that any crime where perpetrator and victim are of different races is a “hate crime” is one reason conservatives oppose hate crime legislation. You are positively Liebermanesque in your willingness to flee from principle when convenient. **
Uh-uh, bubba. First of all, you’re asking us to prove a negative. Second of all, you’re the one making the claim that the event was racially motivated, so the burden of proof properly rests on your shoulders. You know, innocent until proven guilty, prosecution/plaintiff must prove each element of his case, etc, etc, etc. **
No, you responded with a stupid comment.
Then stop doing it.
**
**
Neither have you made a case that it wasn’t. One article, that’s utter gibberish (even in the face of two valient efforts by Dopers to translate) isn’t a cite: the article discusses almost nothing of your OP; it doesn’t discuss the beating, the original trial, the original trial’s outcome, etc.
What it comes down to is that NONE OF US KNOW. No one’s read transcripts of the trial, no-one’s even posted accounts fo the trial. You’re making a wild-ass guess and if Eva said that justice was done, so is she. The only correct answer at the moment, unless I’ve missed a cite somewhere in this train-wreck, is “We have insufficienct evidence to make a case for or against anti-semitism”
The trick is, December: it is detrimental to a cause you, I and (I believe) Eva share (raising awareness of legitimate anti-semitism) for you to be running around like Chicken Little shrieking “The anti-semites are running amok!” with no evidence at the drop of a hat: you show me proof…hell, if you show me serious evidence (the attacker’s membership in a hate-group for example…or school writings that the attackers did that expressed anti-semitic views) that this attack had it’s roots in anti-semitism and I’ll be on your side in a heartbeat.
But so far, you have exactly two bits of so-called “evidence”:
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The parent’s account. I don’t dismiss it out of hand, but it’s not enough, especially since it was, what? 2 sentences in the article?
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The fact that the attackers were Arabs. I am stunned that you can’t see how insane and racist you sound when you say that (paraphrased) “Since the attackers were Arabs, they must also be anti-Semites.”
Would you assume that any time a white person and a black person get in a fight, the white person MUST be a member of the Klan? Or the black person in the Black Panthers?
Fenris
IMO it makes them look like manipulative jerks who are using the beating of their daughter as a forum to complain about the much larger issue of what they see as the French government’s failure to protect its citizens against anti-Semitic acts. (Were damages requested in the civil suit? If so, then it looks even worse, like parents are trying to profit monetarily from this unfounded suit.) The facts, as they have been so minimalistically presented in the linked articles, do not support this allegation, as has been borne out by the court judgement.
The parents come out looking like manipulative, grandstanding jerks. The parents are Jewish. There are those who will extrapolate and impute the jerkish behavior of these two individuals to the Jewish community as a whole.
I’mm off to slog my way throught the March 12 article now, as the Google translation is worse than useless. (I think it’ll be a warm day in Hell before machine translation can replace human beings, but that’s another thread.)
Reading this thread belatedly, I think most of the issues have been cleared up (except for december throwing up dust screens). I just want to add a note about the legal issues involved. I am not very familiar with French law, but the legal system is quite similar to Dutch law (procedural and material), and I’ve done a few checks.
AFAIK France does have a ‘loser pays’ system, but only for nominal costs, not for the real costs (such as I believe is the case in the UK). The parents had to pay those costs, but according to the article in addition had to pay damages as well.
The suit is quite clearly without merit. French law does have a specific liability of teachers for their students (sec. 1384(6) Code Civil), but that is limited for the time that the students are under their supervision. In this case not the teacher but the principal was sued, on the basis of neglecting to assist (non-assistance à personne en danger). Although French law does allow for liability on this basis, the facts in this case don’t bear such a claim. (The principal’s lawyer stressed: que l’objet du procès n’était pas le caractère antisémite de l’agression mais l’éventuelle responsabilité de la principale et de son adjointe).
The advocate of the parents even acknowledged that the claim had no chance of succeeding (Je ne pensais pas que le tribunal prendrait le risque de déclencher des réactions syndicales en condamnant une principale de collège). That means he deliberately started a suit that he estimated would not succeed. Add to that the publication surrounding the suit.
It could have been that the judge thought this amounted to abuse of procedure. This is a seldomly used manner to punish someone frivolously or with the wrong intent starting a suit. However, the statement in the article that the parents had to pay damages seems to point in the direction of a counter-claim by the principal. The article mentions that the principal was irked by the suggestion that he had refrained from acting because the girl was Jewish. Just like the posters in this thread he was angry of the accusation of antisemitism. It looks like he instituted a counter-claim on the basis of slander/libel, and won. I can’t say I’m surprised given what the article states about the facts. EUR 4000 is not an extraordinary amount for damages on such a basis.
There is no basis in the outcome of the case per se to say the judge or the principal was motivated by antisemitic tendencies. The parents started a claim with no merit, fuzzed up media attention. The principal though his good name was harmed by being accused of antisemitism, and the judge found that the principal was right.
The moral is that you shouldn’t wildly accuse peope of antisemitism. Now is there anyone else who could profit from such a lesson?
I could look up the specifics of French law in the office, but now it is weekend. I’ve checked:
- Zweigert/Kotz, An introduction to comparative law, 3rd ed. Oxford 1998.
- C.C. van Dam, Aansprakelijkheidsrecht, The Hague 2000, no. 219.
(is this the first Pit thread with cites?)
I quibble with this last point. The “he’s not a lawyer, he can’t judge the law” bit. (I hate that idea) If the judge were a member of the French version of the Aryan Nation and the three attackers had, say, each written essays the previous week saying “Let’s beat up ‘Jewessess’ for Hitler!”, but they still got off, I’d be pretty confident in saying “This is bullshit” and if the law supported their aquittal, I’d be equally confident saying “The law is a ass”
Not that December has such a “smoking gun”, of course. But still: non-lawyers are perfectly qualified to judge the justice of a trial.
Fenris
I didn’t say it well. My point was that since he’s not studied law, he has insufficient info/experience to judge the merits of the case, which is what he is attempting to do.
the concept of ‘justice’ is a different quality, and would not, require any degree of understanding of laws and their applications.
however, it seemed to me that he kept on insisting that the merits of the case were obvious, which, since we don’t have the facts isn’t correct, and would also require an understanding of the relevent French laws.
I do regret my sarcastic shot at rjung.
I disagree with your presentation of the evidence of anti-semitism. The parents account is not evidence, because they weren’t there. It’s the students’ accounts that are the key.
Based on the March 12 article, there seems to be no dispute that:[ul][] a group of Arab students slapped and punched these three Jewish girls.[]When the Jewish girls first arrived, a comment was made about their Jewishness because they dressed differently.There had been animosity and verbal insults between the Jewish students and the Arab students, based on ethnicity.[/ul]If you want to argue that the Jewish girls comments displayed anti-Arabism, you might have a case, But, I don’t understand why you do not agree that the Arab students comments and actions displayed anti-semitism. What other elements would be needed for you folks to be convinced?