When the Franco-German TV channel Arte aired an Egyptian film portraying Israel’s founders as Nazis, Frenchman Armand Laferrere was outraged. Not just because “Les portes du soleil” (Door to the Sun) depicted Israeli soldiers massacring Palestinians and compared kibbutzim to slave labor camps. Laferrere was also angry that his tax money supported the broadcast. So after writing to Arte executive Jerome Clemente, Laferrere apologizes to the Jewish people in FrontPage Magazine.
After watching the whole abomination, I wrote to Mr Clement to tell him that, had Hitler won the war, we French would have enjoyed exactly the kind of television that he had provided us. He will not answer. The movie was generally celebrated by the left-wing press, and ignored by the right-wing press.
Since no one with authority will apparently do it, and because only a Frenchman can, I have this to add.
I apologise to the Jewish people. I feel hurt in my flesh by the despicable Jerome Clement, by the French ministries of Culture and of Foreign Affairs who made me pay for this cloaca of a movie, and for the general apathy that surrounded this scandal. I am deeply sorry about the behaviour of my country, France – my only country, which I have always loved dearly and cannot support today.
