Anti-Semitism: Outraged, France summons US envoy Charles Kushner
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: An angry France has summoned US Ambassador to Paris Charles Kushner, a Jew, after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging that Paris had failed to do enough to stem anti-Semitic violence, the media reported on Monday.
Kushner, 71, whose son Jared is US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, published the open letter in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, focusing on France’s criticism of Israel, which has been accused of a genocide in Gaza, and Paris’ plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
“Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France,” he wrote. “In today’s world, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism – plain and simple.”
Paris quickly responded to the US Ambassador’s accusations.
“France firmly refutes these latest allegations,” a Foreign Ministry statement said on Sunday. “The allegations from the Ambassador are unacceptable.”
France is “fully committed” to fighting anti-Semitism, the ministry added.
The statement also said that Kushner’s comments went “against international law, and in particular the duty not to interfere in internal matters of states” by diplomatic personnel.
“Furthermore, they do not live up to the quality of the transatlantic relationship between France and the United States and the trust that should result between allies,” it added.
The US State Department, however, defended Kushner, saying it stands by the comments made by the envoy.
“Ambassador Kushner is our US government representative in France and is doing a great job advancing our national interests in that role,” US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
According to media reports, Kushner already had a notorious reputation. “He spent two years in federal prison for tax evasion, witness tampering, and fraud charges. He was later pardoned by Donald Trump and he is now just one month into being US Ambassador to France.”
In recent weeks, amid the raging Israel-Gaza war, France and some other Western nations have announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state, while maintaining their trade, diplomatic and security ties to Israel. Still, the move has angered Israel and its top ally, the US.
Kushner, convicted for tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005, was pardoned by Trump during his first term.
The envoy’s letter follows a similar statement addressed to Macron by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, which also linked France’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state to anti-Semitism.
President Macron’s office hit back swiftly at Netanyahu also, calling his allegations “abject” and “erroneous”, and promising that they “will not go unanswered”.
“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency said, adding that France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens.”
Human rights advocates say that Israel’s supporters often invoke accusations of anti-Semitism to distract from the country’s abuses against Palestinians and silence the debate around the issue.
Charles Kushner’s parents, Joseph Berkowitz and Rae Kushner, were Jewish Holocaust survivors born in Eastern Poland. They came to America from the USSR in 1949. At birth, he was named Chanan, after a maternal uncle who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
