In his letter Sand points out that Zionist Israel is not a republic on the Western model, and certainly not a democracy. It is a "Jewish communalist state." That is why Sand cannot be a Zionist, because "I am a citizen who desires that the state he lives in should be an Israeli republic, and not a Jewish-communalist state. ... I do not want to live in a state that, according to its own self-definition, makes me a privileged class of citizen."
Sand goes on to explain that "the Israeli Interior Ministry counts 75 percent of the country's citizens as Jewish, 21 percent as Arab Muslims and Christians, and 4 percent as 'others' (sic). Yet according to the spirit of its laws, Israel does not belong to Israelis as a whole, whereas it does belong even to all those Jews worldwide who have no intention of coming to live there."
Under these circumstances, one cannot be someone who takes republican and democratic principles seriously and still be a Zionist. So Sand has made his choice: he wants to replace Zionist Israel with "an Israeli republic." Then he asks,
"Mr. President, do you think that that makes me an antisemite?"
Part IV -- Apples Become the Same as Oranges
Apparently President Macron is oblivious to the logic of Shlomo Sand. Perhaps this is because, at this moment, illogic serves his political purposes much better. And so, in Macron's France apples become oranges. That is, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism become the same. Why is this illogical? It is so because anti-Semitism is directed against Jewish people no matter where they are found and based on nothing other than their religion/ethnicity. On the other hand, anti-Zionism is opposition to a specific political doctrine based on its racist nature and practice in the state of Israel. It is not just many French Arabs who understand this. Many French Jews themselves are anti-Zionist. At the same time, French anti-Semites, who probably dream of an exclusive French "communalist state," want to see all French Jews pack up and move to Israel. This puts these anti-Semites on the same team as avid Zionists.
And what about the French Jews who are anti-Zionist? Macron is putting these Jewish citizens in a position where they can be legally accused of anti-Semitism. As French journalist Dominique Vidal described the situation to FRANCE 24: "if we consider opposition to Theodore Herzl's theory as anti-Semitic, then we're saying that the millions of Jews who do not wish to live in Palestine and the occupied territories are anti-Semites. ... It's historical illiteracy, or worse, stupidity."
Part V -- Conclusion
Macron is not stupid, but neither is he a principled democratic republican like Shlomo Sand. He knows that if, as his party spokesman now puts it, "denying the existence of Israel [that is, Israel as a Jewish state] ... has to be made a criminal offense," you are making it illegal to stand with the Palestinians and against the racist nature inherent in a religious and ethnically exclusive state. Macron is using the law to silence popular opposition to Israel. Also, in this way the hostility of French Arabs to Zionist French Jews becomes criminal.
This is exactly the current Israeli strategy in response to having lost the public debate over the true nature of the Zionist project in Palestine -- criminalize the arguments of your critics.
No French national leader would support such an anti-democratic strategy unless he or she is a political opportunist who is currying the favor of a politically powerful lobby. In the case of Emmanuel Macron, this is also a maneuver to label his opponents (perhaps France's Muslims as well as all those protesting "yellow vests") as anti-Semites. No French leader would ally with the Zionists in this effort unless they have no problem with corrupting the logic of the law by demanding that apples legally become oranges. And, no French leader would act in this way unless they have little or no interest in dealing with France's real racial problems by seeking real answers.
It is this last fact that, in the long run, is most dangerous for French culture and politics. As we have seen, anti-Semitism is nothing new in France. It is embedded in a certain French self-image that is, in the end, reluctant to allow entry to anyone not deemed truly French, be they Muslims or Jews. Unless French leaders are willing to challenge this cultural puritanism, they will find anti-Semitism, and other forms of xenophobic passions, poisoning their national life for the indefinite future.
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