Word: jewish
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...Though brief and subdued, the demonstration was unusual for members of France's 600,000-strong Jewish community, which has long preferred a low-key approach to political activism. But the latest wave of violence in Israel and the occupied territories has jolted the complacency of European Jews. In France and Britain, home to Western Europe's two largest Jewish populations, Jewish groups are borrowing tactics used by America's powerful Jewish lobby to persuade their governments to adopt a more pro-Israel stance and to combat what many see as persistent anti-Israel media bias...
...broker peace talks between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. And although Europe's leaders are often more sympathetic to criticisms of Israel than their American counterparts - last week European representatives remained at the U.N. conference on racism after U.S. and Israeli delegates walked out - Jewish activists say they have begun to wield more influence. "The French leadership now sees us as its natural partner and turns to us to represent the interest of French Jews," says Haim Musicant, director of crif, an umbrella organization of secular French Jewish groups...
...Pressure has come from the grass roots. "With this second intifadeh, there was a crisis of conscience in the Jewish community in France," says Claudine Barouhiel, a spokeswoman for Consistoire, a 200-year-old organization that represents religious French Jewish groups. Jean Kahn, Consistoire's director, is more blunt. "A lot of people in France now believe that Arafat has just one sole objective: the destruction of Israel." That sentiment has helped transform France's Jewish community into what Barouhiel calls a "much more active and militant, much more politically organized force." The shift has been evident both...
...France, Britain's Jewish community of 300,000 has lately solidified its clout. The Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobbying group affiliated with the Labour Party, which has been in existence for nearly 60 years, now influences policy in a way that would never have been possible even a decade ago - when the party was in opposition and Labour was broadly supportive of the Palestinian cause. Michael Levy, a leading Jewish businessman with close ties to the Israeli political establishment, befriended Tony Blair in 1994 and was instrumental in effecting a policy shift so complete that Blair...
...Israeli politicians are already being quoted as expressing some relief that now the United States will be drawn even closer to the Jewish state. The thinking goes that both countries are common victims of Arab terrorists and both will stand stand together, side by side. That makes sense. I would bet U.S. public support for Israel is probably as high as its been at any time since the Gulf War or perhaps even 1967 or 1948. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. But it's not impossible to envision a different scenario - a feeling in a few months...