Neo-Nazis and Jews unite in Web hate
By Joelle Diderich
PARIS (Reuters) - French neo-Nazis have formed an alliance with extremist Jewish groups on the Internet to publish a torrent of hate messages directed against Arabs and Muslims, according to a report by a leading anti-racist group.
Members of extreme-right groups were prepared to set aside their anti-Semitic feelings to share Web space and know-how with extremist pro-Israeli campaigners, amid a rise in violence in the Middle East, the study found.
"This is a new phenomenon," Mouloud Aounit, head of the MRAP group which published the 170-page report, said on Thursday.
"We wanted to ring an alarm bell over the worrying development of this form of racism which is not only virtual, but has also spread to everyday life," he said.
The report said 26 websites, traced to far-right and Jewish extremist groups in France, operated from the same server in the United States between 1999 and March this year.
Members of the groups also shared advice on how to send messages without leaving electronic trails.
Investigators believed the sites were taken down because of disagreement between the groups over the U.S.-led war in Iraq, with Jewish extremists supporting the action but some French far-rightists against it.
French police had no immediate comment to the report.
Haim Musicant, director of France's main Jewish organisation, CRIF, condemned all extremist Internet sites and called for a strengthening of laws to fight racism on the Web.
He said he did not know who was behind the sites, but noted there were extremists among both Jews and Muslims.
"This could be the work of provocateurs whose aim is to stoke tensions in France," Musicant said. "If they are Jews, I have no idea, they are isolated individuals who represent nobody but themselves."
INCITEMENT
Aounit said the unlikely alliance could resurface soon.
The report said between 2001 and 2003, the groups sent 1,000 messages a day, including incitements to attack mosques in the hope of triggering civil war between Arabs and other French.
They also included messages calling for the assassination of President Jacques Chirac, referred to ironically as Ben Shirak, whom extremists accused of handing power to Muslim interests.
A year ago, a member of the anti-foreigner National Republican Movement (MNR) tried to gun down Chirac at the annual Bastille Day parade, days after posting a message on a British neo-Nazi Web site boasting that he would soon be famous.
Chirac has called for a crackdown on racism following anti-Semiticattacks and signs that the war in Iraq had increased tension between France's Jews and Muslims.
However, Aounit said the government remained indifferent to the flood of hate messages pouring out over the Internet.
"There is obviously the question of legislation, which must be addressed at the European level, but if there is the political will, if you give cyber-cops the means to investigate, you could very rapidly arrest, identify the authors," he said.
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