On 1/1/2011 4:17 PM, Gar Lipow wrote:
> Hessel, for his part, is a vocal supporter of Socialist Party head Martine Aubry.
> OK Question for those who know France: Is she Mitterand with tits, or
> something a bit better than that?
>
> <snip>
>
>> Hessel, who in 2006 was named Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, has also been a vocal supporter of a boycott of Israeli products in protest against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. In his interview with FRANCE 24, Hessel said that criticisms of Israel were muted, because “everyone is afraid of being called an anti-Semite. This reticence must be conquered”. Israeli treatment of Palestinians is indeed a major theme of his essay, in which he notes: “Jews themselves perpetrating war crimes is intolerable. Alas, the past offers few examples of people learning lessons from their own history”.
> This is interesting even without knowledge of the context. But I
> suspect someone who knows France and wishes to comment might add a bit
> of depth to this story
Hessel isn't a radical leftist. He's a mainstream French center-leftist, even if his book has become a rallying cry for a wider left....Aubry is a middle-of-the-road Socialist Party apparatchik, neither a Blairite nor on the left wing of the party.
SA