I am proud to say that Sarkozy and I are both Zionists.
Ironically, French history creates a problem similar to that facing Israel. The French and the Israelis both benefited from colonialism. The French and the Israel right to exist needs to be counterbalanced against the debts and obligations of their histories.
History has many surprises for doctrinaire liberals who are too quick to pick sides. Tibet is another example. While I vigorously support the Tibetan people’s right to expel today’s Han colonialists, the claim China makes to Tibet is based in a history of conquest of China by foreign invaders. The Manchu were their own empire, including people from Korea to Tibet. In that era, Szechuan was part of Tibet and Eastern Tibet, Szechuan warriors were a real threat to China.
In the 1600s, Tibet was on the winning side and now is paying an onerous and unfair price. Today’s Israel is paying the price for 19th century European colonialism.
Like the Jews of Israel, the tribe we call French has as much right to keep France as the land of French culture as the Lummi, Lakota, Hausa, Kurd, Palestinian, Israeli, or Tibetan peoples have to homes for their own cultures. The Zionist ideal of a people having a homeland, is (or ought to be) one that is respected for all peoples. The Israelis and the French were “winners” in the colonial era. The price for that victory is now coming due. Whatever that price, the rights of the French to preserve their nationality, their right to tribalism must be respected just as much as we respect the rights of the Tibetans.