For the past few days, the “Tel Aviv on the Seine” has caused uproar among politicians and pro-Palestinian groups calling on Paris mayor to cancel the event. The event’s organizers say they are striving to promote Israeli culture in France and strengthen links between the countries in general.
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But left-wing councillor Danielle Simonnet reacted angrily to the idea that August 13 has been dubbed “Tel Aviv Sur Seine” after the Israeli coastal city.
“A year after Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, less than a month after the Knesset’s decision to pass a law force-feeding prisoners, and a week after the burning of the Dawabshe family in Duma in the occupied West Bank – the penetration of the Tel Aviv beach in Paris is a real provocation”, BDS France said in a statement.
By 10am today, police were already carrying out bag checks and blocking off bridges as protestors held up Palestinian flags and displayed graphic pictures of dead children on the beaches of Gaza. A number of parties represented on the city council are opposed to the Tel Aviv day.
Ardent opposition of the event stems from the strength of the BDS movement, which is anxious that it presents the slight opportunity to improve Israel’s image at an opportune moment when it is facing heavy global criticism over the arson attack of an 18-month old baby and his father by Jewish settlers.
Pro-Palestinian and leftist groups have called on people to gather on Thursday in the same area and create their own “Gaza on Seine”. “Paris City Hall dares to organize “within the framework of its cultural partnerships with the world’s largest cities” a day honoring Tel Aviv”, Simonnet complained on her web site.
But Paris believes this task evolved last May within a stop by by mayor Anne Hidalgo to really Israel and of course the…
She has refused and in an article in Le Monde newspaper on Tuesday she praised Tel Aviv as “a city open to all minorities, including sexual, creative, inclusive, in short, a progressive city”.
The Association of France-Palestine Solidarity (AFPS) said that the event was “a communication campaign with a bitter taste…a very odd way to echo the massacres of last summer”.
“It is out of the question to allow such an immoral event to go ahead in a public space”, the group said on its Facebook page on Monday evening.
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Bruno Julliard, deputy Paris mayor, said on Twitter: “No conflation between Tel Aviv, a city that’s a symbol of tolerance and peace and the brutal politics of the Israeli government”.
