Dreyfus, Karsenty & the Arrogance of Power

Alfred Dreyfus, Philippe Karsenty and the Arrogance of Power

In a recently posted interview with Philippe Karsenty (http://www.newenglishreview.org/ blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/50015/cat_id/139) there is a great deal of interesting and useful information about the man, his fight to bring the perpetrators of the Muhammed al-Durah myth to take responsibility for their fraud, and now his need to clear his name of a conviction in the French courts libelling of those in France-2 who see his case against them as defamation of their professional character.  But in the title to the interview and in the course of it is introductory comments the name of Alfred Dreyfus is alluded to:
"The saga of the al Dura France 2 trials is eerily similar to the official antisemitism of the fin de siècle Dreyfus Affair over a century earlier."

Though I have recently dealt twice with the matters of the faked “saga” of martyrdom of al-Durah and the extraordinarily perverse reactions of the French media and judiciary to Karsenty’s efforts to bring the truth to light, it may be appropriate to comment yet again, highlighting the way in which what happened to Alfred Dreyfus between 1894 and 1906 is repeated in this modern case, and then taking up the term “saga” as a metaphor of the current events.

Since I have published three books on Dreyfus in the last few years, I think I can say that the analogy is important but not complete.   The points of likeness between Dreyfus and Karsenty are few but striking, with many historical differences.  Dreyfus was a young officer in the French Army accused of espionage and treason.  He was arrested and tried by devious and dubious means, something he, his wife, their families and a few supporters found a constant mystery, an enigma, a phantasmagoria.  The more it could be proved that Alfred was framed, convicted by a series of false testimonies and forged documents, the less were the military and political leaders willing to undue their original false assumptions and lies: they put the honour of the Army, the gloire of France, and their own careers above the truth.  Even when Emile Zola forced the issue with his famous J’accuse (an open leader accusing many of the generals and government officials involved in the intrigue of bad will and judgment) and finally a civilian court showed that he was innocent of the charges brought against him, the second Court Martial of 1899 found him guilty again, albeit with mitigating circumstances, the chief of which was that he had not committed any crime.  Within a few days of this second guilty verdict, a new government in Paris granted Dreyfus a pardon, something he was urged to accept by family and close friends because of his poor health, physical and mental.  But it took another six years to reverse the judgment of the Military Tribunal and reinstate him into the Army, also giving him the award of the Legion of Honor.  Dreyfus had to fight for this exoneration every step of the way and increasingly against the very people who had at first been his supporters, the left wing politicians, like Clemenceau both angry that he had seemed to let the side down by accepting the Pardon and that he was an annoying little Jew who should know his place and be happy with what he had.  What is most to be noted is the stonewalling obduracy of the French Army, the nationalistic and anti-Semitic press, and many in the Church.

Karsenty, for his part, entered the fray on his own initiative, outraged by the false claims and doctored images shown on France-2.  What he was accused of was having the chutzpa to challenge the professional integrity of the reporter who had taken at face value the video made in order to traduce the reputation of the IDF, Israel and Jews in general.  The further Karsenty investigated the case, the more evidence merged of how the entire scene of little al-Durah’s supposed death had been, first, rehearsed and, second, doctored in preparation of the video both by cutting down the entire event as filmed and then by a portentous voice-over.  Though the good citizen was able to gain some expert witnesses to prove these charges against France-2, not only did the television network fail to mount a creditable defence of its actions, but few journalists and fewer Israel government officials stepped forward to support Karsenty.  It took a decade for the Israeli government to empanel an investigative committee which then issued a report backing Karsenty’s case to the hilt.  Meanwhile, in an earlier proceeding in France, a judge found Karsenty innocent, but in such a way that the charges against France-2 were never properly examined.  And in this latest second tribunal, again the guilty verdict, given without Frabnce-2 or any of the persons responsible for the fiasco presenting any documents to contradict the charges against them, hardly deals with substantial issues but is constructed out of fairly marginal technical details.

So while the analogy to the Dreyfus Affair can be made on the basis of the arrogance and prejudices of the opposition, Karsenty does not face more than a nominal fine—hardly exile to and isolation on Devil’s Island.  Like Dreyfus, he continues to fight for the truth.  If Dreyfus and he share only distant affinities, those on the other side demonstrate similar traits of self-righteousness.  How far they also share anti-Semitism—this time around couched in the trendy liberal left’s discourse of anti-Zionism and its fatuous identification with the poor suffering Palestinian and the whole rigmarole of imperialism, colonialism and Apartheid racism—cannot be determined.  Currently on tour in North America, he needs to garner support from both within and outside the organized Jewish community, and obtain sufficient funds to carry on the legal campaign in France.

Is the case a “saga” as it is so denominated in the interview?  The usual buzz words for any on-going event include “narrative,” “conversation” and “journey.”  These are words so overused and placed in so many diverse contexts by post-structuralists and the politically-correct that they no longer have any meaning at all.  Saga, however, has a different tone and a different history, and since it is here used by a sympathetic interviewer perhaps we should give it a few moments attention.  In specific historical terms, a saga is an Old Norse or Icelandic term for a long tale in prose about the Vikings and other peoples of Northern Europe and the lands they settled on the other side of the Atlantic.  They are part historical and part legendary.  By metaphoric extension, a saga has become any extended story, usually anecdotal, on a complicated topic, with a new sense of necessary tedium, given the need to compose, listen to and even, in a sense, experience such a long series of events.  In other words, the heroes and valiant deeds of the original sense of the genre—the raiding parties to distant lands, the gruelling efforts to settle in harsh environments, and the long sea voyages through storm-swept northern oceans—are mostly gone today.  A lengthy, challenging sequence of dangerous actions takes their place, with ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances filling out the reports.  It is therefore appropriate to call Karsenty’s story a saga, although he has become increasingly heroic in his efforts the more he is beleaguered by the arrogance of power and by sheer stupidity.

Norman Simms has written three books on Dreyfus:   Alfred Dreyfus: Man, Milieu, Mentality and Midrash (Academic Studies Press, 2011), In the Context of his Times (Academic Studies Press, 2013) and Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus in the Phantasmagoria (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).