http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=internetnews&StoryID=1360325

August 22, 2002 08:17 AM ET

Paris Prosecutor Probes Jewish Web Site's Hate Call

PARIS (Reuters) - The Paris public prosecutor has launched a probe of an extremist Jewish Internet site which published a list of French personalities it deemed "anti-Israeli" and urged readers to attack some of them.

The Web site alleged the celebrities on the list, which included Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche and best-selling writer Regine Deforges, backed a French boycott of Israeli products to protest Israeli government policies.

The site identified some of the people on the list as Jewish by posting a Star of David next to their name.

"The ones we have identified as Jews have a Star of David next to their name. Not only do they deserve to be boycotted but we encourage you, if ever you cross their path, to tell them verbally or even physically what you think of them," the site said.

"A gob of spit or even a good blow to the jaw with a baseball bat might contribute toward putting their twisted thoughts back into place," it added. The prosecutor's preliminary inquiry followed a complaint earlier this month by French anti-racist group MRAP, which said the Web site's singling out of Jews was a crime against the memory of the Holocaust.

"Listing and identifying, in a list of personalities, the names of Jews with a Star of David and calling for their lynching is a very serious matter without precedent since the end of the Second World War," MRAP said in a statement.

Daily newspaper Le Monde said on Thursday the Web site, www.amisraelhai.org, was run by young French-speaking Israelis living in Israel who were ideologically close to French far-right movements and frequently published racist and anti-Palestinian remarks.

Some of the prominent people on the list told Le Monde they had started to receive hate mail.

Most were against a boycott of Israeli products but had signed a peace appeal sponsored by the Coordination of Calls for a Fair Peace in the Middle East (CAPJPO), a group which subsequently came out in favor of a boycott. "I have never called for a boycott on Israeli products," said film-maker Agnes Jaoui, whose film "A Taste of Others" was nominated for a best foreign-language film Oscar last year.

"Nonetheless, loose associations were made with monstrous speed. My parents received anonymous phone calls from furious people," she told the newspaper. CAPJPO President Olivia Zemor said in a statement on Thursday the authors of the Web site had deliberately blurred the issue to sow doubt among the people who had signed the appeal and discredit her organization.

Stanislas Tomkiewicz, former head of research at the National Institute for Medical Research, told Le Monde he was in favor of a boycott but was horrified by the Web site's reaction.

"I escaped the Warsaw ghetto by jumping from the train that was taking me to the Maidanek camp. This story of a list with the Star of David is tragic. Since 1943, since the Nazis, it's the first time someone has stuck a yellow star on me," he said.