French chief rabbi accused of ‘defending war crimes’ for saying IDF should get job done

A left-wing member of France’s lower house of parliament accused the country’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, of “defending war crimes,” a criminal offense, over comments he made in a television interview in which he said he wanted to see Israel “finish the job in Gaza” so it could make peace in the Middle East.

“On the basis of Article 40 of the Criminal Code, I have contacted the chief prosecutor of Paris to report these comments by the chief rabbi of France, publicly defending war crimes in Gaza,” Aymeric Caron posted on X on Tuesday.

There was no immediate comment from the chief rabbi.

Caron represents Paris’s 18th constituency in the National Assembly, where he is the sole representative of the Ecological Revolution for the Living party, which advocates environmental protections and animal rights.

The lawmaker included a four-minute clip from an interview conducted by BFM TV on Monday on the war in Gaza in which the rabbi said that “everyone would be very happy if Israel finished the job, and we could finally build peace in the Middle East, without people who, permanently, only want one thing — the destruction of Israel.”

The rabbi made the comment after noting the resilience of Israel’s recent peace treaties with several Arab nations. He also insisted in the same clip that “this is a war between Israel and Hamas, not a war between Israel and the Palestinians,” and said, “I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in how Israel conducts combat, putting its own soldiers at risk.”

Sur le fondement de l’article 40 du code de procédure pénale, j’ai saisi la Procureure de la République de Paris pour signaler ces propos du grand-rabbin de France faisant publiquement l’apologie de crimes de guerre à Gaza. https://t.co/2z52ZbLFxP

— Aymeric Caron (@CaronAymericoff) August 27, 2024

When asked whether it’s possible for someone to “condemn the massacres that are being committed at the moment in Gaza without being antisemitic,” Korsia responded that “the ‘massacres’ we’re speaking about in Gaza are a fact of war, that implicates Hamas.”

Korsia pointed out that the terror group, which started the war with its October 7 attack on Israel, continues to hold more than 100 hostages, to fire rockets at Israel, and to reject offers for a hostage-ceasefire deal to end the fighting.

In the interview, Korsia also refused to draw an equivalency between the October 7 attack — in which thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages — and Israel’s military response, with the stated goals of destroying the terror group and returning the captives.

“It’s not of the same order,” Korsia said.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. The terror group has also built a vast network of fortified tunnels under residential neighborhoods.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), defended the chief rabbi against Caron’s accusation, writing on X, “The chief rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, is more republican than all the LFI MPs!” referring to the leftist coalition with which Caron is affiliated.

“Aymeric Caron betrays, day after day, the values of the Republic, stirring up divisions and hatred. So, who should be condemned?” Arfi added.

Korsia’s interview also included discussions of anti-Israel protests that have drawn massive crowds in France in the 10 months since October 7, and the state of antisemitism in France, where hate crimes against Jews have tripled since the war broke out.

On Saturday, a masked man wearing a Palestinian flag used a gas canister to cause an explosion at a synagogue, and was later arrested on suspicion of terrorism. The blast occurred during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, but there were no religious services ongoing in the building at the time. One police officer was wounded.

The country also increased its security presence earlier this summer while hosting the 2024 Olympics in Paris, amid concerns over possible terrorism targeting Israeli or Jewish athletes.