Municipality near Paris names street for Nakba

Town of Bezons previously declared Israel’s founding premier David Ben-Gurion a war criminal; Jewish community says move gives ‘false historical justification’ to anti-Semitism

The French town of Bezons. (CC BY-SA 4.0 Didier Duforest/Wikipedia)
The French town of Bezons. (CC BY-SA 4.0 Didier Duforest/Wikipedia)

A municipality near Paris named a street for the “nakba” — an Arabic word that means “catastrophe” and which Palestinians use to denote Israel’s creation.

The mayor of the municipality of Bezons in the northwestern Paris region, Dominique Lesparre, unveiled the sign for Nakba Lane on Monday.

Under Lesparre, who is a Communist politician, the municipality also declared David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, a “war criminal” for “deporting” hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Francis Kalifat, the president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, called the declaration and the street sign “false declarations, shockingly irresponsible and dangerous.

“They encourage anti-Semitic violence, which is now given false historical justification,” he wrote in a statement.

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