Lipstadt opens fire on French symbolists

Two articles from Tablet magazine, two from sports writers – Daily Mirror and Telegraph – one from JTA plus Notes and links

Dieudonne doing the quenelle in his European election poster for the PAS (Anti-Zionist Party), [For a Europe freed from the censure of communitarianism [anti-libertarian],  speculators and NATO]. PAS was partly funded by Iran as was  his 2012  film, L’Anti-sémite – in which he shared the limelight with Yahia Gouasmi, the chairman of the French Shi’ite federation, and  polemicist Alain Soral, whose political trajectory has veered from hardcore communism to membership of the extreme right-wing Front National.

In Europe, Elites Create the Atmosphere That Allows Popular Anti-Semitism to Grow

The furor over the ‘quenelle’ salute mirrors the refusal of Olympic officials to commemorate murdered Israeli athletes

By Deborah E. Lipstadt, Tablet magazine
January 02, 2014

Over the past few years, I have repeatedly been approached by a broad array of Jews worried about developments in Europe. They have pointed to anti-Israel protests, shootings, and the rising tide of extreme religious identification among young Muslims born and raised in the West; some worried over rumors, all false, that Britain had banned the teaching of the Holocaust. All asked, “Is this 1939 redux? Is it over—once again—for European Jews?” Recognizing their genuine fears, I have tried not to scoff, instead reassuring each that, while some of what we see is indeed disturbing, analogies to the years preceding the Holocaust are way out of line—and historically invalid, since the Holocaust was a unique episode in both human and Jewish history.

Yet some recent developments have left me unsettled. This week, a French soccer player named Nicolas Anelka sparked a firestorm by publicly giving the quenelle salute—a sort of reverse of the Nazi Sieg Heil, in which one stiffly extends the right hand towards the ground and with the left hand touches the right shoulder—after scoring a goal during a match. Created by Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a French comedian who has been repeatedly condemned and fined by French courts for his anti-Semitic remarks, it has quietly become a phenomenon in the past year: The Internet is festooned with pictures of people making the gesture. It’s been used by athletes in France, the United Kingdom, and even the United States, where San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker gave a public apology earlier this week after a photograph surfaced of him making the gesture with Dieudonné.

Dieudonné, who is friendly with longtime National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen, has openly expressed his contempt for Jews, support for former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the belief that the Holocaust was a hoax. He has invited renowned Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson to appear on his show. Because Holocaust denial is a crime in France, where the comedian is based, he speaks of the “Shoananas”—a play on the words “Shoah” and “ananas,” or pineapple. One can’t be charged for poking fun at a putatively meaningless word.

Dieudonné defends himself by claiming that his beef is only with Zionists, whom he imagines qualify as legitimate open game. But he has expressed overt anti-Semitism, including telling a publication in Lyon that the Jews were “a sect, a scam, which is more serious, because it was the first.” And he has, lately, become a kind of martyr to a fantasy of Jewish power: French authorities are considering banning his one-man show, which has been playing to packed houses in Paris, after he said in a recent performance that hearing Patrick Cohen, a Jewish journalist, makes him yearn for the return of gas chambers.

The quenelle has been given at places directly associated with Jewish tragedies: in front of the Anne Frank House, at concentration camp memorials, at Auschwitz, and even outside the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, where a French-born Muslim named Mohammed Merah murdered three children and a teacher in March 2012. Sometimes the people in the photos hold pineapples. Passersby unfamiliar with the quenelle are occasionally duped into participating: In one photo, an apparently unsuspecting Israeli soldier stands amidst a group of people, all of whom are giving the quenelle. In another, Chabadniks pose with a young man. They hold tallis bags. He gives the quenelle. There are shots of tourists at the Western Wall doing the same. Generally the subjects are smiling broadly—if not laughing—at the secret handshake they share. Anti-Semitism is treated as a joke.

It is possible that the Football Association, the governing body of English soccer, will come down hard on Anelka and other players who engage in this salute just as they have done on players who have engaged in racist actions. I hope that they do. But in the end it does not matter how the Football Association responds to this particular episode. If this salute is banned, it will not be long before some other symbol will come to take its place—and ironically, banning its use at public events will probably only make it even cooler.

***

Pictures of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team killed at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games are seen in a hallway before the start of a memorial ceremony at Guildhall in London to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their deaths, Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. They were held hostage by members of Black September in a demand for the release by Israel of Palestinian prisoners. Black September killed two of the hostages, the other nine along with five Palestinians, were killed in a shoot-out with the German police. All but one of the Black September group were tracked down and killed by Mossad, in operation Bayonet, ordered by then-PM Golda Meir. AP Photo by Sang Tan /APA

Only 18 months ago, the organizers of the London Olympics had the opportunity to take a stand against the kind of casual anti-Semitism embodied by Dieudonné and his fans. In the run-up to the games, the families of the 11 Israeli athletes asked the International Olympic Committee to agree to just one minute of silence in memory of their sons, fathers, and brothers who were murdered—not killed, murdered—at the 1972 Games in Munich by Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group.

As I wrote then, the IOC refused and offered an array of explanations for its stance, most of which boiled down to “The games are apolitical.” Obviously the IOC forgot that in 1996, the committee’s longtime president, the Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch, referred in his opening remarks in Atlanta to the war then raging in the former Yugoslavia. The IOC also seemed to have forgotten that at the 2002 games a moment of silence was accorded the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the IOC also contended that a memorial moment at the opening ceremonies would introduce a discordant note into what they envisioned as a celebratory event—one that was capped, memorably, with a video in which the queen agreed to be whisked to the stadium at Olympic Park by James Bond. “We feel that the opening ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident,” IOC chief Jacques Rogge insisted a few days before the games. Here too they failed to recall that at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, a dedication was played to a competitor who died in a training accident. Finally, to add insult to injury, they failed to tell the petitioners that, in fact, the opening ceremonies in London would include an elaborately choreographed memorial, set to the Scottish hymn Abide With Me, to victims of the 2005 terrorist attacks in London.

No tragedy like what happened in Munich has ever occurred at any Olympic Games before or since. It’s impossible to imagine that, had the victims been athletes from any other country, they would not have been commemorated. The only explanation for the IOC’s adamant refusal is that the murdered athlete were Israelis, and Jews, who were killed for no other reason than simply being so. As I wrote at the time, to IOC officials, “Jewish blood is cheap, too cheap to risk upsetting a bloc of Arab nations and other countries which oppose Israel and its policies.” The message was that these athletes came from a country whose citizens are seen as legitimate targets. Hence, their deaths were not worth a minute.
Tony Parker, French basket-ball player,  performs the quenelle gesture with its inventor, French comedian Dieudonne (photo credit: Instagram/Bestquenelle).Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, son of a buddhist and educated at a Catholic school began his comedic career with Jewish comedian and actor Élie Semoun.  Always anti-establishment, his shift from left to the right and antisemitism seems to have begun around 2008-09. The film he made in 2012,  “L’Antisémite” (“The Anti-Semite”)  “features the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, as well as imagery that mocks the Auschwitz concentration camp. The movie, which was produced by the Iranian Documentary and Experimental Film Centre (with the title “Yahod Setiz)” was canceled at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film, where it was to be screened The film is to be commercialized on the internet and sold to subscribers of Dieudonné’s activities.” From Wikipedia.

At the root of both the IOC’s actions and the quenelle is simple anti-Semitism. One was an expression of covert anti-Semitism offered by buttoned-down elitists, well-heeled professionals and politicians who have entered the highest echelons of international sports. The second, the quenelle, is an expression by people we generally associate with the hoi polloi, the many, the common folk. By this I don’t mean to suggest that the people involved in giving this salute are necessarily stupid or uneducated. That is certainly not true of Dieudonné, of Anelka, or of many others who have participated in the quenelle wave. But it is nevertheless a mass phenomenon.

It is not the connection with sporting events that links these two manifestations of anti-Semitism. There is something far more ominous about them. I live in the American South, a region with a long history of terrible racism, lynchings, murders, beatings, bombings, and all forms of discrimination and humiliation. None of it would have been possible without an alliance between two very different segments of society. At one end were the powerful communal elites—bankers, lawyers, wealthy storeowners, and members of the country clubs—who composed the White Citizens’ Councils. At the other end were those from the “lower” realm of the economic and educational spectrum—think good old boys.

One group cloaks its prejudice in high minded rationalizations. The other openly appeals to people’s most base hatreds. The elites might never personally assault anyone or espouse violence. However, they create an atmosphere that allows others to more freely engage in anti-Semitic actions. It is not a matter of one group being worse than the other. It is that both are necessary for the perfect storm. This storm might take a very long time to gather to gale force—but the atmospheric elements increasingly seem to be falling into place.

Yet, before reading this as a license to panic, let’s remember how different things are today than in the Europe of the 1930s. Even before Jews protested and demanded a response to Anelka’s salute—something we can freely do today—political leaders, commentators, and public intellectuals were already condemning it as an expression of racist and anti-Semitic prejudice. Many among them were clear about seeing the ideas underlying the silly hand gesture as a threat to the kind of society in which they wish to live.

Dieudonné, Anelka, and Parker have all responded defensively, variously insisting that their actions have nothing to do with anti-Semitism or were misconstrued. Thankfully, no one believes them.

Am I suggesting that European Jews should pick up and move? Hardly. Will I curtail my visits to Europe and to Jewish sites, both cultural and religious? No. Am I predicting another human tragedy—terror, or murder? No, of course not. (In any case, I am an historian and not in the predicting business.) But next time, when some Jew approaches me and asks about manifestations of European anti-Semitism am I going to pause for just a nanosecond before dismissing their fears? Maybe even a bit longer—and then I will remind them how different 2014 is from 1939 and how free they are to ensure that it remains so.

What is the ‘Quenelle,’ Anyway?

Some background on the controversial, not-so-new ‘reverse Nazi salute’

By Stephanie Butnick, Tablet
December 31, 2013

French soccer player Nicolas Anelka celebrates a goal with the controversial quenelle.(World Soccer Talk)
In simpler days, a quenelle was just a food item, popular in French cuisine, made up of fish, meat, cheese, mashed potatoes—it could be almost anything, really–wrapped in a small dumpling-like exterior; an “elegant, football-shaped” endeavor, far more refined than, say, a traditional scoop of ice cream. Some believe the word originates from the German “knödel,” meaning dumpling, though that’s apparently up for etymological and gastronomical debate. (Here’s a helpful video of a chef making a quenelle, if you’d like a topical last-minute addition to your New Year’s Eve menu.)

How, then, did the quenelle come to be the controversial gesture du jour, the ‘reverse Nazi salute’ that has the world’s attention, and has French Jews (and their American counterparts) crying foul? The gesture was created and popularized by Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, the Cameroonian-French comedian and political provocateur—known primarily by his first name, like Madonna—who has described Judaism as “a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all, because it was the first,” and who this month was found guilty of defamation, libel, and incitement to hatred and racial discrimination by a French court.

But back to the quenelle, an object BBC News explains Dieudonné once reportedly expressed a desire to put “up the backside of Zionists,” and a gesture he’s incorporated into his various routines since as early as 2005:

The gesture involves touching or gripping your shoulder with one hand while holding the palm of your other hand outstretched and pointing to the ground. Some describe it as a combination of the bras d’honneur with a bent arm (which means “up yours”) and the Nazi salute.

Also, a nifty way to avoid trouble for giving a Nazi salute, which is outlawed in France.

Who’s done it recently? French soldiers outside a synagogue in Paris, who were later sanctioned by the army. French soccer star Nicolas Anelka, who plays for West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League, did a celebratory post-goal quenelle, which he said was in solidarity with Dieudonné and for which he will likely be suspended. NBA player Tony Parker, meanwhile, apologized after the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center slammed him for a photograph in which he does the quenelle with Dieudonné himself.

And now you know.

Nicolas Anelka, Dieudonné and why la quenelle can never be considered an innocent gesture

By Philippe Auclair, Opinion, Mirror Sport
December 29, 2013

The West Brom striker cannot escape the connotations behind his ill-advised gesture when celebrating against West Ham

A quenelle , the Larousse Gastronomique will tell you, is ‘a dumpling made with a spiced meat or fish forcemeat bound with fat and eggs’, which is then poached and served with a variety of sauces. Quite delicious it is too.

It is also the name given to the gesture Nicolas Anelka made to celebrate his first goal in an official game in England since 20 August 2011; incidentally, West Brom were on the receiving end on that occasion.

That quenelle left a far bitterer taste in the mouth than the dish it takes its name from, however, regardless of the player’s explanation that it was ‘just a special dedication to my comedian friend Dieudonné’ – the problem being Dieudonné himself, the inventor of the hand salute (which he has patented), a complete unknown outside of France, the subject of fierce controversy within it.

Comedy doesn’t travel well. In Dieudonné’s case, it probably shouldn’t be allowed to travel at all. The act he has developed over the last decade, and which has made him a wealthy man as well as, bizarrely, a champion for anti-establishment types of all hues, is based on all-out provocation and shock tactics within a comedic format which is, in fine , deeply traditional.

So far, so good – or inconsequential. But what distinguishes Dieudonné from other ‘alternative’ comedians is the target which he directs most of his barbs at; namely – Jews.

Jokey references to the Holocaust abound in his monologues, some of them so callous, so crude that they do not bear repeating here. He’s taken to conclude his one-man show with Shoananas , a song poking fun (as its title suggests) at what Hebrew-speakers, but also the French know as the shoah , literally, the ‘catastrophe’ or ‘calamity’ – the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi regime.

France hasn’t embraced political correctness as Britain has; its libel and slander laws are lax by Anglo-saxon standards; and whilst specific legislation deals with and punishes négationnisme (Holocaust denial), the authorities have been reluctant to apply the letter of the law with all its force in the case of isolated offences.

Nevertheless, on the eve of Anelka’s celebration, French Home Office minister Manuel Valls had indicated that he was looking at ways to ban Dieudonné’s ‘shows and public meetings’ after the comedian’s latest anti-semitic tirade, which had been directed at journalist Patrick Cohen.

‘when I hear him [Cohen], I tell myself, you know, gas chambers…too bad’.

If Anelka’s quenelle was indeed nothing but a show of solidarity with a friend who’d found himself embroiled in trouble, it’s just as well we know what kind of trouble that is; and it’s not as if Dieudonné had no ‘previous’ in that department.

He’s been found guilty of incitement to racial hatred on several occasions, his first condemnation coming in November 2007 after making the following comment: ‘All of them [Jews] are slave-straders who’ve moved into banking, show-business and, today, terrorist action’.

Two years later, he contested the European elections as one of the star candidates of the so-called PAS (Anti-Zionist Party), a hotch-potch of an organisation – partly funded by the regime of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who also financed Dieudonné’s 2012 feature film, L’Anti-sémite – in which he shared the limelight with Yahia Gouasmi, the chairman of the French chi’ite federation, and the failed film-maker and professional polemicist Alain Soral, whose political trajectory has veered from hardcore communism to membership of the extreme right-wing Front National.

That is the same Soral who was photographed doing a quenelle at the Shoah Memorial in Berlin, that quenelle that also featured on one of the Party’s electoral posters (above), demonstrated by Dieudonné himself. The presence of a ‘rabbi’ on this poster should leave little doubt as to whether ‘anti-zionism’ could be taken as a genteelism, if that’s the word, for plain anti-semitism..

And therein lies the problem. Those who defend the quenelle as an ‘anti-establishment’, rebellious gesture pretend to be unaware of its ambiguity; or, more properly, its absence of ambiguity in the current context, when it has been tainted by association with extremists.

It could be that Dieudonné, when he introduced his trademark (for a trademark it is, which brings him a substantial income through merchandising) in his 2004 one-man show, only meant it as a building-block in the manufacturing of his stage persona.

It could be that the tens of thousands of youngsters who’ve adopted the quenelle see no harm whatsoever in mimicking their favourite comedian.

They may see it as a means to express their refusal to be a slave of the ‘system’, whatever ‘system’ may mean, more often than not a concatenation of ‘causes’ such as anti-globalisation, Green politics, anti-parliamentarism, ultra-nationalism and ‘anti-zionism’. It is also true that there was no outcry when another footballer, Montpellier’s Mathieu Deplagne, did a quenelle after scoring in a French Cup game against Sochaux in January of this year.

But context is – almost – everything in cases such as these. The quite extraordinary media reaction in France, where most radio stations opened their Sunday morning news programmes with the ‘Anelka story’, should suffice to prove that the quenelle can no longer be considered an innocent gesture.

If it ever was one.

Nicolas Anelka and West Bromwich Albion must apologise now over quenelle gesture

France striker must receive a long ban and West Brom, the player and the FA are facing a test of credibility. Nicolas Anelka and West Bromwich Albion must apologise now over quenelle gesture

By Henry Winter, Telegraph
December 39, 2013

Nicolas Anelka is far too intelligent an individual for us to take seriously his claim that the ‘reverse Nazi’ salute la quenelle is an innocent, inoffensive gesture. He deserves a suspension substantially beyond the five-game Football Association minimum.

As ever with such controversies, the ramifications are widespread, not simply focusing on yet more lunacy by a high-profile footballer but also going to the very heart of a club’s relationship with a star employee and to the FA’s own credibility as a governing force under Greg Dyke.

Club first. West Bromwich Albion’s sporting and technical director, Richard Garlick, held talks with Anelka yesterday to ascertain why he made such a “show of solidarity” with a friend, the comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, whose association with anti-Semitism is notorious in France.

Anelka “strongly denied intending to cause offence”, according to the club, has “agreed” with their request “not to perform the gesture again” and “will remain under consideration for first-team selection whilst the FA and club continue their enquiries”. So a player who triggered outrage continues to represent the club. West Brom concede Anelka’s quenelle “caused offence in some quarters”.

Some? Many. West Brom’s weak statement suggests they haven not learnt from the mistakes made by Liverpool over Luis Suárez and Chelsea over John Terry in their racism storms. Some contrition would be a start. From Anelka too.

Errant stars blithely assume clubs will defend them in the old dressing-room tradition of circling the wagons. It is the way of the team, an attitude seen in the ill-considered conduct of Liverpool and Chelsea. Players, especially the important, well-paid ones, expect their clubs to back them.

Anelka does not deserve backing. He has embarrassed West Brom with his quenelle. Albion have a long history of challenging intolerance, dating back to the Seventies with the emergence of Brendon Batson, Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis. They have a good community operation working in one of the most diverse parts of the country.

Their strong commitment to “equality, diversity and inclusion” is set out in guidelines to staff, emphasising they seek “to confront and eliminate all forms of discrimination’’ and have “procedures in place to ensure such (discriminatory) behaviour is met with appropriate disciplinary action”.

Of particular pertinence, West Brom also make the point that while the club take “overall responsibility” for their anti-discrimination policy, they encourage “employees to take an active role in ensuring its effective implementation”. In other words, individuals should take responsibility. Anelka has to stop hiding from the truth. He has to apologise properly.

He is bright enough to analyse the situation. Injured for an Arsenal game at Dinamo Kiev on Nov 4, 1998, Anelka found a sheltered viewing station in the press box. There was an empty seat next to me, he took it, and was good, incredibly polite company, even getting the coffees in at half-time.

Anelka’s plea of ignorance over the quenelle’s significance does not ring true; he seems too smart and well-informed.
Privately, West Brom must be appalled by Anelka. He is not a kid; he is 34 with almost as much experience of managing a team (at Shanghai Shenhua) as West Brom’s caretaker head coach, Keith Downing (at Cheltenham Town). The club could send Anelka on a PFA-backed course, educating him about the Holocaust, but ultimately he needs to quell the storm himself. Players must accept individual responsibility.

Now the FA. It has jurisdiction over offences like Anelka’s inside grounds but could also have a word with other Premier League players who have done the quenelle outside grounds. Wembley’s disciplinary response to Anelka’s quenelle via an independent regulatory commission is a huge test of Dyke’s chairmanship. How determined is he to address expressions of bigotry in English football?

His predecessor, David Bernstein, left frustrated that not more was done on his watch on certain cases of intolerance, and he bequeathed a stronger disciplinary response in the post-Terry/Suárez world. Will Dyke continue Bernstein’s judicious work? Otherwise, could Anelka’s quenelle be adopted by xenophobes in England?

So many questions. These can be answered only by Anelka receiving due punishment. Or will the FA’s new Inclusion Advisory Board, being chaired by Heather Rabbatts, be undermined by its own organisation before its first meeting next month? The IAB has been created to “provide guidance on all equality matters and will monitor the delivery of Football’s Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Action Plan for 2013-2017’’.

Failure to bring Anelka sufficiently to account will shred this vital FA document and principle. Dyke’s authority, as well as West Brom’s reputation as a club historically condemnatory of discrimination, have been challenged by the deeply offensive quenelle of Nicolas Anelka.

Quasi-Nazi salute popular in France

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA News & Features
December 24, 2013

PARIS – To outsiders, they seem like ordinary men striking macho poses for the camera. But there is a dark side to the photos that are appearing with growing frequency in the French media.

The men – and less frequently women – are performing the “quenelle,” a gesture vaguely similar to the Nazi salute that some believe was invented solely to express hatred of Jews without inviting prosecution.

In France, displaying Nazi symbols is illegal if done to cause offense. But the quenelle, in which one places the left palm across the right shoulder, may not be prosecutable. It is just similar enough to the Nazi salute to make its meaning clear, but not so similar that the gesturer could be subject to criminal charges.

“The quenelle is too vague to be treated like a Nazi salute,” Anne-Sophie Laguens, a former secretary of the conference of lawyers of the Paris bar association, wrote in a legal analysis published in September in the Le Nouvel Observateur weekly.

Until recently, most Frenchmen knew the word quenelle to mean a sort of dumpling or cookie. But after the comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala appropriated the word to refer to a salute of his own invention, the gesture has taken on anti-Semitic overtones.

Last week, the Swiss municipality of Carouge near Geneva fired two volunteer firefighters over online photos in which they performed the quenelle. In September, two French soldiers were disciplined for performing it in front of a Paris synagogue and then posting the image online.

Dieudonne, a professed anti-Semite, Hamas supporter and Holocaust denier, was convicted last month for a seventh time of incitement against Jews and slapped with a $36,000 fine. Like the Nazi salute, the quenelle is seen as a variant of the Roman salute and, considering its inventor’s penchant for defiance of France’s anti-Nazi laws, is understood to challenge the prohibition on performing the Nazi salute.

“It’s an inverted Nazi salute,” Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF Jewish umbrella group, told the French media recently.

The quenelle is of a piece with Dieudonne’s coining of the term “shoananas,” a mashup of the Hebrew word for Holocaust and the French word for pineapple that is seen as a safe way to suggest the Holocaust is a myth while not running afoul of French laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. Dieudonne fans have taken to performing the quenelle next to pineapples.

The quenelle’s popularity has soared in France. Hundreds of quenelle photos can be found in anti-Semitic forums and on Facebook, with quenelles performed at Jewish sites and at Nazi concentration camps especially popular. But while civil servants may face disciplinary action over the quenelle, civilians may perform it with impunity.

Laguens’ analysis of the legal implications of the quenelle came days after a young man sitting in the audience of a prime-time television show performed it while smiling for the camera. A Facebook user identified as Leo Romano planned a “quenelle party” for Dec. 22 in eastern France, but on Dec. 17 he said he had been summoned to the office of France’s domestic intelligence agency.

“It’s an anti-establishment gesture, not a racist or anti-Semitic one, as the media would have you believe to discredit us,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Outside France, the quenelle is virtually unknown. This has allowed the users of anti-Semitic Internet forums to relish the irony of photographs of French tourists performing the quenelle while posing with an oblivious Israeli soldier and at the Western Wall.

Notes and links

Older people in Britain will remember Deborah Lipstadt for her defence against the charge of libel brought by holocaust-denier and right-winger David Irving against Penguin Books (who published Lipstadt’s charge against Irving in her book Denying the Holocaust) in 2000. Historian Richard Evans provided substantial evidence of the reality and extent of the Nazi attempt to exyerminate Jews.Irving lost his case.

How ‘Quenelle’ Salute Creator Dieudonné Built Bridge to Anti-Semitic Far [R]ight about Dieudonné by Robert Zaretsky, Jewish Forward,
January 03, 2014.

French Ministers Line up Against Anti-Semitic Quenelle Comedian Dieudonné, International Business Times, January 3rd 2014.