Martine Gozlan (*)
Tunisia’s misfortune makes Qatar’s colonial happiness. Indeed, it is against the backdrop of a country decimated by the coronavirus – the death rate is the highest in Africa – that a bill has been passed allowing the “Qatar Fund For Development” to manage the financial interests between Tunisia and Qatar. A real treaty that will allow Doha to intervene directly in the Tunisian economy, with considerable advantages for the backers of Islamism.
Martine Gozlan (*)
You have to get used to it, Israel is not a country like the others. Normalcy, the ultimate goal of the Zionist project, is still out of reach, in the way the world looks at the Jewish state or in the way it looks at itself. Who would have imagined that Benyamin Netanyahu’s downfall would be brought about by the most disparate, original and unlikely coalition on the planet’s political scene?
Ian Hamel (*)
There’s no need to go to the Armani Hotel’s kosher restaurant unannounced. It’s better to book well in advance. As for the terrace, it is crowded, in order to be able to attend a unique show mixing water jets, sounds and lights. Draped in his white dishdasha, the traditional dress of the men of the Gulf, our interlocutor tells us that in the lounge of a large hotel in Dubai, he recently found himself the only Arab among dozens of Jews. “But if this continues, there will be more of them than us!” he says with a smile. When they signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020 normalising Emirati-Israeli relations, the Emiratis expected to welcome a wave of visitors from Tel Aviv. But it is a wave that has swept through the Gulf. As for the Western Jewish communities, they no longer say “next year in Jerusalem”, but “the next holiday in Dubai”!
Roland Jacquard (*)
Pakistan has been witnessing a rapid breakdown of its internal administrative machinery, with its police and security forces unable to control the country-wide violence engineered by the supporters of the radical Islamist party, the Tehreek -e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that has been demanding the ouster of the French Ambassador and halting of trade relations with France. While the spotlight is on the grim domestic security situation with the government being held hostage by the TLP, the condition of its economy and its diplomatic standing is no better.
Roland Jacquard (*)
Bangladesh made headlines, last October, when thousands of protestors came out to the streets in Dhaka to protest against France. The protesters, around 50,000 in number, were demanding the closure of the French embassy in the country. A dummy of President Emmanuel Macron was also burnt during the protest with Junaid Babunagari, the Secretary-General of Hefazat-e-lslam (Hel) – one of the biggest Islamist groups in the country – stating that “Emmanuel Macron should beg for forgiveness.”. Apart from Dhaka, there were protests in smaller towns including one large protest in the port town of Chittagong, the headquarters of the Hel.
Martine Gozlan (*)
“May Allah curse France!” headlined the Islamic State’s French-language magazine, Dar al-Islam, a few weeks after the Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Casher shooting. These words, always the same, saturate the atmosphere in the manifestations of anti-French hatred that are regularly unleashed, on any grounds, in the Islamic world. The jihadists massacred in France because France embodies the major resistance to their barbarism.
Martine Gozlan (*)
On 9 March, a Brazilian plane landed on the tarmac at Algiers airport. Its holds were reportedly full of doses of vaccine delivered by Israel. Algeria is already supplied with Russian Sputnik and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines, which is not surprising. Health logic follows diplomatic logic. But Israel! The country most vilified by the Algerian media, the target of all the conspiracy theories! Is the information, broadcast by the I24 news channel, which broadcasts from Tel Aviv in French, English and Arabic, serious? Even if it is only a rumour, it has the advantage of making people think.
