Although the leadership of the French Socialist Party continues to support Israel come what may, dissent is brewing in the ranks. Jeremy Landor writes from Paris A row has erupted in France's main opposition party, the Parti Socialiste (PS), over its unstinting support for Israel. A number of its leading figures have been prominent at recent events and demonstrations in support of Israel. But Pascal Boniface, a member of the PS national strategy group, director of the influential Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) and author of a recent book, 'Can we criticise Israel?', believes that they have gone too far. In protest, he has quit the party after 23 years as a loyal member. In a letter written to the secretary-general of the PS, François Hollande, in July, Boniface complained that "priority is given to those in the PS who have an ethnic reading of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". He was also upset that a former finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had insulted him in a speech at a pro-Israeli rally on 22 June, calling Boniface "contemptible". Boniface tried to persuade PS leaders to modify their policy towards Israel before the presidential elections in May last year, asking rhetorically: "Can we vilify Joerg Haidar (Austrian leader of the fascist Freedom Party) and treat Ariel Sharon normally?" He also made the controversial suggestion that Israel be added to American President George W Bush's "axis of evil". In January 2003, PS leader and former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius resigned from the board of IRIS along with Serge Weinberg, director of the retail giant Pinault-Printemps-Redoute. Boniface was sacked from his position on the PS strategy group last month, and has been labelled an anti-Semite by pro-Israeli writers. However, a director of the magazine L'Express, Professor Grosser, supported his views, submitting his resignation after the magazine gave an unusual degree of prominence to readers critical of Boniface. According to Boniface, there is widespread support for his views in the PS. "The majority of people in the party agree with me, but Hollande does not want any trouble." Meanwhile, neo-Nazis and pro-Israeli groups in France may be coordinating their efforts in creating a series of Internet sites hostile to Arabs and Muslims, according to a report by the French organisation MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples). Over the last two years, MRAP found 450,000 denigrating and threatening Internet messages emanating from more than 30 sites hosted by liberty-web.net. These included "racist insults, death threats and defamation against individuals, journalists and political figures. They also target Muslim places of worship", said MRAP. Some of the sites have claimed responsibility for attacks on mosques in France. The programmes used by the racist sites prevent identification of the authors, allowing the hate messages to flourish in anonymity. It was in 2000, with the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and a subsequent online battlefront between Palestinian and Israeli supporters, that "extremist pro-Israeli sites, side by side with sites created by neo-Nazis" appeared on the net, according to the report. Disagreements over the war on Iraq caused divisions between the neo-Nazis and Zionists which temporarily closed down all the sites last March. The fascist National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen came out against the war, while the pro-Israeli groups were in favour. Two weeks later the sites reopened under the name of Frema (France en marche, or France on the move). Some Jewish organisations have expressed reservations about the report. While condemning racist Web sites, they point to the lack of proof that any of the sites are run by pro-Israeli or Jewish individuals or groups.
