A diplomatic row between France and Israel has been brewing since Sunday. French President Jacques Chirac became incensed at Ariel Sharon, after the Israeli Prime Minister had apparently called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel immediately to escape "the wildest anti-Semitism." The comment by Sharon was made during a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday. An upset Chirac declared Sharon unwelcome in France, thereby delaying a planned visit to Paris by the Israeli PM.

Sharon, however, maintains that there was a misunderstanding, an explanation that both countries are now willing to accept, but France wants an apology all the same.

France feels slighted by Sharon's speech in which the government asserts that he did not highlight the efforts that French police and lawmakers have made to fight anti-Semitism.

"The comments questioned the very principles (of equality) of the ... French republic," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. "As for the relations we want to preserve with the state of Israel and the Israeli people, who are our friends, we must take time to understand one another better," he said.

There is anti-Semitism in France and, like most anywhere else in Europe, it has deep roots. The Dreyfus Affair of 1894 is one notorious example of French anti-Semitism - however, Emile Zola, a prominent French author at the time, condemned Captain Dreyfus' discharge from the military, penning "J'accuse." Most French backed Zola's view.

Whereas in the days of the Dreyfus affair, anti-Semitism was propagated by the far Right and the Catholic church, the pro-Palestinian, Leftist politics alive and well in Europe are responsible for today's anti-Semitic sentiment. Late in 2001, the French Ambassador to the U.K. shocked those present at a Labour Party soiree, opining that Israel, "that shitty little country," was responsible for the world's problems: "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?"

So far this year, there have been more attacks on Jews in France than the sum total of anti-Jewish attacks for the whole of last year. And even if the latest high-publicity incident of an anti-Semitic train attack was a hoax, it was a thoroughly believable hoax as "Straight Up" columnist Jan Herman points out.

For all the outrage expressed at Sharon by the French Jewish community, most of whom consider themselves French first, Jewish second, and are of the mind that the Israeli leader should mind his own business, 2,556 French Jews emigrated to Israel last year, and there are some French Jews who are nervous about the current situation in France.