Algeria Goes Postal

Ok, so by now you’ve heard the story about Mohamed Cherif Abbas--Algeria's minister for veterans affairs--who declared in an interview with the daily newspaper El Khabar that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was brought to power by a "Jewish lobby that has a monopoly on French industry." Abbas also mentioned Sarkozy's "roots," an apparent reference to the French president's maternal grandfather, who was Jewish.

But what you probably haven’t heard about yet is the other key piece of “evidence” proving that the Zionists were responsible for Sarkozy’s election. In his interview, Abbas noted: “Don’t you know that Israeli Authorities issued a stamp bearing the picture of Sarkozy amid his presidency campaign?”

Behold the stamp in question:



And herewith are the origins of this conspiracy, as detailed over at the official blog for the French-language Israeli website, Terre d’Israel.

The Israeli post office has a service, whereby you can order customized stamps with a portrait of yourself, a family member, or even a pet. The stamps are intended for use within Israel, and include--as part of the standard template--declarations of “Mazel Tov” and the image of a gift box. (They’re mostly used for birthday cards, bar mitzvahs, and other festive occasions.)

Sylvain Semhoun--the Israel representative of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party and a member of the assembly of French citizens abroad--commissioned a four-shekel stamp to mark Sarkozy's 52nd birthday, and then distributed more than 1,000 stamps as a souvenir to the party's volunteer workers in January. (In doing so, he broke Israeli post office rules that such stamps should only feature portraits of family members…but the post office employee who processed the order either didn’t recognize Sarkozy’s portrait, or simply didn’t care.)

Now, in a sane world, the story would be end there. But, Semhoun decided to post an image of the stamp on the “photo album” section of the Terre d’Israel website.

The stamp eventually came to the attention of a rabidly anti-semitic, pro-Dieudonné website called "La Banlieue s'exprime" ("The Suburbs Speak"). In March, the site published news of the stamp, declaring that it was produced by the Israeli government and that "It calls for French Jews to vote for the candidature of Nicolas Sarkozy for the good of Israel." One visitor to the site declared: "The stamp is a disgrace as well as a betrayal and proves one thing: all Jews are called to vote Sarkozy, otherwise, why would it be printed mostly in Hebrew?"

Inevitably, news of the postage stamp spread to Indymedia and various anti-Zionist blogs (see here), with titles like: “Sarkozy has Israel's stamp of approval.”

Next, the stamp was the subject of a column by Bernard Langlois--in the leftist French weekly Politis—who decried that the State of Israel “which can distinguish its true friends, released a stamp bearing Sarkozy’s effigy. " And then the story got picked up by the French Communist daily L'Humanité. The journalist, Marie Barbier, reported that, after careful inspection, the stamp was not a hoax, and concluded: “Since the end of January, the Israelis have actually a Stamp of approval for Nicolas Sarkozy. "

Eventually, the story made its way to an Algerian government minister: The “smoking gun” proving that there was a Zionist conspiracy to elect Sarkozy.

This is why I’ve never felt the urge to use hallucinogenic drugs: The real world is strange enough already.