A Junior Class on Jews, Arabs, Israel, the United States, terrorism, bin Laden and the media

Two students from France's National Foundation for Political Science (Sciences Pô) conducted wide-ranging interviews with a group of "first year" (première, ages 16-17) high school students in a suburb of Paris. Subjects broached included the students' opinions on Jews, Arabs, Israel, the United States, terrorism, bin Laden and the media. The news Web site dedicated to Jewish matters, proche-orient.info, has published portions of a transcript of these interviews. I'm including selected passages. The following anonymous responses come from a class of 34 students at a high school, the name and location of which are undisclosed.

[On the subject of racism] Are there such problems at your school?

- No.

And with people of other religions?

- I know somebody who won't talk to Jewish people.

Is it because of religion that people refuse to talk to others?

- There are people with a bad image because they're Jews.

- In the movie (Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ - Ed.), you see that it was the Jews who killed Jesus. So the Jews are hated even more. The problems piled up and then they resurfaced with the release of this movie.

How do you explain the problems surrounding this movie?

- The Jews said that it wasn't they who killed Jesus and that created controversy. But it's still a movie and I don't understand why it created such a controversy.

Are you shocked that Jews should be accused?

- It was the Jews who wanted to crucify Jesus. It was the Jews who protested against the film because they're afraid of another Second World War. The film came out any way because the director based his work on the bible which talks of the Jews' responsibility.

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