Jews? What Are We, Chopped Liver?

Scott Raab sits down with Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, to discuss present-day anti-Semitism.

By Scott Raab

Abraham Foxman has been the Anti-Defamation League’s national director since 1987. Polish-born, he was a “hidden child,” given by his parents to his Catholic nanny to hide him from the Nazis. After the war, he and his parents emigrated to the United States.

Myrna Shinbaum is the ADL’s director of media relations and public information. She insisted that she not be part of this story, but, what the hey, she came to the lunch -- at a northern-Italian joint in Midtown -- and Esquire bought. Plus, she had plenty to say. She’s from the Bronx.

Scott Raab, a Cleveland native, has been a Jew since 1952, when he was born. Here, the three break bread and discuss the state of anti-Semitism in the world.

Abraham Foxman: We do polls in Europe, we do polls here. In Europe, it’s very high, classic anti-Semitism. Here, our latest numbers are 14, 15 percent.

Myrna Shinabum: 15 percent.

Scott Raab: Of what?

AF: Are infected -- Americans are infected.

MS: Who hold strong anti-Semitic views.

AF: That’s about thirty-five million Americans.

SR: That’s stunning.

AF: It’s better than when I started at the ADL -- it was 30 percent. There’ve been many changes in terms of social acceptance, but there is an element of political anti-Semitism. One out of three Americans believes that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America. That’s a very serious belief. In Europe, it’s twice that much. And one out of two Europeans believes that the Jews control American foreign policy.

MS: Someone once accused us that all we do is count swastikas.

AF: Swastikas are number one --

MS: If they want to intimidate Jews. And if they want to intimidate blacks, they use a noose.

AF: Nooses are now number two. The nooses are in places of employment, interestingly enough -- the overwhelming majority of nooses are found in places of employment.

MS: Swastikas still -- people, they know what it means.

AF: The number-one intimidating factor of hate. But they also use a swastika as a symbol of white supremacy, so it’s much broader. We’ve been accused of looking for them under the bed. I have come to the conclusion a long time ago, we don’t have the luxury of being silent. And if I am to err, I would err to speak out against bigotry and anti-Semitism. [Foxman looks around the restaurant.] What’s her name -- from 60 Minutes?

MS: Lesley Stahl. Sitting here?

AF: Yeah. Two tables down, see?

SR: So where does the professional passion come from? Your childhood?

AF: I guess so. I would say it’s a combination of my upbringing, my experiences. I survived because of Christian love and Christian compassion -- I survived hate because of tolerance.

SR: I know you and Mel Gibson exchanged letters about The Passion of the Christ -- did you two ever meet?

AF: No. He made the issue; we didn’t make the issue. He was the one who said, “I’m gonna make a movie that will tell the whole truth,” and somebody said, “What if it offends the Jews?” He said, “I’m gonna tell the truth.” For six months we tried to deal with him. Everybody said we made the movie popular -- as if millions of Christians went to see it because Abe Foxman said something? Maybe ten thousand Jews went to see it because I said something. Mel Gibson was an icon. He was the most popular, the most successful, and look at him now. The bigotry came out and the American people basically pushed him aside -- and that’s what we’re all about. Sure, you have the right to be a bigot, but our job is to make sure that the American people continue to find it un-American, immoral, un-Christian, and unacceptable, and that there is a consequence. The good news is, in this country there are consequences to people being bigots.

SR: Have you chosen a successor at ADL?

MS: Look, he’s a vital young man.

AF: There was an Abe Foxman predecessor, and there will be an Abe Foxman successor. Before me, people said, “Oh my God, what’s gonna be when Ben Epstein is gone? When Arnold Forster’s no longer here?” You know what? We’re still here, we’re doing the job -- unfortunately, there’s a greater need, so there’ll be somebody else.

Professeure de charisme

Professeure de charisme

19 mai 2008

Auteur(e) : 

Claire Levenson

Olivia Fox Cabane, ancienne avocate, est devenue "coach en charisme" et experte en influence. Dans les écoles de commerce et les entreprises, cette jeune franco-américaine enseigne l’art du networking et des poignées de main. Pour 10 000 dollars minimum.

« Mes parents ne comprennent pas ce que je fais. Enfin, ça commence…Et mes amis français ont encore un peu de mal à saisir ce que j’enseigne », avoue-t-elle.

Mais le scepticisme d’outre-Atlantique lui importe peu. A 25 ans, Olivia avait déjà enseigné à Harvard, Yale, l’ONU et le Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Elle est connue ici comme « the charisma coach » et les médias américains – Bloomberg, USA Today, le New York Times – la citent sur des sujets aussi variés que l’art de la conversation ou le charisme des candidats d’American Idol (la Star Academy américaine). Après avoir publié « The Pocket Guide to Becoming a Superstar in your Field », elle va commencer un nouveau livre sur la science comportementale et la psychologie évolutionnaire appliquées au business.

et en business elle s’y connaît : le sien lui rapporte déjà quelque 500 000 dollars annuels (selon le magazine Entrepreneur). Une somme confortable, surtout à moins de trente ans. Olivia préfère rester discrète sur son âge, de peur d’effrayer ses clients européens (« Les Français ont parfois ce réflexe : si elle n’a pas de cheveux gris, je ne la prends pas au sérieux. ») Mais en quelques clics, tout internaute peut découvrir qu’elle a 29 ans.

Petite brune enthousiaste, souvent vêtue de rouge, Fox Cabane aime répéter que sa méthode d’enseignement est efficace car « très scientifique ». Dans son appartement à deux pas de l’Empire State Building, elle passe des journées entières à lire des revues de psychologie et de science comportementale. Elle n’a pas de doctorat, mais baigne dans ces théories depuis l’enfance : sa mère est psychologue et son père chercheur scientifique. « Si vous additionnez psychologie et recherche scientifique, vous avez la science comportementale. J’ai appliqué ça à mon domaine, le business ».

Elle dit avoir une approche unique sur le charisme et assure n’avoir aucun concurrent. Une assurance qui laisse perplexe certains spécialistes, comme Robert Sutton, professeur en management à Stanford : « les sciences comportementales ont été appliquées au business depuis plus de 100 ans […] et la psychologie évolutionnaire depuis plusieurs décennies ».

Mais le talent d’un coach est de savoir développer une image de marque spéciale, ce qu’Olivia a bien réussi. « Dans mon milieu, la réalité n’a pas d’importance, » dit-elle. « La façon dont les autres vous perçoivent est la seule chose qui compte. »

Selon une étude de l’université d’Harvard, il suffit de deux secondes pour que quelqu’un se fasse une idée de vous, et ce premier jugement est peu susceptible de changer par la suite. Lorsque Fox Cabane coache un client, elle analyse aussi bien le froncement de ses sourcils que sa façon de dire bonjour et de s’asseoir.

« En négociation, une micro expression lue en 30 millisecondes peut tout changer », affirme-t-elle.

Ancien élève d’Olivia, Christian Millet, PDG de Logfret, une société de transport de marchandises, dit être plus à l’aise pour prendre la parole en public grâce à ses cours avec la coach du charisme. Toutefois, certains conseils se sont avérés difficiles à mettre en pratique, comme imiter les gestes de votre interlocuteur lors d’une conversation en face à face. « Si je fais constamment attention à mes bras, à ma posture lorsque je parle… j’ai peur de perdre ma spontanéité », dit Millet.

Si elle cite souvent les dernières recherches scientifiques, les conseils d’Olivia sont souvent simples. Par exemple, pour avoir un sourire chaleureux, pensez à un souvenir heureux. Evitez de dire « pas de problème » car les gens retiennent « problème ». Et enfin, dans vos emails, utilisez plus « vous », que « je ». Il faut que votre interlocuteur se sente valorisé, donc parlez-lui de lui-même !

Sur le site Internet d’Olivia, beaucoup de ses clients affirment avoir augmenté leur chiffre d’affaires ou réussi une négociation grâce à ses conseils. « Pour les Américains, si ça marche, c’est bon. La théorie, ils s’en fichent », explique-t-elle. Sa liste de clients va de Citibank à Deloitte, une des plus grandes compagnies d’audit au monde.

En France, son travail provoque des réactions différentes. Quand Olivia a été parler à l’INSEAD, la grande école de commerce de Fontainebleau, il y a d’abord eu une heure et demie de débat sur ses théories. (« Il faut qu’ils montrent leur esprit critique et ensuite ils peuvent se prêter au jeu ».) Elle a refusé de parler à Sciences-po de peur que l’accueil soit trop négatif.

Mais si vous avez des doutes sur son enseignement, Olivia peut vous rassurer. Elle a d’abord testé toutes ses théories sur elle-même. « Je suis mon propre rat de laboratoire », dit-elle. « Il y a 15 ans, j’étais la personne la plus socialement inapte de la terre ». C’est ici à New York qu’elle a trouvé sa voie et inventé son image de marque : « Je n’aurais jamais pu monter ce business à Paris. Vous imaginez un truc comme ça en France ? »

Why New York Draws People Looking to Commit Suicide -- New York Magazine

The Mysteries of the Suicide Tourist

Why the same things that attract millions of happy visitors to New York—the glamour, the skyline, the anonymity—also draw people from around the world to kill themselves here.

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• By Phil Zabriskie
• Published May 11, 2008

Stephen was no stranger to New York. He’d been to the city as a boy, and regularly came here for work now that he was in his twenties. A consultant, he’d take the train from his hometown several hours south of the city, stay from Monday to Friday, then return on the weekends. He loved New York, his mother, Judith, says. The energy, the people, figuring out the streets and subways. He often stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

As a teenager, Stephen had been prone to mood swings, Judith says, and after college he was given a diagnosis of clinical depression. He’d cut his wrists once, badly enough to be taken to the hospital. He’d begun taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist, but the doctor determined that Stephen hadn’t really wanted to kill himself—his cuts weren’t very deep. He eventually told Stephen’s parents that he was no longer a serious suicide risk.

Recently, Stephen seemed to be doing well. He earned good money and got solid evaluations at work. He owned a house, made investments, talked about his future. He dated and traveled to Fiji and Sri Lanka to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. He was still prone to bouts of depression, but “my coping skills are so much better now,” he told Judith.

On this rainy summer Friday, Stephen met Judith for lunch not far from where he’d grown up. Judith had been looking forward to their get-together, but she could see right away that Stephen was unnerved. “When one thing went wrong, it could mount up inside him,” Judith says. She tried to comfort him, and offered to take the afternoon off to help him. But Stephen insisted he was okay, and that he had things to do. Judith went back to work. Stephen did not. Instead, he went to the train station, bought a ticket to New York, and checked in to the Marriott Marquis. At around 1 a.m., he wrote a letter on his laptop, found a place to print it out, and placed it on the desk in his room. Shortly before 4 a.m., he left his room, jumped from the 45th floor into the hotel’s soaring internal atrium, and landed in the eighth-floor lobby. He died instantly. Judith had left him a message earlier that night. He never called back.

In a sense, New York City is unremarkable when it comes to suicide. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 32,637 people died by suicide in the United States in 2005, the most recent year for which figures exist. It’s the third leading cause of death for Americans ages 15 to 24, the fourth leading cause for Americans 18 to 65. New York State had the country’s third-lowest per capita suicide rate in 2005 (6.2 per 100,000); only New Jersey (6.1) and Washington, D.C., (6) had lower rates. (Montana tops the list, with a rate of 22, followed by several other western states.) Between 1990 and 2004, suicide rates in cities such as Miami, Las Vegas, Sacramento, and Pittsburgh dwarfed New York’s, according to a report called “Big Cities Health Inventory 2007” from the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Of the cities included, only Boston, Baltimore, and Washington ranked lower in 2004. Within the city, Manhattan had a rate of 7.6 suicides per 100,000 people in 2005, higher than the other boroughs (Brooklyn had the fewest, at 4.64), but lower than many upstate regions.

Recently, however, researchers stumbled on a striking fact about suicides in New York: A surprising number of people who kill themselves in the city come here from out of town, and many appear to come expressly to take their own lives. In a report published last fall called “Suicide Tourism in Manhattan, New York City, 1990–2004,” researchers at the New York Academy of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College found that of the 7,634 people who committed suicide in New York City between 1990 and 2004, 407 of them, or 5.3 percent, were nonresidents. More strikingly, nonresidents accounted for 274, or 10.8 percent, of the 2,272 suicides in Manhattan during that time (the numbers did not include college students, who were considered residents for the purposes of the study). The researchers didn’t look at comparable data from other cities, but, says the study’s lead author, Charles Gross, “One in ten people that commit suicide in Manhattan don’t live here. That’s a big chunk.”

The New York City chief medical examiner’s office won’t release the files it allowed the NYAM researchers to review. But an informal survey of suicides in New York over the past twenty years reveals a bleak tapestry of out-of-towners who took their own lives. There was John Barrachina, a civil servant from Lodi, New Jersey, who, in 1997, woke up on the morning of his 59th birthday, drove onto the George Washington Bridge, parked his car, and jumped. There was Shawn Gibson, from Michigan by way of Florida, who came to New York in November 2004, at age 21, and leaped off the Empire State Building. That same year, Andrew Veal, 25, drove from Georgia to New York City, then slipped inside the ground-zero reconstruction site and shot himself. There was a man who spent his last moments filling out a job application in an office on a high floor. There was the 51-year-old cabbie from Poughkeepsie, a fortysomething from the Rockies, a man from Mexico City, and another from Spain. A native Utahan leaped off the George Washington Bridge in 1992, months after policemen talked him down off the same expanse.

Overall, the NYAM researchers found, nearly 80 percent of the nonresident suicides in Manhattan were committed by men. Nearly two-thirds were committed by whites. Almost 30 percent were committed by individuals between the ages of 25 and 34. Each had his own constellation of problems and motives, of course. But in the end, they shared a common trait: They all chose New York as the place to end their lives. The simple and troubling question, of course, is Why?

'I ask myself that every day,” Judith says when we first speak. (Judith and Stephen are not their real names. Judith is still deeply pained by her son’s death and asked not to have their names or hometowns revealed.) In most cases, multiple factors are at play, experts say. The glamour of New York can play a role. Just as the city’s glittering, outsize reputation attracts many people for happy reasons, it attracts others for tragic ones. People who are suicidal may want to die in a way that gets them attention they felt they never got when they were alive, says Herbert Hendin, a New York–based psychiatrist and the president of Suicide Prevention International. By this logic, New York can be the perfect stage. Anonymity can also play a part. People who are suicidal often feel isolated and alone. The city can reflect back or exacerbate those feelings, making it seem like a suitable setting for one’s final act, says David Rosen, a Texas A&M psychology professor who has written extensively on depression and suicide. Attempting to protect friends and family can lead people to New York as well. “Frequently, people who are considering suicide want to make sure that their death is, relatively speaking, as easy as possible on their loved ones,” says Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University and the author of Why People Die by Suicide. There’s an idea that going somewhere far away will spare people the trauma of discovery and keep them from having to associate a local site with the person’s death. “People who are doing this are trying to say to their family that it’s not your fault,” says Hendin.

New York has a certain grim, practical allure, as well. The roots of suicide are vast and complex, but in the end, “the suicidal person wants access to lethal means,” says John Draper, project director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The ideal method, Draper says, is “what appears to the individual to be the most attractive and painless way.” People who live around a lot of guns, for instance, have been found to be disproportionately inclined to shoot themselves. Hendin worked in parts of Norway where suicide by drowning was more frequent than he’d seen elsewhere. More recently, he’s been overseeing work being done in rural areas of China, where people often swallow agricultural pesticides.

Through suicidal eyes, the New York skyline can appear to be “a lot of opportunities to die from heights.”

New York, with all of its tall buildings and bridges, makes a perversely attractive place to kill oneself. Through suicidal eyes, the skyline can appear to be “a lot of opportunities to die from heights,” says Gary Spielmann, the former director of suicide prevention for the New York State Office of Mental Health. “A lot of windows and doors and balconies that can easily be negotiated by a jumper.” And jumping, says Kay Redfield Jamison, a Johns Hopkins psychiatry professor and the author of An Unquiet Mind, has the twisted appeal of being “practical, final, and irrevocable.” It can also seem dramatic. Gary Gorman, a retired policeman who was assigned to the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit, which responds to suicide calls, says that some people who jump from bridges or buildings may want people to look up at them, to know about them, to notice them in death in a way they hadn’t been noticed in life. According to the NYAM study, nonresidents who kill themselves in Manhattan are less likely to have done so by methods commonly used in the home, such as overdosing or hanging, and are 30 percent more likely to have died from a long fall. They’re also almost three times as likely to have died by drowning and twice as likely to have died after being hit by a train or other moving object, a function of New York’s subways and waterways. The two neighborhoods where the most nonresidents kill themselves are midtown, with its dense concentration of tall buildings and hotels, and the Washington Heights area, home to the George Washington Bridge.

Certain sites sometimes become suicide “hot spots.” The world’s most famous hot spot is perhaps the Golden Gate Bridge, where roughly 1,300 people have died since the bridge was completed, in 1937. The attraction is often less romantic than utilitarian. Consciously or otherwise, experts say, people internalize a notion: It’s been done there before, so it can be done again. According to Kevin Hines, who survived a jump from the Golden Gate in 2000, the survivors he’s met all “decided they were going to go to this place, this icon, because they know they can die there.” Experts say hot spots can convince people that they are somehow less alone, even if only for an instant. That jumping from a place where others have jumped gives them a sense of connection. There’s also a simple copycat component. Suicide, Hendin notes, can become a kind of contagion.

In New York, some 30 people have jumped from the Empire State Building since it opened, in 1931. The George Washington Bridge sees some ten suicides per year. In 2002 and 2003, years in which Stephen stayed at the Marriott Marquis, three people jumped to their deaths at the hotel, two of whom lived outside New York. In 2003 and 2004, five New York University students jumped to their deaths from a handful of sites on and off campus.

On the morning of February 15, 1997, John and Marilyn Barrachina woke up at home with plans to attend a wedding later in the day. Despite the fact that they themselves were having marital problems, Marilyn wished her husband a happy 59th birthday. “Maybe I’ll just kill myself,” John responded. He was being dramatic, she thought, self-pitying. But when it came time to go to the wedding, John was missing. Marilyn didn’t imagine anything too awful could have happened, despite John’s earlier comment. So she, John Jr., and her daughter-in-law went to the wedding, telling those who asked that John was sick. They returned home to find policemen and a priest waiting at the house. They said that at around ten o’clock that morning, John had driven roughly ten miles to the George Washington Bridge, crossed it into Manhattan, then turned right around and started back over. On the second pass, he stopped his car, got out, and jumped. There was no hesitation, a witness said. He left no note.

Before the day of his 59th birthday, John Barrachina had never tried to kill himself. He had no history of depression. He had never talked or joked about suicide, says Marilyn. If the family was going into the city, John Jr. says, they took the Lincoln Tunnel. John’s marital problems had quickly sent him into a deep depression. But why New York? Why the George Washington Bridge? “Living in the New York area,” says John Jr., “the George Washington Bridge is an icon. And it’s kind of an expression. You know—I’ll jump off the George Washington Bridge.” Marilyn offers this explanation: “I think that was just the easy way for him to do it,” she says.

After Stephen died, Judith discovered he’d stopped seeing his psychiatrist months earlier, had gone off his medications, and had been emptying out his room for weeks, giving away clothes, books, and even sheets and pillowcases (he kept the receipts from the Salvation Army). His suicide note mentioned relationship difficulties and laments about structural problems with his home. Judith knows, rationally, that Stephen’s depression is to blame for his death, but she can’t say, ultimately, why her son killed himself. Nor has she settled on a single answer to why Stephen chose New York or the Marriott. Because of the height, she guesses one moment. Because it was far from home, she offers at another. Judith says Stephen never mentioned the other suicides at the Marriott. But it seems possible that he would have known about them. As his depression deepened, she says, he probably worked out a script. Stephen was very thorough, Judith says, very exacting. “He probably researched it himself.”

New York will always have its glamour and anonymity, its tall buildings and bridges. And the city can’t screen visitors to determine who’s suicidal and who isn’t. To some extent, so-called suicide tourism is apt to be a permanent part of our culture, a grim, unwanted side effect of some of the very things that make the city so appealing. That said, experts say there’s a surprisingly simple and effective way to combat the problem: Make suicide harder to carry out, site by site, and make it easier for people to get help. The Empire State Building has a high, inwardly curved fence encircling the observation deck and guards who keep watch, which makes jumping extremely difficult. No one has died by jumping at the Marriott Marquis since Stephen took his own life. During renovations of the hotel last year, Marriott erected metal grillwork that impedes access to the atrium. After NYU’s rash of suicides, the university expanded counseling and outreach programs, restricted access to certain dormitory balconies, and erected Plexiglas barriers in the atrium of the school’s library, where a student had killed himself.

The George Washington Bridge, on the other hand, is heavily patrolled and monitored, and call boxes connect with Port Authority police. But none of that changes the fact that the barriers are low and relatively easy to scale. “Whatever security they have, it’s not good enough,” says John Barrachina Jr. “I can tell you from experience.” Kevin Hines has similar feelings about the Golden Gate Bridge. The failure to build higher railings at a place where some nineteen people kill themselves each year is, he says, “maddening, amoral, and disgusting.” Suicide-prevention experts also stress the importance of encouraging people who may be depressed to seek counseling. They also say it’s critical to promote awareness of hotlines like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-talk).

Judith is doing her own part. She hopes that sharing Stephen’s story might help prevent future suicides, and having recently retired from her job, she’s planning to volunteer at a suicide-prevention foundation.

Judith remains devastated by Stephen’s death. She can say his name now without crying, she says, but she still can’t read more than a few pages of his journals, and she hasn’t been back to New York since her son died. Of his last night here, she says, “I hope he had the time of his life.” Her voice is both anguished and defiant. “I hope he went all around Manhattan and saw a great play and heard music that he loved.”

Palestine: un bourbier vieux de 60 ans

Par Jean-Louis Denier, journaliste. La crise israélo-palestinienne doit, certes, à Israël, mais aussi beaucoup aux dirigeants et «amis» de la Palestine, incapables de saisir les opportunités et d'envisager des compromis. Chronologie et analyse.

L'israélien Begin, l'américain Carter et l'égyptien Sadate aux accords de Camp David, en 1978. (Service photo Maison Blanche)

Exil, souffrance, haine et passion représentent, depuis soixante ans, l'ordinaire palestinien. Deux évènements-clé sont à mettre en exergue : l'assassinat de Yitzhak Rabin le 4 novembre 1995, et le décès de Yasser Arafat le 11 novembre 2004. Le meurtre du premier a porté un coup fatal à la dynamique des accords d'Oslo. En effet, la simple perspective d'un renoncement à l'exclusivité hébraïque de la terre était, aux yeux de certains extrémistes israéliens, un acte «sacrilège» tant sur le plan politique que sur le plan religieux. La mort du second a laissé le champ libre au Hamas. Le «Vieux» disparu - et avec lui la logique du seul combat nationaliste et laïc - l'organisation islamiste avait les coudées franches pour imposer pleinement son fondamentalisme religieux, lequel vise à une exclusivité musulmane sur la terre. Bref , en plus d'un conflit politique, c'est celui de l'héritage biblique contre un legs coranique.

1947-1949 : 700 000 réfugiés palestiniens
L'exil en masse était-il inévitable ? Plusieurs facteurs y ont concouru : la première guerre israélo-arabe, une touche de propagande arabe se nourrissant des expulsions et intimidations menées par des groupes juifs minoritaires (jusqu'au massacre, à Deir Yassin), un sentiment d'abandon ressenti par le peuple voyant partir nombre de riches familles palestiniennes, premières à quitter le pays lors de la proclamation de l'Etat. Malgré nombre de polémiques sur ce point, il est avéré aujourd'hui que ce départ ne fut - à l'époque - prémédité par personne, ni du côté juif, ni du côté arabe. Les premiers n'en avaient ni l'intention ni les moyens militaires. Quant aux chefs politiques arabes, ils réalisèrent que cet abandon laissait le champ libre – donc toute la place et la terre - à l'occupation «sioniste» et à l'arrivée d'émigrés juifs en provenance d'Europe.
Pourquoi cet exil est-il devenu ensuite irréversible ? Ceci découle de la conjugaison, funeste pour les Palestiniens, de deux faits. L'un est politique, le refus des chefs d'Etats arabes du moment d'entériner la résolution 181 de l'ONU du 29/11/47 (plan de partage de la Palestine en deux Etats, l'un juif, l'autre arabe) : pourquoi les Arabes palestiniens partageraient-ils la souveraineté d'une terre qu'ils occupent depuis 7 siècles pour réparer un crime (la Shoah) dont ils ne sont pas responsables, les persécutions antisémites ayant été le fait de l'Europe chrétienne et non du monde musulman ? L'autre est militaire. Il est la conséquence quasi «clausewitzienne» du refus précité : déclencher et gagner un conflit pour imposer une volonté politique. Sauf qu'en 1948, la fortune des armes ne sourît pas au camp arabe - Egypte, Transjordanie, Syrie, Liban et Irak – lequel, et malgré sa supériorité numérique, déclara et perdit la (première) guerre israélo-arabe. L'armistice de Rhodes, au printemps 1949, qui suivit cette défaite entérinait implicitement le droit pour Israël de s'établir comme Etat au milieu de contrées antagonistes, et l'impossibilité pour les exilés palestiniens de revenir sur un sol devenu pays ennemi. C'est dans cet exil qu'allait germer dans l'esprit de nombre d'exilés l'idée d'une Palestine en tant que socle d'un véritable Etat-Nation.

1949-1967 : Gaza ou le laboratoire du vide
Conséquence de l'armistice de Rhodes, pendant prés de vingt ans l'Egypte exerce une tutelle politique totale sur un territoire ayant accueilli 190 000 exilés palestiniens et qui, à la différence de la Cisjordanie (annexée par la monarchie hachémite depuis 1950 avec près de 300 000 réfugiés) comportait une ouverture sur la mer donc sur le commerce international.
Et pendant prés de vingt ans, Nasser - ni d'ailleurs les pétromonarchies du Golfe ou les banquiers du Liban très prospère - ne caressa jamais l'idée de transformer Gaza en zone économique et administrative susceptible d'assurer ressources et avenir aux Palestiniens, préfigurant ainsi le modèle d'une construction étatique viable et opposable aux israéliens. Les Palestiniens de Gaza furent donc laissés à la seule charge de l'UNHCR (Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies aux Réfugiés), délibérément entretenus dans leur précarité afin de servir d'arme politique contre Israël.
Remarquons au passage que cette donnée est toujours d'actualité. Les très riches monarchies du Golfe ne font preuve d'aucun empressement lorsqu'il s'agit d'offrir leurs pétrodollars afin d'aider à l'instauration d'un Etat palestinien. Très récemment d'ailleurs, Ban Ki-Moon, Secrétaire Général de l'ONU, a rappelé à certains pays arabes leur promesse d'aides – toujours non tenues - formulée lors de la conférence de Paris (décembre 2007). Soulignons également que ce sont des capitaux occidentaux, majoritairement européens et français, qui ont financés et qui, à l'heure actuelle, financent encore les infrastructures et les traitements des fonctionnaires de l'Autorité Palestinienne. En revanche, l'argent wahhabite, lui, afflue toujours lorsqu'il s'agit de financer de pseudo organisations caritatives servant à capter la sympathie puis l'adhésion des familles des futurs candidats palestiniens à l'attentat suicide ...

1960-1991 : de faux frères arabes en frères ennemis
L'instrumentalisation de la « cause » palestinienne par les pays frères a été, pendant des années, une donnée essentielle des rapports entretenus par le Fatah (puis par l'OLP) avec la Syrie ou l'Egypte notamment. Yasser Arafat prit toujours soin de se garder d'amis très entreprenant - tel Nasser ou El-Assad père - toujours oublieux du fait que la libération de la Palestine devait être, avant tout, une affaire palestinienne ressortant de l'intérêt palestinien et ne pouvant, de ce fait, être confiée au seul soin des régimes arabes ou rapportée exclusivement à la problématique de l'unité arabe.
Mais les seules bisbilles ne sauraient dissimuler plusieurs drames sanglants dont certains découlèrent aussi des choix d'Arafat et de ses partisans, souvent trop prompts à constituer un Etat dans l'Etat qui les accueillait :
- 1970 et « Septembre Noir » quand des forces jordaniennes appuyés par des tanks syriens « épurent » la Jordanie de la présence palestinienne,
- 1975/1978 et la première répression syrienne « anti-Fatah Land » menée lors de la guerre civile au Liban,
- 1986 et la seconde répression syrienne visant à éradiquer définitivement les restes (du fait de l'opération « Paix en Galilée » menée par Tsahal à partir de 1982) de la présence palestinienne au Liban,
- 1991 et l'expulsion définitive et sans indemnités de 200.000 palestiniens par les autorités koweïties du fait du choix opéré par l'OLP (soutien à Saddam Hussein lors de la première guerre du Golfe).

2000-2001: les occasions perdues de Camp David et de Taba
Une bonne opportunité voire « l'opportunité » de conclure un accord de paix durable a-t-elle été irrémédiablement gâchée ? Certes, les imperfections ne manquaient pas dans le projet présenté par le couple israélo-américain, telles la discontinuité territoriale du « futur » Etat palestinien, l'absence de démantèlement de certaines colonies et le maintien sous souveraineté israélienne d'un corridor le long du Jourdain. Cependant saisir l'offre ainsi faite eut entrainé quatre bienfaits : matérialiser enfin l'aspiration palestinienne, obtenir la création d'un Etat véritable bénéficiant de la reconnaissance internationale et du droit qui en découle, faire vivre une dynamique de négociation permettant d'améliorer au cours de pourparlers ultérieurs ce qui devait l'être, maintenir le « boum » économique que connaissait alors l'économie palestinienne (rythme de croissance de 9,28 % par an, selon un rapport du FMI, investissements de 150 % ce qui en faisait, alors, l'un des taux de développement les plus rapides au monde au cours de cette période).
Au lieu de cela – et malgré le conseil inverse de plusieurs dirigeants arabes dont H. Moubarak - Yasser Arafat fit le double choix, et d'une intransigeance (dictée par la concurrence que lui faisait le Hamas) en réclamant notamment une souveraineté exclusivement musulmane sur les Lieux Saints déniant ainsi tout droit et prérogative au judaïsme, et d'un téléguidage de la seconde Intifada. Le résultat fut catastrophique pour la cause palestinienne : mort, désolation, ruine économique et sociale, prise et exercice du pouvoir en Israël par « Arik » Sharon à la poigne d'acier, discrédit et isolement d'Arafat tant sur le plan international que parmi les siens ... .

1967-2008 : Israël et ses errements
Si dans l'absence actuelle de solution de paix durable, les responsabilités arabo-palestiniennes pèsent lourdement, l'objectivité commande de passer également en revue nombre d'erreurs israéliennes toutes aussi conséquentes.
On peut en recenser quatre :
1°. Un peuple trop sûr de lui et dominateur au lendemain de la guerre «des Six Jours» dans la mesure où l'éclatante victoire n'a pas été mise à profit pour lancer une dynamique diplomatique (en position de force en plus !) et faire des offres à une OLP alors en proie au doute et profondément marquée par le désastre arabe. Rien ne fut entrepris pour détourner la centrale palestinienne de la tentation et du passage à l'action terroriste internationale, ce qui fit perdre vingt ans à la diplomatie et conduisit à des drames tel celui de Munich.
2°. Excès de colonisations et confiscations territoriales déguisées tel que Jacques Levy (Professeur de géographie et d'aménagement de l'espace à l'École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne et à Sciences Po Paris ) parle de «spatiocide» lorsqu'il évoque les colonies, les check-point, les implantations, le quadrillage militaire, les constructions et appels d'offre à Jérusalem-Est, la barrière de séparation ... . Tout semble entrepris, selon lui, afin de détruire progressivement et systématiquement toute possibilité de consistance autonome et d'homogénéité d'un espace palestinien, ce qui est l'une des causes majeures de l'extrême paupérisation de ce peuple.
3°. La «Biblisation» irrationnelle du droit à l'existence tant il est vrai que le sionisme socialisant des pionniers et l'avènement étatique du « foyer juif » - patrie des opprimés et apatrides – se sont effacés pour laisser la place, de plus en plus souvent, à des extrémistes religieux toujours prompts à revendiquer encore et toujours plus sur la base d'une interprétation religieuse des faits et de l'histoire, d'ailleurs souvent démentie par l'archéologie ... .
4°. Un boomerang nommé Hamas lancé bien à tort par le Mossad (généreux donateur financier pendant plusieurs années) afin d'atteindre Yasser Arafat mais qui, dans sa trajectoire, s'est ensuite retourné contre la main qui, imprudemment, avait accéléré sa course. Les résultats sont là : le fanatisme a exporté la lutte armée palestinienne au cœur même de l'Etat hébreu avec des pertes israéliennes dépassant celles engendrées par les pires attaques des feddayin de l'OLP/Fatah dans les années 1960/70.

1970/2008 : l'islamisation de la revendication
Comment et pourquoi un combat nationaliste et laïc s'est-il vu supplanté dans le cœur de nombreux palestiniens ? Pour au moins trois raisons. La première tient à l'échec militaire du nationalisme arabe. Nasser, El-Assad père et Saddam Hussein, malgré leur haine du sionisme, n'ont jamais réussi à le vaincre. La main tendue d'Anouar El Sadate à Israël a officialisé la faillite de cette idéologie et, la nature ayant horreur du vide, une autre option est apparue : reprendre la lutte en suivant l'étendard - forcément victorieux car divin - du Prophète. La seconde tient aux multiples affaires de corruption, trafics et prébendes en tous genres ayant entaché la réputation de l'OLP, du Fatah voire de Yasser Arafat en personne. Une alternative « morale » voire ascétique a séduit nombre de Palestiniens, séduction d'autant plus forte que le Hamas, notamment, offre de multiples prestations et services sociaux que l'Autorité Palestinienne ne parvient plus à mettre en œuvre. La troisième est d'ordre religieux et propagandiste. Elle découle de l'action menée notamment par le Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, un des fondateurs du Hamas, qui a œuvré et prêché pendant des années en faveur d'un retour aux valeurs «vraies» de l'Islam, seules à même – selon sa doctrine - de sauver l'individu, la famille et la communauté palestinienne de la séduction démoniaque et de la pollution des idées occidentales, qu'elles aient été libérales ou marxistes. Une éducation islamique et une renaissance de la société islamique au cœur de la Palestine - et non pas un endoctrinement pour un terrorisme militant immédiat – ont été les forces initiales qui ont préparé l'avènement et le succès du Hamas.

Lundi 12 Mai 2008 - 09:23

Jean-Louis Denier

Happy birthday, Israel

But after 60 years of embattled independence, the Jewish state is in more danger than ever before, writes David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post

Deliberate and grave, Leslie Hardman, the rabbi in our synagogue in Hendon, north‑west London, spoke in rich, mellifluous tones and always seemed utterly unflappable. From my 11-year-old point of view, he looked and sounded about as close to God as a mere mortal could.

So when, on the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, a distraught Hardman told us from the pulpit that Israel was under attack by Arab armies and was in real danger, we sat silenced and horrified.

I hadn't yet visited Israel; my first trip would come three years later, in 1976, and my permanent relocation a decade after that. But I had relatives there and was starting to appreciate how remarkable and precious it was.

My father's family had fled Germany for Britain in the late 1930s to avoid the Nazis, but millions of other Jews had found no means of escape. There had been no Israel. And now that belatedly revived Jewish state was apparently facing destruction.

The Israel of 1973 was gripped by the complacent misconception that the Arab world, devastated by defeat in the Six-Day War of 1967, would not dare to again confront it militarily. It had ignored even a warning of imminent assault from Jordan's King Hussein. So the Arab attack that Yom Kippur caught Israel by surprise. Hardman was right to sound so worried.

Israel managed to rally and avoid destruction in October 1973, just as, improbably, it had prevailed in previous wars going back to 1948 that aimed to stifle the modern attempt at Jewish sovereignty.

But while, since then, it has not had to fight a conventional war for survival, the state has not found peace either. It may be six decades since its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the UN-mandated establishment of Israel and declared its desire for normalised relations with all its Arab neighbours, but the threats it faces today are arguably the gravest with which it has had to grapple. Not long after it finishes celebrating its birthday, Israel's government may have to make the most dramatic decision any Israeli government has ever had to make – whether to use its air force to try to thwart Iran's nuclear programme.

The violent onslaught that began in 2000 is now increasingly inspired, funded and directed by the Islamist regime in Iran. In southern Lebanon, Hizbollah, essentially an Iranian army, has fought one war against Israel, in 2006, and rearmed in readiness for another. Under similar Iranian guidance, Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket crews based in civilian neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip – where Israel has conceded all territorial claims and removed all civilians and all military infrastructure – fire daily across the border at Israeli towns and villages, crowing when they kill and maim Israeli civilians and crying foul to the international community when Palestinian civilians are hit in return fire.

And so the positive momentum towards normalised relations has been reversed. It is a time when Arab moderates are being marginalised by Islamic extremists, and when Iran is championing the rebirth of the notion in hearts and minds across the region that Israel can be wiped out after all. Not by conventional warfare, in which Israel's tanks and fighter planes would have the advantage. And not solely through debilitating terrorism and traumatising missile attacks, but on two other fronts as well – via delegitimisation and the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.

When he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly last year, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad depicted Israel as Europe's apology to the Jews for the Holocaust, unjustly imposed on the blameless Palestinians. Far from being the alien, upstart entity suggested by Ahmadinejad, Israel is the only place where the Jews have ever been sovereign, the land they never willingly left, the country to which they always prayed to return. Its rebirth, far from an injustice, constitutes the belated righting of a historical wrong. But the revisionist effort to air-brush the Jews out of millennia of their own history resonates widely; in the UK, for instance, the malevolent misportrayal of Israel as an illegitimate colonial usurper has moved from the province of the far-Left inexorably towards the mainstream.

Now, barely a week goes by without Ahmadinejad or his compatriots castigating the fact of Israel's existence and vowing that its demise is imminent. Terrifyingly, Iran is also pursuing the means by which to achieve this goal.

Last winter's American National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) so narrowly defined a "nuclear weapons programme" as to create the false sense that Teheran had frozen its quest for a bomb. But American intelligence chiefs, like their Israeli and other international counterparts, believe the Islamic Republic is now a year or two at most from attaining that capability.

Some experts believe Iran is ultimately pragmatic and would be deterred from acting on its desire to wipe out Israel by the certainty of a devastating Israeli second strike. Leading Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis, by contrast, has argued that the concept of mutual assured destruction, rather than a deterrent, represents a veritable inducement to Teheran's apocalyptic regime.

For Israel, this regime in Teheran with that weaponry is unthinkable. Iran might actually use the bomb. It might supply it to a third party, hoping to evade a second-strike response. But even an Iran that did not press the button would place Israel under a shadow that would threaten to destroy it economically and psychologically.

Across the Middle East, every regime is watching the standoff. If Iran goes nuclear, it becomes a terrifying regional power at a stroke, armed with the military menace to underpin its avowed desire to export fundamentalist Islam. If it goes nuclear, others across the region will attempt to follow suit, to protect themselves.

Israel's preference has always been for international sanctions to dissuade Teheran. True, Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osiraq in 1981. But that was a surprise attack, on a single facility that had no defences, and Saddam was unable to rebuild and could not launch a devastating retaliation. None of those key factors applies in the case of Iran.

None the less, with the NIE report having slowed the sanctions effort, with the Bush administration unlikely to resort to military intervention in its final months, and with no certainty about the nature of the next US administration, Israel's leaders are agonising over whether the international community will yet act concertedly to deter Iran, or whether Israel will have to cope alone with this latest existential dilemma.

The danger may be less immediate than the eve-of-destruction scenario that brought my rabbi to his pulpit on Yom Kippur in 1973. But the potential for destruction is, if anything, more acute.

This time, though, Israel is only the first of the potential targets. Iran, the country that is fuelling the indoctrination of young Muslim minds the world over, the state sponsor of the kind of terrorism that saw British-raised Muslims blow up London's public transport system in 2005, already has missiles with the range to hit every town in Israel. But it is gradually bringing Europe and even America into range as well.

Apart from castigating and misrepresenting Israel in his UN speech last year, Ahmadinejad also took aim at the free world's "monopolistic powers" for what he called their abuses since the Second World War, urging them to "return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan" or face "the same calamities that befell the people of the distant past".

Israel marks its 60th anniversary facing a potent threat to its never-assured modern incarnation. But the entire free world has a direct, overwhelming stake in its survival.

The more widely this is internalised and becomes central to international policy-making, the better for all of us who, in contrast to the Iranian-inspired extremists with their self-described lust for death, relish the right to freedom and delight in the divine gift of life.

David Horovitz is the editor of The Jerusalem Post

5 Myths About Being 'Pro-Israel'

Six decades ago, my father fought alongside Menachem Begin for Israel's independence. If you'd have told him back then that politicians in the world's last superpower would be jockeying today to see who can be more "pro-Israel," he would have laughed at you. Grateful as I am for decades of U.S. friendship to Israel, I have to wonder, as the state my father helped found turns 60, just who is defining what it means to be pro-Israel in the United States these days.

Some purported keepers of that flame claim that supporting Israel means reflexively supporting every Israeli action and implacably opposing every Israeli foe -- adopting the talking points of neoconservatives and the most right-wing elements of the American Jewish and Christian Zionist communities. Criticize or question Israeli behavior and you're labeled "anti-Israel," or worse. But unquestioning encouragement for short-sighted Israeli policies such as expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank isn't real friendship. (Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road?) Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

1. American Jews choose to back candidates largely on the basis of their stance on Israel.

This urban legend has somehow become a tenet of American Politics 101, which is why politicians work so hard to earn the pro-Israel label in the first place. But it's a self-serving fable, cultivated by a tiny minority of politically conservative American Jews who actually are single-issue voters. Most Jewish voters make their political choices the way other Americans do: based on their views on the full spectrum of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Moreover, the American Jewish community still has a markedly progressive bent. Exit polls suggest that nearly 80 percent of Jewish Americans voted for John F. Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004; some 70 percent of them were opposed to the Iraq war in 2005, according to the American Jewish Committee; and polls show that most American Jews say they favor a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy that's aimed at achieving peace.

2. To be strong on Israel, you have to be harsh to the Palestinians.

Wrong, and counterproductive to boot. One popular way for members of Congress to earn their pro-Israel stripes is to come down as hard as possible on the Palestinians, by using economic and diplomatic pressure or giving the Israelis a freer hand for military strikes. That may satisfy some primal urge to lash out at Israel's foes, but it does Israel more harm than good.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has argued, Israel's survival depends on offering the Palestinians a more hopeful future built on political sovereignty and economic development. As long as Palestinians despair of a decent and dignified life, Israel will be at war. And as long as the only channel for the Palestinians' ingenuity is building better rockets, not even the Great Wall of China will protect Israel's cities from their wrath. Helping the Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most pro-Israel things an American politician can do.

3. The Rev. John Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionists are good for the Jews.

Hardly. Are Israel and American Jewry really so desperate that we must cozy up to people whose messianic dreams entail having us all killed or converted to Christianity? Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, and his ilk believe that Israel dare not cede any territory in the quest for peace, claiming that the Bible promised all of the holy land to the Jews. In other words, Christian Zionists look at the trade-offs that Israel must make to achieve peace -- and hope to thwart them. Then again, peace is not what these folks have in mind; they hope that Israel will seek to permanently expand its borders, thereby goading the Arabs into a war that will become the catalyst for Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Do your ambitions for Israel extend beyond turning it into the fuel for the fire of the "End of Days"? Then Hagee and company are not -- repeat, not -- your friends.

4. Talking peace with your enemies demonstrates weakness.

You don't need an advanced degree in international relations to recognize that pursuing peace only with people you like is pointless. Most Israelis know this; a recent poll in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that two-thirds of Israelis favor cease-fire negotiations between their government and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, exactly because Hamas is such a bitter foe. But in Washington, we self-righteously refuse to engage -- even indirectly -- with Hamas, Iran or Syria.

Hamas won the most recent Palestinian national elections in a landslide. Do we seriously think that it can be erased from the political landscape simply by assassinations and sanctions? Precisely because Hamas and Iran represent the most worrisome strategic challenges to Israel, responsible friends of Israel who'd like to see it live in security for its next 60 years should be engaging with them to search for alternatives to war.

5. George W. Bush is the best friend Israel has ever had.

Not even close. The president has acted as Israel's exclusive corner man when he should have been refereeing the fight. That choice weakened Israel's long-term security.

Israel needs U.S. help to maintain its military edge over its foes, but it also needs the United States to contain Arab-Israeli crises and broker peace. Israel's existing peace pacts owe much to Washington's ability to bridge the mistrust among parties in the Middle East. So when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel's amen choir, as it has throughout Bush's tenure, the United States dims Israel's prospects of winning security through diplomacy. The best gift that Israel's friends here could give this gallant, embattled democracy on its milestone birthday would be returning the United States to its leading role in active diplomacy to end the conflicts in the Middle East -- and help a secure, thriving Israel find a permanent, accepted home among the community of nations.

jeremyb@jstreet.org

Jeremy Ben-Ami is executive director of J Street, a lobby and political action committee that promotes peace and security in the Middle East.

By Jeremy Ben-Ami
Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page B03

À Manhattan, comme chez soi

La location d'un studio ou d'un appartement séduit les familles qui profitent d'un dollar au plus bas pour passer des vacances outre-Atlantique. À partir de 300 € la nuit pour quatre personnes.

Habiter Manhattan, c'est tout un rituel. Porte de l'immeuble gardée par un gentleman en costume cravate; comptoir d'accueil qui répond à la moindre demande (adresse d'une boutique, réservation d'une table, livraison de sushis à domicile, taxi…) ; hall doté de canapés dans lesquels patientent les visiteurs annoncés ; ascenseurs fluides; courtoisie des voisins… L'Amérique est ici en démonstration d'efficacité, de savoir-vivre et de sécurité.

À l'étage, ce n'est pas terminé : clef magnétique, logement aux dimensions locales (le double des standards européens) et équipement à l'avenant : chambre avec lit king size et télévision, cuisine design au réfrigérateur de bonnes dimensions, salon équipé d'un canapé-lit et d'un immense écran plat, vue évidemment spectaculaire sur des perspectives de verre et de lumières… Un séjour à New York mérite bien cela. Dans ce studio, on loge aisément à quatre. L'idée ravit les familles en escapade à Manhattan, qui veulent cocooner loin des contraintes hôtelières l'ambiance guindée et les tarifs très élevés , gommer le budget restaurant (toujours important) et garder le plaisir de se retrouver entre deux séances de shopping ou visites de musées. La formule enchante tout autant les couples qui ont décidé de s'offrir le chic de la compagnie L'Avion (www.lavion.fr), environ 1 500 € l'AR et le confort de sa classe affaires, en se rattrapant sur l'hébergement. À New York, d'accord, mais comme à la maison.

2008 sera, pour près d'un million de Français, une année américaine et surtout new-yorkaise. Principal stimulant de cette destination, l'euro qui s'échange actuellement contre plus d'un dollar et demi.

Forte demande interne

Concrètement, cela signifie un pouvoir d'achat soudainement augmenté de 50 à 60 % dès qu'on pose les pieds à Manhattan. Autre attrait majeur : le prix des vols transatlantiques. Six compagnies assurent plus de dix vols quotidiens entre Paris et les aéroports JFK ou Newark. Pareille concurrence assure des tarifs qui débutent à moins de 500€ l'AR.

Seul point noir de New York: le logement. Il reste difficile d'y trouver une chambre d'hôtel. La capacité locale est en effet notoirement insuffisante, car la ville est énormément fréquentée par les… Américains. Cette forte demande interne fait monter les tarifs, qui deviennent peu compatibles avec les budgets familiaux des touristes étrangers. Les chambres à moins de 300$ sont prises d'assaut et les offres ordinaires tournent souvent autour de 500$ la nuit. Soit 350€. Pour une famille avec deux enfants ayant besoin de deux chambres, la semaine de vacances en tribu atteint vite des sommets financiers.

«La location d'un grand studio est notre première recommandation aux familles de quatre personnes. À trois, on peut se contenter d'une chambre d'hôtel durant quelques nuits, mais au-delà, c'est prendre le risque de gâcher le séjour des parents comme des enfants », souligne Michel-Yves Labbé, le patron de Directours (www.directours.fr), expert du séjour aux États-Unis. «Actuellement, la moitié de ceux qui nous demandent un devis pour un séjour en famille à New York optent pour la location d'un studio ou d'un petit appartement.» Pour répondre à la demande, cet américanophile s'est allié les services d'un partenaire, Aka, une enseigne qui gère quatre résidences à Manhattan, soit plusieurs centaines de logements.

Sécurité assurée

Même constat chez l'autre spéc ialiste des escapades à Manhattan, La Cie des États- Unis (www.compagniesdumonde.com). Sa brochure retient le label Affinia qui gère aussi plusieurs immeubles dans Manhattan. Le principe reste identique : «Une chambre pour les parents avec un grand lit, jouxtant un salon avec canapé où dorment les enfants. Plus une kitchenette hyperéquipée, une connexion Wi-Fi, des écrans plats, la sécurité assurée dès l'entrée…», détaille Jean-Alexis Pougatch, patron de la Cie des États- Unis. Le «studio suite» est généralement accessible à partir de 400 $ la nuit, soit moins de 300€ pour quatre occupants. Un tarif qui baisse encore quand on reste sept nuits sur place. À cet avantage, il faut ajouter les économies réalisées sur la restauration, et le plaisir d'être chez soi à Manhattan. Imbattable.

Il est évidemment possible de passer outre la recommandation des tour-opérateurs, en gérant directement son projet sur Internet. Mais il faut être patient. Quand on tape «louer un appartement à New York City» sur un moteur de recherche, 248 000 sites s'affichent… Et si l'on tente la version anglaise avec «New York City, rent a home », voici 6700000 pages à consulter! C'est beaucoup. C'est New York.

Jean-Pierre Chanial
29/04/2008 | Mise à jour : 14:52