De gaulle, Israel and the Jews

The lives of Raymond Aron and Charles de Gaulle intersected at significant moments in 20th-century history, though they differed on many issues during World War II and over the subsequent decades.

Aron, for example, distinguished between the attitude and responsibility of the Vichy government and the French Nazi collaborators in Paris, unlike de Gaulle, who regarded anyone who obeyed Marshal Petain as a traitor.

In the postwar period, Aron differed from de Gaulle on a number of issues, including Algeria.

But the strongest direct criticism by Aron of de Gaulle's language and policy resulted after a 1967 press conference, where he referred to Jews as 'an elite people, self-assured and domineering.' This comment led Aron to write DeGaulle, Israel and the Jews.

Aron saw de Gaulle conflating the issues of Israel and that of French Jews, and the question of Israeli policy in 1967 and other times.