Meet the French art collectors enabling the Gaza genocide

A French couple best known as art collectors are helping to prolong the Gaza genocide.

Candice and Alain Fraiberger were among the hosts of a Middle East visit by a number of military experts from both sides of the Atlantic earlier this month.

The stated goal of the trip was to provide an insight into “Israel’s challenges in the war against Iran and its proxies.”

The phrasing indicates that its participants were expected to promote the excuses offered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s relentless aggression.

The European Leadership Network – the pro-Israel group which arranged the trip – celebrated the fact that its participants were able to enter Gaza as “an unmatched achievement.” The “achievement” was realized through coordination with senior players in the Israeli army – the people in charge of carrying out the ongoing genocide.

The trip did not solely involve admiring the destruction inflicted by Israel. Participants also had an opportunity to strategize during a gala dinner thrown by the Fraibergers at their Israeli residence.

The Fraibergers both have successful business careers behind them. Candice was a fashion designer with more than 50 stores spread around the world; her husband Alain has been active in software and real estate.

Taking Israeli citizenship in 2016, they attracted some attention the following year when numerous 20th century artworks they had collected were auctioned at Sotheby’s in Paris.

The collection – which included paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jean Dubuffet and sculptures by César – fetched a cool $18 million.

Part of the couple’s wealth is now being used to assist Israel’s propaganda activities.

Guests at their gala dinner heard a presentation from Zohar Palti, a former bigwig in Mossad, the infamous spying and assassination agency. He reportedly offered some thoughts on healing, though it is safe to assume that ending the torment of Palestinians was not what he had in mind.

Clever?

The Fraibergers are on the Israeli board of the European Leadership Network (Elnet). Elnet frequently brings politicians and others deemed influential on freebies. . Elnet’s report of the trip by the military experts suggested that there was much agreement with the argument that Israel must retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor – an area around Gaza’s border with Egypt.

That demand has been made by Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right partners in his ruling coalition to sabotage a potential ceasefire deal. While Netanyahu’s obduracy has led to massive protests among Israelis angered by how he is endangering the lives of captives in Gaza, advocacy groups such as Elnet are applauding his position.

In its report of the trip by military experts, Elnet refers to feedback received from Richard Kemp, who previously commanded British troops in Afghanistan. Kemp accepted, according to the report, that Hamas relied on the Philadelphi Corridor “as a lifeline” and that Israel should therefore not loosen its grip.

Another British military expert who took part in the trip – John McColl, formerly a high-ranking officer with NATO – wrote an article about it for The Times, a prominent London newspaper.

McColl came away satisfied, he contended, that Israel’s rules of engagement in Gaza are “rigorous, compared to the British Army and our western allies.”

His article did not spell out that the trip was organized by a pro-Israel advocacy group.

And his inference that Britain is a paragon of rigor and restraint is risible.

Even on the day his article appeared (11 September), British state violence was back in the news. It was finally announced that a public inquiry would be held into the 1989 murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.

The murder was a notorious example of collusion between loyalist death squads and British forces.

Guests at a genocide-enabling gala dinner might be impressed with comparisons between Israel and Britain or other Western countries. But the comparisons are usually not as clever as those making them would have you believe.