Olivia Zemor

On May 28, 2015, Zemor has been condemned by a French high court (Cour d'appel de Paris) as « guilty of provoking hate against a group, the Israeli producers, because they belong to a nation, the State of Israel.»

Zemor led a group of EuroPalestine members who occupied the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) offices in Switzerland in January 2013. She met with UEFA president Michel Platini, telling him that UEFA was “encouraging war crimes” by choosing Israel to host the eight-nation event in June, and that it as a “shame to grant Israel this honor.” After Zemor and her colleagues left, Platini cited a letter he had recently received from the president of the Palestinian football association, Jibril Rajoub, thanking him for his support in getting young men released from prison. “The people that came here today were not fully aware of what we do.”

On May 24, 2012, however, the Cour de Cassation (France's Supreme Court) ruled that calls to boycott Israeli products constitute discrimination and are thus illegal. The French Appeals Court, moreover, found Zemor guilty of “provoking hatred or violence against a group of people, Israeli producers, because they belong to a particular nation, the State of Israel.” Specifically, the Appeals Court found that “in choosing to distribute outrageous remarks, and most notably the declaration that buying an Israeli product amounts to killing a Palestinian child with a bullet, Zemor incited hatred and violence.” Zemor was compelled to pay a one-euro fine to the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNCVA), and to cover 1500 euros in legal fees.

On June 28, 2012, Zemor was attacked at a café in Bastille by members of the Jewish Defense League who struck her in the head and sprayed her in the face with toxic oil paint.

On at least three occasions, in July 2011, April 2012 and August 2012, Zemor has attempted to enter Israel and has been denied entry.

In April 2012 Zemor was again prohibited from flying to Tel Aviv. Leading a group of Frenchmen who were headed to Israel to participate in the second “Welcome to Palestine” initiative, she managed to fly from Paris to Istanbul but was prevented, along with her contingent, from boarding the connecting flight to Tel Aviv. “Welcome to Palestine” organizers had expected approximately 2,000 activists to take part in the campaign, but only hundreds made it to Ben Gurion, and only an estimated 12 persons actually made it to Bethlehem.

In August 2012 Zemor and around 100 other anti-Israel activists tried to enter the West Bank via Jordan. The group tried to travel across King Hussein bridge, but were stopped at an Israeli checkpoint. “We were on two buses,” Zemor told a reporter. “They took all passports and stamped 'rejected' for everyone, without questioning or even inspecting the things we have. They did not even allow the second bus to reach the checkpoint. They sent them back immediately.” She added that “If Israel prevents us from entering, they need to say why. Is it because we are not agreeing with [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu's policy?” In addition, she said, “Considering the way Israel treats the Palestinians, we are not surprised. Israel claims to be the only democracy in the region, but in fact it is only a prison, where even visitors are not allowed to enter.”

Zemor led a group of about 100 EuroPalestine members who were hosted by Hamas officials during a visit to the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2012. The EuroPalestine members had entered the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing and sought to break what they described as the “illegal siege of the Gaza Strip.” Headed by Zemor, the group held a display near the border fence and promised to promote Hamas's political agenda in France and elsewhere. They also met with senior PFLP officials and with representatives of other terrorist organizations. Zemor said the purpose of the visit was to send the message to the international community that Israel's “siege” of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was illegal and had to be reversed. Zemor and her colleagues were also taken on Hamas-organized visits to the Al-Shifaa hospital and various places that had been the targets of IDF attacks during Operation Pillar of Defense, which Zemor and her colleagues described as indicative of Israel’s determination “to damage the civilian infrastructure.”

In June 2011, Zemor was ordered to appear before a Paris court for publishing a BDS video against Israel on the website of EuroPalestine. The video features pro-Palestinian activists dancing in a supermarket in Évry, near Paris, wearing T-shirts with pro-BDS slogans on them. Zemor claimed in her defense that she was not actually in the video, but had only published it on the internet. Zemor was charged by the government and four Israeli associations, including the Israeli Chamber of Commerce, with discrimination against the Israeli nation and incitement to racial hatred, but was acquitted on July 8. Ruling that it is not illegal in France to call for a boycott of Israeli products, the court wrote that “Criticism of a State or its policies cannot be regarded, in principle, as infringing the rights or dignity of its nationals, without seriously affecting freedom of expression.”

On July 8, 2011, Zemor led a large group of Frenchmen who were scheduled to carry out a “flytilla” from Paris to Tel Aviv on their way to Bethlehem to take part in the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative, a campaign to protest Israeli policies and demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians. However, Zemor, along with her followers, was barred from boarding a flight to Tel Aviv at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, because her name was on a list of “undesirable people” that had been circulated to the airlines by the Israeli government.

In December 2010, Zemor was taken into custody upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport. After being interrogated and detained, she was told that she would be expelled from Israel because of her organization of demonstrations in France. Zemor protested that she defends “ideas of peace and justice” and asked: “In what way do my activities in France have anything to do with you?” She was then driven in a police van to a detention center at the airport, where her belongings were confiscated.

In a YouTube video that was uploaded in 2009, Zemor complained about the harassment and character defamation she claims to have endured at the hands of the Israelis.

In 2009, Zemor added her name, on behalf of EuroPalestine, to a list of those calling for Hamas to be removed from the European Union Terror List. The campaign was initiated by Nadine Rosa-Rosso, a self-proclaimed “communist militant.”

Chirac then invited Sharon to come to France following the 2005 Bastille Day celebrations. Zemor organized a large demonstration against the visit that took place in Paris on July 9, 2005. In an interview a few days before the protest, she complained that the French media were pro-Israel, saying that even “newspapers that define themselves as 'progressive', such as Le Monde and Libération,...refuse to give space to Israelis such as Tanya Reinhart, Emmanuel Farjoun and Ilan Ppappe, who openly oppose Israel’s colonial policy,” or to cover abuses committed by “far-right Zionist groups like Betar and the Jewish Defense League.” She further charged that “pro-Israeli pressure groups in France” have support in the media and government. She also maintained that Israel “wants the war to be extended in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon so that it can go on with the elimination of as many Palestinians as possible.”

In the 2004 European Parliament elections, EuroPalestine ran a slate of 28 candidates in one French district, Ile-de-France, with Zemor at No. 4 on the list, following a surgeon, Christophe Oberlin, who “regularly conducts missions to Gaza,” at #1, and anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’Bala at #2. Reportedly, the Palestinian Delegate General to France, Leila Shahid, was “shocked” by the extremism of some of EuroPalestine's candidates. According to a Brookings Institution report, EuroPalestine's list “only received 50,000 votes overall (or 1.83 percent), far short of the number required to secure representative in Brussels, but it did much better in certain area of Ile-de-France, at times surpassing the Greens and the Communist Party in poor neighborhoods with a strong Arab presence. In its best showings, the Euro-Palestine got 10.75 percent in the small city of Garges-les-Goness (Val d’Oise, Départment 95); 8.1 percent in Villetaneuse (Seine-Saint-Denis, Départment 93), 19 percent in the Val-Fourre neighborhood in the Yvelines (Départment 78), famous for urban unrest and riots in the 1990s and again in 2005; and 20.33 percent in the Luth neighborhood in the Genevilliers (Hauts-de-Sein, Départment 92).”

After the French Minister of Foreign Relations announced that Ariel Sharon would be visiting France in April 2004, EuroPalestine launched a campaign protesting the visit. Sharon's trip was cancelled. In Zemor's view, however, “the French government kept making concessions to Israel” and Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Michel Barnier were “astonishingly submissive to Israel and its Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who did not miss a chance to insult France and the French.” She accused the French government of having a “double standard,” in that it “supports the creation of a Palestine State and welcomes a dying Arafat” but also “encourages Israel’s colonial and annexation policy.”

In 2002, the couple founded EuroPalestine, which describes itself as being engaged in consciousness-raising activities which seek to enlighten the media, politicians, and the general public about the purported denial of rights and justice to the Palestinian people, and the need to impose sanctions on Israel in order to compel it to respect international law.

From 1980 to 1989, Zemor worked as a journalist for Agence France-Presse. She later founded APM International, a news agency that was bought by Reuters in 1999.

Olivia Zemor (born 1948) is a French political activist who is the co-founder and leader of CAPJPO (Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient; Coordination Group Calling for a Just Peace in the Middle East), a group which is commonly known as CAPJO-Euro-Palestine, or just EuroPalestine.