The law can't stop hate; Le Monde has just been found guilty of defamation against the Jewish people, but, says Melanie Phillips, the courts are no place to handle European anti-Semitism.

Since the intensification of the Palestinian jihad five years ago, Britain and Europe have been convulsed by an eruption of virulent anti-Jewish hatred based on the systematic lies, libels and demonisation directed at Israel by the media and intelligentsia. Still reading? Well done. Others will no doubt already have thrown this article across the room in disgust. For conventional wisdom has it that there has been no upsurge of anti-Jewish hatred, only legitimate attacks on Israel which are being labelled anti-Jewish prejudice by those who are either suffering from advanced paranoia or are Zionist zealots attempting to sanitise the crimes of Ariel Sharon.

Now, however, agreement that hatred of Jews is indeed umbilically linked to the current attack upon Israel has emerged from a most unlikely quarter. In France, everyday violence and intimidation has left French Jews in a state of siege.

Yet two weeks ago the French appeal court in Versailles ruled that in a comment piece published by Le Monde in 2002 entitled 'Israel-Palestine: the …