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.
Zemor, who is Jewish, maintains that Israel seeks the extinction of the Palestinian people and that it denies Palestinians their human rights. She has been denied entry into Israel for security reasons on several occasions. Zemor is of Turkish and Algerian ancestry.
Career
Journalism
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.
Activism
Founding of EuroPalestine
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.
Librarie Résistances
Zemor and Shahshahani also own a Paris bookstore called Librarie Résistances. It is the site of many EuroPalestine meetings and events.
2004 European Parliament elections
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 Dieudonné M'bala 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-lès-Gonesse (Val d'Oise); 8.1 percent in Villetaneuse (Seine-Saint-Denis), 19 percent in the Val-Fourré neighborhood of Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), 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-Seine)."
Ariel Sharon's 2005 visit to France
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."
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."
2009 video about Israel
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.
2009 About Hamas
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."