The 2014 Anti-Semitic Redux, Parisian Style

President of the Representative Council of France’s Jewish Associations (CRIF) Roger Cukierman and the Great Rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, attend a meeting with France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, in Paris, Monday. The meeting took place after pro-Palestinian protesters tried to force their way into a Paris synagogue Sunday, July 13, with bats and chairs, then fought with security officers who blocked their way, according to police and a witness.  (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
President of the Representative Council of France’s Jewish Associations (CRIF) Roger Cukierman and the Great Rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, attend a meeting with France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, in Paris, Monday. The meeting took place after pro-Palestinian protesters tried to force their way into a Paris synagogue Sunday, July 13, with bats and chairs, then fought with security officers who blocked their way, according to police and a witness. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Itbah Al-Yahud — Slaughter the Jews”

Chant heard in Bellville, an eastern suburb of Paris, at a pro-Hamas demonstration this past Saturday, July 12

 

“Dirty Jewess, insha All-h, you will die.”

Statement made by a man described as being Arab in appearance when he sprayed pepper-spray in the face of a 17-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl in Paris last week

 

French Independence Day (Jour de la Bastille) is celebrated annually on the 14th of July. This year, the celebration came amid renewed calls of “Death to the Jews,” and “Hitler was right.” We are witness, yet again, to the lurid spectacle of Jews being harassed and intimidated, physically and emotionally abused, on the soil of the birthplace of liberté, egalité, and fraternité… for the simple fact that they are Jews.

As demonstrated by a recent slew of hate crimes directed against Jewish targets, the supposed intellectual distinction between anti-Semitic as opposed to anti-Zionist argument, so prevalent among all Jew-haters, is quickly dissipating. The ongoing violence directed against Jews and Jewish institutions in France all share one major defining feature: they are Jewish, and not Israeli, targets.

The worst incident took place at the Don Abravanel Synagogue on the Rue de la Roquette in Paris, at the very end of Sunday’s largely peaceful, anti-Israel demonstration in Paris at the city’s Bastille Square. The ostensibly anti-Zionist manifestation brought an estimated 10,000 to the street in the guise of protesting Israel’s ongoing counter-terrorist maneuvers in Gaza — Operation Protective Edge (OPE).

Things started to turn frightfully violent near its end, when dozens of anti-Israel protesters rioted and tried to force their way into the nearby synagogue, still full of worshipers commemorating the recent kidnappings and murder of three Israeli teens. The criminal rioters were only to be beaten back by the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (Jewish Community Private Security) or SPCJ, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and the Beitar Youth Movement.

“The attackers splintered off an anti-Israel demonstration and advanced toward the synagogue when it was full,” Alain Azria, a French Jewish journalist who witnessed the incident told reporters. Jews were besieged inside when a mob of Arab protesters pushed the five French policemen who were assigned to guard the synagogue and attempted to break into the building itself to get at the Jews inside.

“Close to 200 congregants were inside as the protesters chanted anti-Semitic slogans and hurled objects at the synagogue. They were determined to enter and the police did not have enough forces,” he said.

According to Azria, all credit for saving the Jews inside from serious injury, and even death, goes to men from the SPCJ Jewish security unit, the Jewish Defense League and the Beitar Youth Movement, who engaged the attackers and defended the Jews. Six of the predominantly Arab protesters were arrested.

“Thank G-d they were there, because the protesters had murder on their minds and it took a while before police reinforcements arrived,” Azria added. Three Jews were hospitalized, but a far worse carnage was avoided.

According to Azria, the group of young men charged at the synagogue, which is located in the 11th arrondissement near Gare de Lyon, southeast of the Marais District that houses the old Jewish quarter of the city.

The anti-Israel rioters threw whatever they could find at the synagogue, and at police and private Jewish community security guards, while they chanted anti-Semitic slogans and tried to force their way inside. The group was initially thought to be held hostage and was freed to leave the center only after police intervention at 9:00 p.m. A Jewish-owned store on Rue de la Roquette was trashed by about 50 people with iron bars, and a young man was hospitalized nearby, according to reports.

Tragically this was but the latest in a series of increasingly violent incidents in France against visibly Jewish targets.

Signs in support of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood were on display, as well as a replica of a Palestinian rocket similar to those launched from Gaza at Israel in recent weeks, according to the report.

In Bellville, an eastern suburb of Paris, a pro-Hamas demonstration Saturday featured chants of “Itbah Al-Yahud — Slaughter the Jews.”

On a Paris street, near the main Gare du Nord train station, a Jewish 17-year-old girl was assaulted in broad daylight by a man described as being Arab in appearance when he sprayed pepper spray in her face. The girl, identified by her initials, J.L., wrote in her complaint to police that the man, who was in his 20s, shouted: “Dirty Jewess, insha All-h you will die.”

A separate incident occurred this past Friday night, when the synagogue of Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern suburb of the French capital, was packed with worshipers at the weekly Shabbos services. A firebomb went off at the entrance and, although no one was injured, the resulting fire damaged the synagogue.

And what of the protestors themselves? Are we to believe that the attacking and firebombing, the assaults and the venom, the Molotov cocktails and the ongoing incitement against Jews is only a manifestation of anti-Zionism?

Tellingly, Pierre Minnaert of the Green Party stated that it was “not surprising synagogues are under attack,” when they support Israel’s policies.

As reported by Joshuapundit, someone who identified himself to the AFP as Amid Hamadouch made another intellectually dishonest yet typical statement:

“I came to say no to this massacre. They are bombing innocent people. There are missiles being launched by Hamas, but the Israeli response is disproportionate. They are attacking the civilian population and not Hamas officials.”

What Amid had to say should be quite revealing to all of us, and especially, to Jews. Amid and his friends , of course, were not out on the streets protesting or attacking Palestinian institutions when Hamas was launching missiles and mortar shells at Israel. He was fine with that. Nor does he care that those brave Hamas fighters he admires so much are using women and children as human shields, or that the IDF is doing everything it can to minimize civilian casualties.

Even more to the point, he and his compatriots aren’t attacking Israelis, twisted as that itself would be. They’re attacking Jews. Because to them they’re one and the same. And if there were no Israel, Jews would still be targeted. That’s something a number of Jews who pat themselves on the back as “anti-Zionists” or who pride themselves on being critical of Israel ought to ponder.

For those still in doubt or in denial, the violent anti-Jewish riots in Paris clearly demonstrate the growing confidence with which an increasingly strident and muscular anti-Semitism (dressed up as the more politically correct anti-Zionism), whether from Islamist, Leftist or neo-Fascistic elements, is becoming par for the course in French political discourse.

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