Anti-Israel Paris Demonstration

Source: World Jewish Daily

Saturday night in a suburb of Lyon, a mob of more than a dozen  Muslim men  accosted three Orthodox Kippot wearing Jewish youths with hammers and iron bars. The rampage gave rise to cries of  “ shocked, shocked”  from  the leaders of France’s nearly 700,000 Jewish community and M. Hollande’s security ministers.  This latest event  follows the March Mohamed  Merah rampage that killed a rabbi and two Jewish school children and in separate attacks French Muslim soldiers. Merah died in a blaze of bullets  in a holdout shooting  of the al Qaeda wannabee in Toulouse.  But we can expect more of these attacks by Muslims given the size of the community in France and their overwhelming support for the new government of M. Hollande. The Socialist President  Hollande received allegedly more than 93 % of eligible Muslim voters in France. Grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Prof. Tariq Ramadan was alleged to issue his usual tapes urging Muslims to vote for Hollande. Hollande was bending over to accommodate the Muslim community in France, even talking of opening up voting to ‘eligible’ resident aliens.  Is it any wonder that France’s Jews, many who fled the Islamist Maghreb in North Africa have seriously  considered acquiring  bolt holes in Israel and America.  

The Algemeiner reported yesterday on these attacks,” France: Three Jews Beaten With Hammers, Iron Bars by Islamic Youths”:

Three yarmulke wearing Jewish youths were brutally assaulted on Saturday night by a mob of over a dozen who beat them with hammers and Iron bars. The incident took place in Villeurbanne, near Lyon in southeast France. French blogs reported that the crime was carried out by Islamic youths.

The victims were hospitalized suffering various wounds and were subsequently released according to French newspaper L’Express. Police forces have begun a manhunt in search of the suspects.
On Sunday the Interior Ministry said that they believe the assault to be motivated by antisemitism.
Minister Manuel Valls, denounced the attack in a statement calling the act “extremely serious” and “a deliberate attack against our republican model that should enable everyone, without distinction, to live freely and safely expressing his religious affiliation “.

The assault comes just months following the brutal massacre of four by an Islamic terrorist at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

In reaction to the incident, French Jewish artist Ron Agam told The Algemeiner that, “It is about time now for the French authorities to radically search for these Imams and put a stop to the brainwashing on tens of thousands of Muslim kids in France.”

“It is unacceptable that this culture of racism and antisemitism is being tolerated by a significant number of the Muslim community, this culture must stop,” he concluded.

This morning’s World Jewish Daily in its post, “La terreur” noted the aroused concerns of France’s Jewish community;

A vicious antisemitic attack in the French town of Villeurbanne on Saturday horrified the French Jewish community; and on Monday its leading representatives stated that this is only the latest in a wave of antisemitic violence that has struck France in recent months.
[. . .]
France's Jewish leaders quickly stepped forward to say that the incident was by no means isolated. They claim that since the Toulouse atrocity in March - during which Arab racist Muhammad Merah slaughtered four people, including three children, at a Jewish school - antisemitic violence has been going up dramatically.

“There has been a series of acts like the one in in Villeurbanne,” said Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), according to Le Figaro.

Joël Mergui, president of the Central Consistory, an umbrella organization working to coordinate local Jewish communities, said the country’s Jews were under constant attack. “Not a week passes without anti-Semitic assaults in France. I refuse to believe Jews will be forced to choose between security and their Jewish identity.”
The chief rabbi of the Grand Synagogue in Lyon, Richard Wertenschlag, called the atmosphere “unbearable.”
 CRIF Vice President Ariel Goldman told the French press that “In the month following the Merah terror attack we counted 140 such acts. This amounts to a third of the violent incidents we had in 2011.”

Following the Toulouse atrocity, French politicians pledged to intensify the fight against antisemitism. Much of the violence, however, is committed by France's large Muslim minority, which is many times larger than the Jewish minority and wields considerable political power.

As a result, French officials are rarely willing to pick a fight with their Muslim constituents over their attitude toward French Jews, leaving the Jewish community vulnerable to the hatred and violence of their neighbors.