When I read this article, proclaiming anti-Semitism down in France, I ignored it. Because I didn’t believe it was true. French Jews are emigrating to Israel and elsewhere in record numbers. And the French have a habit of insisting that a Jew-hater is not a Jew-hater.
I thought of that article when I heard the news of the horrific kidnapping/torture/murder case of a young Jewish man by a group of Muslims, who spent weeks entertaining themselves by cutting, burning, and otherwise torturing him while supposedly waiting for a ransom. First, the French police insisted that he wasn’t kidnapped because he was Jewish. Then, they insisted that the torturers didn’t torture him because he was Jewish. Finally, they said, gee, we think they did it because he was a Jew, and they were out to ransom or kill Jews.
The French media is ignoring the anti-Semitism of the case.
Which leads me to wonder what I wondered when I first read the statistics about attacks on Jews decreasing in France: Are they really? Or are the media and the French authorities refusing to report anti-Semitic attacks as anti-Semitic attacks?
It is no comfort to me that the heads of France attended Ilan Halimi’s funeral.
The synagogue’s 3,000 seats were full, dozens more mourners stood in the aisles and many thousands remained outside and could not get in.
During the chilling ceremony, an 8-year-old read the Psalm “I will raise my eyes to the mountains, whence will come my help?” near a giant picture of Halimi.
Neither Chirac nor his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, addressed the hour-long synagogue memorial ceremony. But a Jewish leader, Joel Mergui, hailed their presence and that of other politicians as “a strong symbol. ”
France’s Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk described Halimi’s death as a watershed, saying: “From now on, in France, there will be the period before Ilan and that after Ilan. ”
“Today, I ask all French citizens to all stand up as one man and shout loud and clear, ‘Enough is enough,”‘ he said.
The head of France’s biggest Muslim organization, the archbishop of Paris, two ministers, and the leader of the opposition Socialists were among the hundreds in attendance.
“National solidarity is being expressed,” the prime minister said after the ceremony.
“We are all Jewish tonight,” said town councilor Stephane Jaffrezic.
No. The only Jews that night were the Jews. This is not a watershed. There will be no major changes. More Jews will die, and more Muslims will cheer as this happens. A large portion of the Muslim religion is apparently infested with the most noxious and deep-running of hatreds. We see and hear and read about it regularly, or at least, those of us who follow the blogs do. The mainstream media turns its eyes, looks the other way, and finds excuses to pretend that this was an “alleged” anti-Semitic incident. The Los Angeles Times has the nerve to headline their article “Anti-Semitism Is Alleged in French Torture-Killing ” while publishing these paragraphs inside:
The kidnappers, who called themselves “The Barbarians,” beat, burned and mutilated Halimi during 24 days of captivity in the cellar of a tough housing project in Bagneux, southwest of the capital, according to investigators.
The gang taunted Halimi’s family and a rabbi with anti-Semitic epithets and recited Koranic verses during telephone calls and e-mails demanding wildly diverging amounts of ransom that never were collected, investigators said. The kidnappers also sent photos of the victim with a gun to his head, bound and blindfolded, apparently mimicking images of hostages and abused prisoners in Iraq.
“Alleged.”
They put their cigarettes out on his face.
“Alleged.”
He was cut and burned over 80% of his body.
“Alleged.”
The gang used anti-Semitic epithets. But this is “alleged” anti-Semitism.
When will they get up the nerve to call it flat-out anti-Semitism? When the body is dumped with a tattoo on one arm and a yellow star with the word “Jude” on its chest?
At first, I couldn’t so much as comment on the case, because my first thought after reading about it was too horrible. And I still think it.
I’ll bet they took videos.
I will bet you a thousand dollars that video surfaces on jihadi sites.
I wish to God Europe had the kind of gun laws that Virginia has, and I wish that French Jews could arm themselves. Because the descendants of the Vichy government aren’t doing their jobs. And Muslim imams who continue to preach on Fridays that Jews are the sons of apes and pigs are just as responsible for this murder as the murderers themselves.
J’accuse, France.
J’accuse, radical Islam.
J’accuse.
I’m shocked that I had never heard of this case! I’m not a jew, but an American, a New Yorker, and outraged! How dare the mainstream media not cover this story, and call it what it is! This is the worst kind of HATE CRIME! It’s the type of story that makes you feel shame for mankind. This total inocent taken hostage, tortured and murdered because of who he is. If this had been a Christian held, tortured and killed, then left with a cross after his family and clergy were horrifically taunted, do you think the French would have called it “alleged?”
If this was a gay man who had been brutalized and murdered, do you think the mainstream media would have done such a disservice? I am a gay man, and have no doubt that if that was the case, it would have hit the New York and Los Angeles papers with huge headlines.
The French Government and people as well as the world press should bow their heads in shame. I wonder, were the monsters who did this ever found?
I’m not a religious man, being a “fallen Catholic”, but my prayers go to this man’s family and friends.
I agree that Jews world wide, should be prepared to stand against such hatred, and that all “moral” people stand by them in this cause. Too long have the Jews been the easy target and scapegoat for society’s loosers and despots.
I’m sorry if my comment ran too long, even for a non-Jew this is a heartbreaking story.
Pardon me, but I have it on good authority that any place that makes private ownership of firearms illegal is a place where you should have at least one…maybe two.
A man who thinks you may shoot him if he tries to kidnap you or harm you and yours tends to confine his action envelope to just thinking about it.
Guns in the hands of people who know how to use them and are willing to use them make for very polite neighbors.
Before my Grandmother came to America from Slovakia in 1937, she visited the Paris World’s Fair. I asked my Grandmother what she thought of France and she said it was horrible and everyone there is Anti-Semetic. Good to see that things have changed a lot in 70 years.
People talk about “Never Again” as the main lesson from the Holocaust. I think that’s bullshit because Never again happens all the time. The main lesson I’ve learned from the Holocaust is I’m not going out like a punk. I own a .357 magnum and I’m not letting any anti-semetic retard torture me or herd me into a cattle car. But Shtetl G, what is one guy with one gun really going to accomplish. I’ll be a martyr if I have to be(I really don’t want to be one) and at the very least I won’t go out like a bisnitch.
Chatting with a French, Jewish friend about this, he suggests we look solely at the numbers, statistics, to “prove” (like it needs proving?!) that the kidnapping and torture were anti-Semitic. French statistics estimate that Jews make up just under 2% of the population. So these kidnappers, who tried to kidnap 4 other people (3 Jewish, 1 not)? If it weren’t motivated by hate, the chances that a Jew would be “randomly” kidnapped in France would be 1:1.9million. Not 4:5.
…Not that we need numbers to prove this wasn’t random.
Meryl posts:
Quite so. And exactly opposite to what Abe Foxman and colleagues have long demanded in the name of American Jewry.
Too many Jews have acted like the battered spouse of the Left, afraid to leave no matter how bad the abuse. No “penance” needed for giving Algore your vote (and I say this having myself voted, twice, for Jimmy-the-dhimmi). Just keep speaking truth to political correctness.
Well, it seems now that that gang (multi-ethnic) has been linked to other blackmail and racket activities. 75% of their targets were not Jewish, and the guy was not killed because of anti-semitism.
Which groups are trying to stir up French and international Jewry into a frenzy of paranoia and why ?
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=362541
I suppose the French can get the guy extradited from the Ivory Coast, what with their army of occupation there.
Multi-ethnic? Wholly Muslim, ne c’est pas?
I gather from your link that these scum have been trying to extort money from lots of people, one quarter of them Jews. But the kidnapping and murder of Halimi wasn’t because he was Jewish but because they thought he had money? A guy works in a cell-phone store and they think he’s wealthy? No, they targeted him because he was Jewish, and a swinish criminal trying to make his crime look less serious by lying to the investigators doesn’t disprove what was the plain fact of the matter, from the behavior of the kidnappers when they thought they were safe and had the poor guy wholly within their power.
Here we have the fruit of the confluence of the French welfare state, the lousy education the beaurs have received, and the rise of radical Islam as the token of ethnic identity for alienated immigrant underclass people in France.
And the reason some people are trying to “stir up” French Jews into “a frenzy of paranoia” is that some of us remember where this kind of thing led once before. We also see a French government in denial about what is going on combined with a continual trend by that same govenment towards appeasement of those who want to finish the job Hitler started. If some Jews seem paranoid to you they have well founded reasons to be.
“Multi-ethnic? Wholly Muslim, ne c’est pas?”
No. Seems the gang was quite representative of the ethnic mix of these banlieues. Some sub-saharan africans, a girl with an Iranian background, a Franco-Portuguese, several “traditional” French, etc…
“A guy works in a cell-phone store and they think he’s wealthy?”
It appears the guy was first noticed by the gang in an upscale night-club.
I fully agree the Jewish people in Europe have good reason to be a bit paranoid, although Ilan Halimi’s family was from Morocco and only moved here 25 years ago, but there was a succession of such cases when alleged anti-semitism outrages turned out to be nothing of the kind, remember the story of the boy who cried wolf.
So, the family has been in France “only” 25 years. And this has what to do with being tortured and murdered because you’re a Jew?
Your prejudice is showing.
Meryl, I mentioned that Ilan’s family came from Morocco 25 years ago to point out it had no memory of France during the occupation. But feel free to wallow in your delicious persecution fantasies.
I think we have a LePen fan here.
If you are talking about the famous hoax where the woman claimed that anti-Semites carved a swastika in her, let me remind you that she was not Jewish.
And let me also point out that I spent over two hours researching the case for my contribution to the podcast last night. Your facts are incorrect. The gang tried to kidnap six others, four of whom were Jewish. The gang said they chose Ilan Halimi because he was Jewish, and “all Jews are rich.”
There is plenty of anti-Semitism in the Halimi case.
There seems to be some around here as well.
“I think we have a LePen fan here.”
Actually, no. I have agitated against Le Pen for years.
There has been several such hoaxes in France, that’s why people are now checking their facts before screaming anti-semitism. For instance:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/31/1093852185996.html
I said only 25% of the gang’s targets were Jewish because they have been linked now to other extorsion rackets, targetting CEOs at one point then doctors.
Look, I am sure there are anti-semites in France, but this media campaign in the last few years is getting irritating. It is thought the reason is that France is the country with the largest Jewish population after Israel and the US, and Tel-Aviv wants them to emigrate to Israel because of their demographic problem, and also painting Europe in general and France in particular as Jew-hating delegitimates their efforts in the Quartet to solve the palestinian issue.
Just wanted to say something to Violette in her mother tongue: JE T’EMMERDE! I happen to be a Jew living in France and I’ve been living through this shit firsthand. Many of my cousins have been physically assaulted over the last 5 years (one just last weekend got his nose broken in an assault). We’re totally fed up with you Vichy swine: I’d tear your head off if you dared spout that shit to my face. VA TE FAIRE FOUTRE TOI ET TON PAYS!!
Well, don’t call me Vichy swine, it is insulting to my family and historically mistaken.
Where do you live ? Sarcelles ? I wouldn’t go there myself.
By the way, it seems the story about Ilan’s kidnappers reading Coran verses to the Halimi family is yet another lie.
There are definite efforts afoot to smear the Muslim community.
Violette: Once again, your information is wrong, and you are done here. I don’t need some asshole accusing Jews of lying to smear the French Muslim community, when we have more than enough evidence that the French Muslim community has burned down Jewish synagogues, murdered French Jews, defiled Jewish cemeteries, and attack French Jews on a regular — if not daily –basis.
Today’s International Herald Tribune article confirms that many of the people in the building where Ilan was being held and tortured knew that he was there, and that he was a Jew. And did nothing.
Go peddle your Jew-hating conspiracies somewhere else. You’re done here.
Thanks Meryl and good riddance. I’ve been living in France the last 6 years (Originally from Brooklyn) and I’ve had to cut off from 4 French “friends” due to this type of sickening refusal to acknowledge the beast of anti-Semitism which is engulfing France. This phenomenon is widespread. By the way, 3 more anti-Semitic attacks on Jews yesterday here in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles…it won’t be long before I’m back in the good ole USA.
BTW Love your blog, Keep up the good work!!
Meryl writes:
Excuse me?
Comment #6 by Violette links to the politically-correct left-wing Liberation.
Comment #12 by Violette links to the politically-correct left-wing Sydney Morning Herald.
France’s universities, media, state bureaucracy, and opposition party are run by the Left. When Jose “Mr Antiglobalista” Bove made kissy-face with the Islamofascists a couple years ago, he was just following more than three decades of Left-wing anti-Israel party line to its obnoxious conclusion.
Whoever hates capitalism will hate America, and whoever hates America will hate Israel. The politically-correct Left-wing is your real enemy.