Pogrom in France 97

Gatestone brings a report and commentary by Guy Millière. It is titled Paris’s Kristallnacht. 

Whenever Israel is attacked by terrorist movements and needs to defend itself, “leftist” and Islamist organizations organize anti-Israel protests in Paris. One of the latest took place on July 13.

We see no reason why the word leftist should be in quotation marks, but we quote from this important article with careful accuracy. Its value lies in its being objective, lacking sensationalism, as it reports an historic return in Europe to the growth of an evil movement  – the same evil that was crushed in 1945 after the soil of the continent had yet again been soaked with blood in a terrible war.      

The event brought together between 10,000 and 30,000 people – not surprising in a country where “leftist” and Islamist organizations are strong.

The demonstrators shouted hateful and violent slogans against Israel and held Israeli flags on which swastikas replaced the Star of David – also not surprising. Events organized by “leftists” and by Islamists usually carry such gear.

The demonstrators also shouted purely anti-Semitic slogans; the call for “Death to Jews” was picked up by the crowd. This was the first time since the end of World War II that explicitly anti-Semitic chants were shouted by a large crowd in Paris (During a demonstration in January, protesters shouted, “Jews, France does not belong to you”).

We would call that an anti-Semitic slogan, but the fact that the author doesn’t perhaps demonstrates his determined objectivity.

Demonstrators shouted, “Hamas will win,” in support of the jihadist terrorist organization. This was also the first time that slogans openly favoring a jihadist terrorist organization were shouted by a large crowd in Paris. (During earlier demonstrations, protesters shouted “Palestine will win,” but did not point to Hamas).

Demonstrators also shouted slogans in favor of a man who had murdered Jewish children: “We are all Mohamed Merah.” Merah shot and killed a rabbi and three Jewish children at close range in a schoolyard in Toulouse in 2012; it was the one of the most serious anti-Semitic acts committed in France since the Vichy regime. This was the first time in France that a large crowd proudly identified with a murderer of Jewish children.

The demonstration started in the 18th Arrondissement of Paris (metro station Barbès Rochechouart), close to where Islamic preachers organized street prayers a few months ago; it ended near Place de la Bastille. Dozens of windows of Jewish shops and restaurants along the route were broken and covered with yellow labels saying, “boycott Israel”. This was the first time that so many Jewish shops and restaurants were attacked during a demonstration in Paris.

Which fully justifies his title Paris’s Kristallnacht.

In addition, several hundred protesters armed with iron bars, machetes, axes and firebombs, arriving Place de la Bastille, marched to the nearby Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on rue de la Roquette. They shouted, “Let’s slay the Jews,” “Hitler was right,” and “Allahu Akbar”.

Only six police officers were on hand, who were quickly overwhelmed. Members of Jewish defense organizations protected the 200 Jews present inside the synagogue. Even after police reinforcements arrived, the synagogue was besieged for nearly two hours. The Jews, prisoners of a potentially lethal horde, were locked inside.

At another nearby synagogue on rue des Tournelles, rioters threw Molotov cocktails and looted the place. When the vandals continued their looting to rue des Rosiers, the heart of the Jewish quarter of Paris, the police struggled to stop them.

This was the first time since World War II that an anti-Semitic pogrom took place in France.

What did the government do about it – apart from allowing six policemen to put in an appearance, and reinforcements to be sent late and do nothing?

In an attempt to address the distress of the Jewish community, the French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, denounced anti-Semitism in general terms. He said he would strengthen the protection of “places of worship,” synagogues and mosques – although no mosque was attacked.

Although the government banned the next demonstration, scheduled for July 19, it took place anyway, and soon turned into a riot.

The forces of law and order tried to do a little better the next time, July 19. But the rioting was worse.

When thousands of protesters gathered again at the Barbès Rochechouart metro station, the presence of significant police forces prevented protesters from crossing Paris. Organized groups then attacked the police by throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and by using iron bars. Shops were looted. Garbage cans were burned. Bus stations, dozens of them, and billboards were destroyed. Protesters came with pickaxes and ripped the pavement on several streets to throw chunks of asphalt.

Demonstrators tried to burn down the largest textile store in Paris, near Barbès Rochechouart, because it carries a Jewish name, Dreyfus-Marché Saint Pierre. Clashes with police near this store were particularly violent.

Witnesses spoke of the atmosphere of a civil war, and photographers spoke of a “French intifada”.

The slogans shouted by the rioters were the same as the previous week: “Death to Jews” mingled with “Death to Israel” and “Long live Hamas.” Many who threw stones and Molotov cocktails shouted, “Allahu Akbar,” just as the attackers of the synagogue on July 13 had done. …

The again on July 20

Rioters started to ransack the suburb with the largest Jewish population on the outskirts of Paris: Sarcelles. All the Jewish stores and many cars were wrecked or set on fire. A group shouting “Allahu Akbar” again tried to burn the town’s synagogue. Again, most rioters were Muslim. Again, most shouted, “Death to the Jews.”

All French politicians are ready to condemn anti-Semitism in general terms (except members of the National Front); none are ready to call the anti-Semitism that is exploding in France today by its name: Islamic anti-Semitism. …

Almost all French politicians adopt an attitude of appeasement toward the enemies of Israel and Jews. They never define Hamas as an Islamic terrorist organization. They close their eyes to the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hate speech disseminated by the enemies of Israel in the Middle East, and to the irony that France finances that speech. They act as if they did not see that the hate speech France finances in the Middle East is now spreading throughout France.

The major French media have not said a word about the anti-Semitism and jihadism that permeated the protest of July 13 and the riots of July 19 and 20. All major French television reports of these events presented the protesters and rioters as people who had just wanted to support the “liberation of the Palestinian people”. All reports major French television reports on Israel’s war against Hamas are made ​​from the point of view of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. No report speaks of Hamas’s genocidal Jew hatred or of the use of Arab women and children as human shields. Journalists from major French media outlets act as if they did not know that by adopting a watered-down vision of the protesters and rioters in France, and by describing the war from the point of view of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, they are playing a dangerous game that could lead to more pogroms and even civil war.

The attitude of French politicians reflects the sorry state of French society. All the riots that erupted in France during the last decade were the result of minor incidents, but showed that France is on the verge of a large-scale explosion. French politicians want to avoid a large-scale explosion. They are scared and paralyzed.

French politicians also know that France’s Muslim population now amounts to 15% of its total population and that radical Islamist organizations are particularly well established. The Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is the main French Muslim organization; it attracts tens of thousands of people in each of its annual meetings and openly lends political support to Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. French politicians do not want a confrontation with the UOIF.

French politicians also know that more than 750 neighborhoods in France are considered “no go zones” by the police, and that the authorities have lost control of them.

They also know that 70% of all inmates in the French prison system are Muslim, and that self-proclaimed imams and gang leaders have taken over many prisons. They know that these prisons have been transformed into recruiting centers for jihadists, and that regaining control of these prisons is an almost impossible task. Mohamed Merah and Mehdi Nemmouche, the Brussels Jewish Museum killer, became jihadists while in French prisons.

French politicians know, as well, that more than 800 French Muslims are being trained in the Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria.

They know that Muslims vote. Eight million Muslims clearly have greater political weight than do four hundred thousand Jews.

The major French media are also scared and paralyzed.  Criticizing radical Islam on French television is now almost impossible. …  Members of the Israeli government are never interviewed on French television. Representatives of Palestinian and “pro-Palestinian” organizations are regularly invited and can lie without ever being contradicted.

Reports on right-wing anti-Semitism are abundant. Reports on Islamic Jew-hatred are non-existent. …

The prevalent sentiment among French Jews is that a page has been turned. The French Jewish philosopher Shmuel Trigano wrote on July 16th that what is happening is a sign that Jews must leave France, fast. “Recent events are likely to play the role that such events have played in the past for the Jews in many countries: a strong symbolic event gives the signal that the Jews have no future in the country that was theirs”. …

Most recently, on July 23, an anti-Israeli protest was organized in Paris. This time, the protest was not banned. It brought together 10,000-20,000 people. 15,000 police officers were present. Thirty socialist MPs were present among the protesters. The media said it was a “peaceful protest.” People shouted, “Hamas, Jihad, Resistance.” Nazi-era anti-Semitic cartoons appeared on large panels. Again, groups of protesters finished their day at the rue des Rosiers and attacked Jewish shops. Some “peaceful protest”.

The Jews of France are in quite as much mortal danger as the children of Honduras. So will some tens of thousands of them be welcomed as refugees into the United States by the Obama administration, like the children of Honduras?

We all know the answer to that.

Posted under Anti-Semitism, Europe, France, Islam, jihad, Leftism, Muslims, Race, Terrorism by Jillian Becker on Saturday, July 26, 2014

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