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All is not well in France
Horrific
murder of Jewish man in Paris shows anti-Semitism alive and
well
Clara Beyler
French anti-Semitism reached its gloomiest peak these last
few days.
The murder of Ilan Halimi, despite its resemblance to
Daniel Pearl’s story, who was murdered because he was a Jew,
did not take place in Pakistan nor in any other
Muslim-majority country.
It did not happen in the Middle East, or South America
where Colombia holds a record in ransom kidnappings. It took
place in the heart of the French capital, and the horrendous
crime was organized by a group of French nationals, mostly of
African and Arab origin.
| Brutal Killing |
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| Halimi murder
suspect detained / Ynet |
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Leader of gang
behind brutal killing of French Jew arrested in
Ivory Coast, handed over to French
investigators |
| Full
Story |
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Yet the French government and media are trying to cover up
the reality of Muslim anti-Semitism, and this in the face of
the most gruesome anti-Semitic murder of the decade.
A group of criminals calling themselves “the gang
of the Barbarians” kidnapped on January 21st a 23-year-old
Jewish man, Ilan Halimi who worked selling cell phones in
Paris. The gang, headed by a 25-year-old man, born in France
to a family hailing from the Ivory Coast, called Halimi's
Parents demanding ransom.
The gang of criminals selected Ilan because he
was Jewish; as some of the arrested suspects declared: “Jews
are wealthy,” and that is why they picked him. A suspected
member of the group revealed that one of them burned Ilan's
forehead with a cigarette simply because he was Jewish.
An arduous effort was made by French authorities - police
and the public prosecutor- to downplay and minimize the
victim's religious, conscientiously trying to label the crime
as a minor news item. However, the examining magistrate
decided that the fact Ilan was Jewish was indeed a major
component in the case.
Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking
for the first time on the topic last Tuesday, declared that
the crime was anti-Semitic. Sarkozy added that the gang was
first motivated by greed and by “anti-Semitism by conflation."
The “Barbarians” asked for 450,000 euros – about
USD 540,000. They told Ilan's parents on the phone that if
they could not pay, they should ask the Jewish community for
help, playing on the notion of Jewish solidarity, to raise the
money needed to set the young man free.
The gang contacted the family by phone and
e-mails and sent a picture of their captive held at gunpoint,
with blindfolded eyes, imitating Iraqi jihadists’ actions.
For three weeks, the “Barbarians” detained and
tortured Ilan Halimi. When he was found on February 13, he was
naked, handcuffed after being dumped near railway tracks in a
Parisian suburb. He suffered from severe burns covering 80
percent of his body. Traces of cigarette burns, iron burns,
and various cuts (made by knives and scissors) covered his
body. He passed away in an ambulance before reaching the
hospital.
Police arrested about a dozen suspects so far.
The gang leader’s was finally arrested in the Ivory Coast
where he went into hiding two days after Ilan’s death. The
"baits" used to trap Ilan, three women, are also among the
suspects.
However, there must have been many witnesses to
the crime, which spread over weeks. The shrieks and screams
brought on by torture must have been heard by some of those
living in the building where the horrific scenes were taking
place. Yet not one soul, not even one anonymous caller,
alerted the police in the suburb of Bagneux.
The
janitor, who lent the gang the empty lodging without notifying
the owner, is among the suspects in the ongoing investigation,
which everyday seems to reveal a little more of the horror of
what took place in the sordid apartment. According to an
unofficial source, police came to realize that many in the
building knew what was going on, but did not act since it
appears everyone knew the victim was Jewish.
The items found in the torture chamber included
extremist Islamic literature and leaflets of a pro-Palestinian
charity blacklisted by the United States and Israel. The
charity, the Comité de Bienfaisance et de Soutien aux
Palestiniens (CBSP), a Hamas-affiliated fund, is still active
in France despite the exposure of its members and financial
support tying it directly to terrorist activities in the
Palestinian Authority.
What happened to Ilan is not the first attempt of
this kind. The gang tried to pull off similar crimes before
with four of the six previous victims being Jewish. Similar
stories are only now surfacing.
French daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that
the gang's last victim was a fifty-year-old Jewish man, who
had driven home a girl who attempted to seduce his
twenty-year-old son. The man was miraculously saved from being
further beaten and certainly kidnapped when passersby called
the police. Meanwhile, young Halimi’s seductress has turned
herself in.
Yet police officials and the media do not tell
the whole story: Various attempts have taken place in the
past, and other gangs are reported to operate in similar
fashion, luring their Jewish victims with an attractive girl
who brings the "target" to the gang.
There appears to be a tacit agreement between the
media and police to downplay these attempts and the role of
these young men from the suburbs, already “suffering” from bad
publicity due to the riots of last November. In those riots,
hundreds of cars were set aflame and violent clashes between
police and young thugs took place.
Also, the Muhammad cartoons’ controversy is too
fresh in many minds and further polemics involving the Muslim
and Arab communities seem to be avoided by officials.
And so, despite recent reports about a sharp
decrease in anti-Semitic incidents across France, the horrific
murder of Ilan Halimi reminds us the monster is still
there.
Clara Beyler is a French-born counter-terrorism
researcher
(02.24.06, 10:28)
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