When a tragedy occurs, such as a terrorist attack, the response on subsequent anniversaries is a memorial service or a moment of reflection.
Not so in France, where a kosher grocery store was set on fire to mark the anniversary of a deadly attack three years ago against a different kosher grocery store. The Promo & Destock store in the Paris suburb of Créteil was chosen because it is owned by a Muslim. According to France’s anti-Semitism watchdog, BNVCA, the attack was intended to “punish” the Muslim owner for his links to the Jewish community.
To the perpetrators, he is a collaborator and deserves to have his business destroyed. Three weeks prior, the same store was defaced with swastikas, as was another kosher shop in the area.
Can anyone in good faith continue to make the claim that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel are not one and the same? There is no more clear-cut example than this one. A kosher store in suburban Paris servicing the local Jewish community is attacked with Nazi symbols and set on fire to commemorate an earlier Islamist attack and to threaten the livelihood of a Muslim “collaborator.” Knowing these facts, it is not difficult to deduce that in all likelihood, the arson was committed by a Muslim perpetrator. What other reason — aside from a twisted hatred of Israel — could a follower of the Islamic faith have with a store selling kosher products (analogous to Islam’s halal)?
No doubt, for the twisted individuals who committed this arson, Lassana Bathily, the Muslim man who saved the lives of patrons in the 2015 Hyper Cacher attack, is the ultimate collaborator.
“I just feel sick,” the 44-year-old store owner said. “I’m Muslim. I work in a Jewish shop. There is no incompatibility there.” Good for him.
According to AFP, police are searching for the suspects and for a motive, though they don’t believe it was accidental. Pardon us, but “Duh!”
Last year, when Sarah Halimi was beaten and thrown to her death off her balcony by a French-Malian Muslim man screaming about Allah, it took five months for the crime to be classified as terrorist and anti-Semitic. We hope the French authorities don’t make the same mistake now.
Copyright © 2018 by the Intermountain Jewish News
