The Congress of the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (UOIF) will take place in the city of Le Bourget, near Paris, from April 6-9. Over 100,000 participants are expected. Six anti-Semitic Islamic preachers who were invited to speak were denied entry into France. Other anti-Semitic Islamic preachers will speak anyway ; they are French, they cannot be expelled. They will not be condemned. The French government knows that if it condemned them, it might be confronted by riots in many suburbs. Every year, openly anti-Semitic books are on sale at the Congress of the UOIF, among them the fabricated « Protocols of the Elders of Zion. » This year will be no different.
Several radical Islamist organizations openly advocate -- without interference -- jihad on French territory. One of them, Forsane Alizza (Pride Riders), was banned by the French government at the end of February : it had started to form fighters on French soil. Although officially the organization disappeared, its members are still active. Eighteen of them were arrested on March 30 ; they will probably soon be released.
Also, as it is now widely known, on March 19, a man entered a Jewish school, Ozar Hatora, in Toulouse, France, where he killed a rabbi, his two children, then an eight years old little girl by shooting her three times in the head after dragging her by the hair to place her in front of the camera he was carrying. These were the worst anti-Semitic acts committed on French soil since the three-week kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in February 2006.
After the murders in Toulouse, like commentators and so many other people, the police initially followed the trail of the « extreme right. » A mobilization across the country was to be expected. The mobilization started quickly.
It was soon revealed that the killer who had just shot four Jews was the same man who had murdered three French soldiers, including two Muslims, the week before. All the commentators ferociously incriminated the « far right.» Anti-racist associations issued statements denouncing « fascist barbarity raising its ugly head again ».
It then emerged that the man was a French Muslim who had traveled to the mountains of Afghanistan in to train for jihad, Islamic holy war. The police found him, and shot him to death after a rough gunfight.
The mobilization ceased as rapidly as it had begun. Commentators no longer spoke of anti-Semitism. Anti-racist associations became silent. All attention focused on the killer, Mohamed Merah. He was presented as a « nice young man » by his neighbors, then as a « petty criminal » who inexplicably drifted, and finally as a « lone wolf » without any connection with terrorist movements.
It was gradually revealed that his older brother, Abdelkader, now in prison, had links with Islamists in Belgium and the United Kingdom, and organized networks helping young French Muslims join jihadi organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It appeared that the killer, Mohamed Merah had been imprisoned in Afghanistan for planting bombs in Kandahar, and had been placed on the list of dangerous people to be monitored closely by the security services of the United States.
It also appeared that he was under the supervision of the French Department of the Interior, a circumstance that did not prevent him from obtaining an impressive arsenal, and killing several times without arousing immediate suspicions.
More information will emerge. The French mainstream media will reveal it, with obvious reluctance. Every time journalists speak or write about the case, they constantly point out that Mohamed Merah is « not really a Muslim, » and that no one should forget that Islam is a « religion of peace ».
Anti-racist associations have broken their silence and call for vigilance against « racism » in general, and against the risk of « divisions ».
Nicolas Sarkozy has promised sanctions against French youths who go train in jihadi camps and those who visit websites praising jihad. Consequently, Sarkozy was immediately described by almost all other political leaders as a dangerous man.
The worst anti-Semitic crime committed on French soil for decades is no longer described as an anti-Semitic crime by anyone, except Jews, and even Jews choose their words carefully. Now the Jewish school that was attacked as well as other Jewish schools in France are receiving threatening emails, according to Agence France-Presse, Jewish cemeteries are being vandalized in Paris and Nice, and graffiti praising Merah has been appearing over the walls of homes.The assassin has justified his act by invoking the « suffering of Gaza's children, » a suffering described by a growing number of journalists as a « mitigating circumstance ». When Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) wanted to say during a newscast that media should cease showing distorted images inciting hatred of Israel, the anchor immediately stopped him, saying, « This is a moment of meditation, not controversy. »
The point that the murderer is a young French Muslim who turned to radical Islam and killed Jewish children only because they were Jewish is no longer evoked. The only risk mentioned constantly on television, in newspapers, and in most political discourse is that fear could push people to « stigmatize Muslims, » who run « the risk of being discriminated against.» « The killer, » said Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, « has nothing to do with the teachings of Islam. »
Nobody dares to say that dozens of young French Muslims go every year to jihadi training camps and follow exactly the same course as Mohamed Merah. How many of them are likely to act at one time or another?
Nobody dares to say that more than thirty mosques all over the country broadcast incendiary remarks which, according to Boubakeur, have « nothing to do with the teachings of Islam, » and that the same remarks are received daily on television by tens of thousands of Muslims in France through the Arabic version of Al Jazeera. How many Muslims are being indoctrinated with the same ideas as Mohamed Merah and will start to share his hatred of Jews and the West ?
According to the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), nearly four hundred physical attacks against Jews occurred in France in 2011 -- more than one a day. Moreover, Sammy Ghozlan, President of BNVCA, states that the number of attacks that have not been the subject of legal complaints is much higher.
All the attacks recorded by BNVCA were committed by Muslims. Not one was due to a member of a far-right movement. French laws forbid publicly declaring who exactly assaults Jews on French soil; those who do risk heavy fines and prosecution.
In 2004, the government commissioned a report, called the Obin Report, on « the Signs and Manifestations of Religious Affiliation in Educational Establishments. » The Obin Report showed a deep infiltration by radical Islam into the vast majority of French schools, and a vitriolic hatred for Jews. What it described was so alarming that the text was not initially disclosed. As nothing was done to protest what the report showed, one can deduce that eight years later, the situation has not improved. Jewish families withdraw their children from public schools to place them in Jewish private schools, where they become potential targets of Islamic extremists. Each year, however, two thousand Jews leave France to settle in Israel, sometimes in Canada or the United States.
Jews in France number five hundred thousand, and that number is decreasing. Muslims total more than six million, and for the most part, they are French citizens who exercise their voting rights.
The question is not whether there will be another anti-Semitic murder in France, but rather, When ? Jihad in France is just beginning.
