On October 12, 2000, just before Sukkot, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami were stopped at a Palestinian Authority roadblock and detained by PA policemen who took them to the police station in el-Bireh, Ramallah, not far from Arafat’s Muqata headquarters. The two Israelis were beaten and stabbed, and a local youth named Aziz Salha appeared at the window, displaying his blood-smeared hands to the crowd, which cheered wildly. One of the two Israelis was thrown out the window and beaten to death, and one was shot and set on fire, and his head was beaten to a pulp.
I was reminded yesterday of that horrifying event, that once again revealed the true feelings of our Arab neighbors about co-existence with us – the true scope of which we discovered on October 7, 2023.
On Tuesday, Islamist ghouls defaced with bloodied hands Le Mur des Justes, the Wall of the Righteous in Paris, commemorating the expulsion and execution of the Jews of the city, was defaced on a day that marked both Israel’s 76th year of independence and the first roundup of the Jews of Paris in 1941.
Paris: Des “mains rouges” ont été taguées sur le “Mur des Justes” à l’extérieur du Mémorial de la Shoah – “Je condamne ces actes inqualifiables”, déclare Anne Hidalgo #tag #Paris https://t.co/Dvs97Grih4
— Jean Marc Morandini (@morandiniblog) May 14, 2024
Some 20 bloodied hands were stamped on the memorial in central Paris that honors Frenchmen who protected Jews from persecution during the Nazi occupation of France from 1940 to 1944.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called it an “unspeakable act.” She reported the graffiti to prosecutors as a possible antisemitic act.
“Anti-Semitism has become commonplace in our country,” said Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), in a TV interview.
? Des tags de mains rouges ont été découverts sur le Mur des Justes devant le Mémorial de la Shoah.
?️ “L’antisémitisme est devenu banal dans notre pays”, regrette Yonathan Arfi, président du CRIF.#ApollineMatin pic.twitter.com/1V1fK24UiX
— RMC (@RMCInfo) May 15, 2024
President Emmanuel Macron condemned the act of vandalism on Twitter as “odious antisemitism” which “damages the memory” of both those who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the victims. “The Republic, as always, will remain steadfast in the face of odious antisemitism,” he added.
With the largest Jewish population outside of Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community, France has remained vigilant against antisemitic incidents since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israeli military operations in Gaza.
