Attacked for Being Jewish in France

After Donald Trump had the temerity to suggest that France has a problem with Islamic terrorism, the president of France took umbrage. Having put his country in a continuing state of emergency because of the threat of Islamic terrorism, Francois Hollande is not well placed to make such denials.

We all recall Charlie Hebdo. We recall the Bataclan massacre. We recall the Bastille Day carnage in Nice. We recall the priest who was butchered in Bretagne. We know that Jews are leaving France because their children are being persecuted in classrooms by Muslim children. We know that Chinese children are being persecuted in classrooms by Muslim children. We know about the riots that recently took place in the Northern Paris suburbs. We know it all and we know that street life in Paris is so bad that Chinese tourism has dropped significantly.

We know it all, and we have seen Francois Hollande demonstrate the courage to call it Islamist terrorism—more courage than Barack Obama and more courage, incidentally, than President Trump’s new national security advisor.

And yet, the president of France is seriously upset because friends do not say such things about friends. The question is not so much that it does not happen, but that allies do not say so.

Anyway, just in case you missed it, here’s another story about the way Jews are treated in the Paris suburbs:

Two Jewish brothers said they were abducted briefly and beaten by several men in suburban Paris in an incident that ended with one brother having his finger sawed off by an assailant.

The brothers were hospitalized in what was described as a state of shock following the incident Tuesday night in Bondy. A case report published Thursday by the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, based on a police complaint by the alleged victims did not specify their medical condition.

The kippah-wearing brothers, whose father is a Jewish leader in Bondy, were forced off the main road by another vehicle on to a side street, according to the BNVCA report. While the vehicle was in motion, the driver and a passenger shouted anti-Semitic slogans at the brothers that included “Dirty Jews, You’re going to die!” the father told BNVCA based on the complaint filed by his sons.

The vehicle forced the brothers to stop their car, and they were surrounded by several men whom they described as having a Middle Eastern appearance. The men came out of a hookah café on to the side street, according to the case report published by the news website JSSNews.

The alleged attackers surrounded the brothers, then kicked and punched them repeatedly while threatening that they would be murdered if they moved. One of the alleged attackers then sawed off the finger of one of the brothers.

But, don’t say anything about it. That would not be polite. Kidnapping, beating, sawing off a finger… just a day’s work for France’s Muslim population.