The grandmother of Israeli opposition lawmaker Sharren Haskel was the victim of an antisemitic assault by “Arab thugs” outside Paris, the Knesset member said on Wednesday.
“Antisemitism in France has been on the rise for a long time. Since October 7, it has become unbearable, and the government of France ignores it,” Haskel wrote in a post on X, responding to a report by Israel’s Kan News on the incident, which took place earlier this week.
Two men attacked the 88-year-old after she left her home in Val-d’Oise, just north of Paris, according to the report.
One of the assailants reportedly punched Haskel’s grandmother in the face, breaking her teeth and knocking her to the ground. After the fall, one of them was said to have continued to kick her in the back while shouting, “Dirty Jew, dirty old lady, this is what you deserve.”
French authorities confirmed to Kan that a probe had been opened into the attack. In the complaint, Haskel’s mother noted, “I think they saw my Star of David necklace, otherwise they wouldn’t know.” She had to seek medical attention for pain in her back, knees, shoulder and right wrist.
“I have no hope in the French authorities for treatment,” the younger Haskel wrote in her post on X, charging that the government led by French President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance Party “allows blood libels to be spread against Israel, and as a result, the Jewish community suffers from violence, rape, murder.
“The Israeli government must lead the fight against the explosion of antisemitism,” Haskel said. “Jewish communities around the world are inseparable from us, and we have a great responsibility towards them.”
The centre-right MK called on all Diaspora Jews, including her grandmother, to return to the Jewish people’s “national, cultural and historical” homeland, writing, “We have one home.”
In an op-ed published on the French website Causeur on Wednesday, Haskel said the time had come to “demand an end to the state-run anti-Israeli propaganda—led by Agence France Presse and the French public media—that has fuelled this growing antisemitism.”
In the piece, she alleged the Arab attack on her grandmother was “covered up to avoid boosting [Marine Le Pen’s] National Rally during election time and to play into the hands of the current government, which is now allied with the worst antisemites of the [far-left] LFI [La France Insoumise, or ‘France Unbowed’].”
France’s far-right topped the country’s first round of legislative elections on Sunday for the first time, with the National Rally winning about one-third of the vote. Finishing second was the left-wing coalition, New Popular Front, which includes LFI, with 27.99% of the vote.
The decisive second round will take place on Sunday.
The far-right National Rally has endeavoured to reach out to Jewish voters. In a June op-ed in Le Figaro, Le Pen, in the wake of the rape of a Jewish girl, excoriated the left and Macron’s party for allowing Jew hatred to fester in France.
“The latest act to date, the appalling rape of this 12-year-old girl because she is Jewish, stirs my heart and should revolt the whole of France,” Le Pen wrote, adding that an attack on Jews is an attack on all French.
