French Muslim extremists have been responsible for two of Europe’s most horrific recent antisemitic attacks, and Islamist-inspired assaults on Jews and firebombings of synagogues are now regular occurrences in France.
Few doubt that the murderous attack on Charlie Hebdo was part of the same pattern. Radical Islamists see Jews, Zionism and the Western media as part of a conspiracy of apostates and, as such, all are targets.
The fact that one of those murdered, lead cartoonist Georges Wolinski, was Jewish, may well have further fed into the attackers’ warped outlook.
Terrorism specialists now warn of a heightened threat to Jews across Europe — including the UK.
British counter-terror expert Professor Andrew Silke says an “upsurge in Islamist terrorism in France and neighbouring countries will almost inevitably incorporate increased threats to Jewish targets”.
The increasing number of attacks on Jews in France is evidence that they are seen by Islamists as soft targets, according to Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute.
He adds that European synagogues now require increased security to accommodate the stepped-up threat. “For the Jewish community, there is a need for a higher security presence. There have been a number of antisemitic attacks in the past couple of weeks; they keep on being repeated. Clearly, extremists in France see the Jewish community as valid targets.”
For others, a repetition of the Charlie Hebdo attack in the UK is bound to happen. Maajid Nawaz, the chairman of the Quilliam Foundation and a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, said that a similar attack is “inevitable in Britain. There’s not more extremism in France than anywhere else. In Britain, you have [people] like Jihadi John. There is a crisis in the whole of Europe. We are reaching a crisis level of emergency.”
The fact that fewer attacks on Jews have taken place in the UK is often put down to the strong relationship between the community’s security organisation, CST, and the police and intelligence services.
David Delew, chief executive of CST, said: “The Paris attack is exactly why CST has been on its second highest level of alert for a number of years, with the highest level being reserved for when an actual attack against British Jews has occurred, or is known to be imminent.”
Meanwhile, an educator at an ORT school on the outskirts of Paris, suggested that the Charlie Hebdo attack may give French gentiles a better understanding of what Israelis and French Jews are going through.
In the medium-term, the attack on Wednesday holds a different kind of bad news for the Jewish community in France. The fact that Islamists were probably responsible is likely to push more voters into the arms of the National Front, which, despite its efforts to distance itself from its fascist past under Jean Marie Le Pen, is still riven with antisemitism.
Associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, Douglas Murray, commented: “The tragedy is that because the mainstream parties have not dealt with this problem [of Islamist extremism], the National Front looks to be the only vote-winner. To say that this is a catastrophe for French Jews is an understatement.
“I now agree with the view that there is no future for Jews in France.”
Anthony Glees, who directs the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said: “That French Jews should feel they are particularly vulnerable in these circumstances is hardly surprising.
“However, I’d not look at it like that myself: the attack on Hebdo is an attack on all French people, including the Jews of France; it’s also an attack on all free people everywhere.”
