Friday, March 23, 2012

France and Sweden: Security Parallels

In an article entitled "Preventing the next attack: How does a community protect itself from unseen assailants?"
Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz offers some thoughts about European Jewry and the security issues they are facing.   A key component is governmental ongoing denial of Muslim anti-Semitism.

-"One of the many contradictory remarks made by French Interior Minister Claude Gueant during the protracted saga of the shootings and siege in southwest France this week was that the terrorist Mohamed Merah 'wanted to kill another soldier, but did not find anyone so he turned to the Jewish school and killed the teacher and three children.'

"It reminded me of the old joke about the man walking up a street in Northern Ireland during the time of the Troubles. Someone sticks a gun in his back and demands 'are you Protestant or Catholic?'

"It's OK" answers the man with a sigh of relief, 'I'm Jewish.'

"To which the gunman responds, 'I must be the luckiest Palestinian in Belfast tonight.'

"Perhaps I should apologize for writing jokes during the week of the worst anti-Semitic attack in Western Europe for nearly three decades, but having seen the Ozar Hatorah high school in Toulouse this week and after interviewing some of the eye-witnesses to the attack, the idea that Merah just turned up at the school on the off chance and killed a rabbi and three young children is so ridiculous as to be laughable...There is no way that such an attack could have been carried out unless Mareh scouted out the target in advance, observing it at length to find the most advantageous timing for his purpose."

The article in full is available here.

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