Denying anti-semitic motives to avoid riots?

A truly brutal murder of a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, kidnapped and tortured over many weeks in the suburbs of Paris.

Halimi was found on Monday tied to a tree, naked and wounded, with burns covering all parts of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.

The French public prosecutor thinks that anti-semitism had nothing to do with the murder. The official Jewish community is keen to calm down fears.

the Paris public prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, told Parisian Jewish radio on Thursday that "no element of the current investigation could link this murder to an anti-Semitic declaration or action." The umbrella group of French Jewish secular organizations, CRIF, issued a statement Friday calling on the Jewish community "to keep calm, cautious and wait for developments in the investigation."

It's interesting that the only English language mainstream media report of this atrocity picked up by Israeli blogger Alison Kaplan Sommer appeared in the UK's Observer. That doesn't even mention that the victim was Jewish. But it does report evidence that the kidnappers appear to have based the tortures they inflicted on him on images from Iraq they had seen:

Criminals who tortured and killed a young hostage, keeping him naked and hooded and burning him repeatedly before throwing him from a train, were inspired by images from Iraq, according to a French prosecutor...

According to the Liberation newspaper, the gang was inspired by a film which had itself been inspired by a press report.

Jean-Claude Martin, a senior government lawyer, said that the kidnappers, who kept their victim imprisoned for three weeks, were 'repeating things they had seen practised elsewhere'.

It's interesting to compare the Observer's report to the European Jewish Press report, which links Halimi's treatment more explicitly to the Abu Ghraib tortures

According to the prosecutor, however, Halimi was tortured in scenes
reminiscent of the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail.

Held prisoner in a Bagneux apartment, "naked, with his face covered," he was abused in "a repetition of scenes seen elsewhere", the prosecutor said.

The family of the victim has quite a different view of why Ilan Halimi was targeted by the criminals, and of why the French police are denying any anti-semitic motive:

Ilan's family also expresses anger over the police refusal to recognize the anti-Semitic motives behind the crime.

"We told them  there were at least three [previous] attempts to abduct young Jews," Ruth says, "but they insisted the motive was purely criminal."

"They're afraid to reignite the confrontation with the Muslims," Halimi's uncle says.

"We know that a few months ago a 16-year-old Jewish girl was kidnapped," the family says, "but her parents decided not to go to the police and paid 100,000 euros in ransom."

And the family members' accounts, if accurate, give some telling pointers to anti-semitic targeting by the gang of their victims:

“We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair,” Rafi, Ilan’s brother-in-law, told the European Jewish Press. ”First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and secondly because of what they said on the phone."

”When we said we didn’t have Euro 500,000 to give them, they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi stressed.

“They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us," he said.

According to the European Jewish Press, an authoritative French newspaper confirms that Jews were the targets of the criminal gang, who had repeatedly tried on previous occasions to kidnap others.

French daily Le Monde revealed that one of the people arrested told police that the gang had chosen “Jewish targets.”

To the credit of the French police, they seem to have arrested twelve of the thirteen members of the gang, after the woman who lured Halimi into the date on which he was kidnapped gave herself up.

But why are they persistently denying that there is any evidence of anti-semitic motives in this atrocity?

And, despite a protest march by a thousand Jews in Paris, why has no report of it appeared on the BBC news or the rest of the English language mainstream media?

UPDATE:  Daledamos picked up a Times report of the kidnap and murder on Friday. Its report acknowledged the victim's Jewishness, and the resultant anxiety of the Jewish community. But as Daledamos says, the report centres on explaining the kidnap as a "honeytrap" sting, and the film inspiration being not the Abu Ghraib videos but a little known honeytrap movie. If that was true, why the particularly vicious, senseless and unprofitable torturing and burning of Ilan Halimi? The Times quotes an unnamed police source as saying it was a "sadistic game". One which just happens to have involved the kidnappers in making anti-semitic statements to the family?

UPDATE UPDATE:  Via No Pasaran, this article in the French newspaper Liberation shows how some of the French police are definitely part of the problem:

«Ce qui fait agir, ce n'est pas une raison raciale ou religieuse. Dans leur tête, juif égale argent», explique ainsi un enquêteur.

What we're dealing with isn't any racist or anti-semitic motive. It's just that to their way of thinking, Jew equals money, explained one of the crime investigators.

My translation, my highlighting.

Nuff said.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:  My latest post looks at the handling of the case by the French state and by western commentators.

Comments

[Silverbrow]

A deeply disturbing story, but given that it was Paris, 1,000 people marching does not sound that many. The uproar should have been far more vocal.

[Steve M]

Very upsetting and worrying.

[Steve M]

Perhaps it's better that this has not been publicised as an anti-semitic attack or even that the victim was Jewish. Who knows how many copy-cat attacks could have been sparked?

[John bull]

Not exactly a suprise is it? Given the refusal of the EU to publish their findings regarding the rise of anti semitism in Europe it's plain to see they don't want the bad publicity. That mentality predates the riots in Paris.

[Susan]

Judging by the victim's last name, he came from a family of Jews of North African origin. The media also ignores the large number of North African Jews in France. They are especially vulnterable as they are hated for being Jews and for their North African origins. They are hated by the French and by the Muslim immigrants.

It's hard to believe that someone could say that it wasn't antisemitism they just thought that "Jews equal money". They would have to believe that all Jews are rich which is a classic antisemitic stereotype.

[roberto]

na, islam is not anti-semetic. no history of it at all.

http://www.n-tv.de/634520.html

[zorro]

John Bull: "The media also ignores the large number of North African Jews in France. They are especially vulnterable as they are hated for being Jews and for their North African origins. "

Absolute horseshit. I live in France; the French-Jewish community is fully integrated and the largest outside New York and Israel. They are not hated as you say.
Also, why would the police suggest anti-semitic motives so early in the investigation ? In what conceivable way would that help anything ?
Come on people, keep a perspective.

[chevalier de st george]

Yes of course Zorro
and the Jews who were sent to Drancy on their way to Auschwitz were the same, no?
This was not an antisemtic act simply the redistribution of their assumed wealth for the good of the French people. No antisemetism there, move on,move on.

[Alexandre]

It's more tragical Ilan Halimi is dead because of the stereotypes like the Jews have much money, are rich and have influence :s

[Dominic]

Hi ! Your site is very interesting. Thank you.