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France's angry young Muslims
Christian Science Monitor ^ | April 17 2002 | Peter Ford

Posted on 04/16/2002 3:11:38 PM PDT by knighthawk

BONDY, FRANCE – School's out in the immigrant projects in this working-class suburb north of Paris. Between the serried ranks of tower blocks, kids play pick-up soccer, challenge each other beneath basketball hoops, or just hang out.

Last Wednesday night, though, a gang of these youths were a lot less peaceable. Wearing masks and hoods; wielding iron bars, heavy steel balls and lengths of barbed wire, they swarmed onto a soccer field just down the road and set about beating up the Jewish team practicing there.

The goalkeeper, a 15-year-old boy, ended up in a hospital, needing seven stitches in his head. The attack was the worst incident in a recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in France that has seen synagogues burned, a Jewish cemetery desecrated, and Jewish school buses stoned.

Anti-Semitism is nothing new in France. But the current burst of virulence has given it a new twist: the perpetrators are not the traditional extreme-right-wing white supremacists. They are more often boys from North African immigrant families who say they are avenging the Palestinians' plight in the West Bank.

"You see what Ariel Sharon is doing in Palestine, you see the Israeli tanks in the streets there destroying everything," says 16-year-old Karim, who was born in the projects to Algerian immigrant parents.

"This (attack on the Jewish soccer players) was like supporting the Palestinians," he says. "Beating people up is not right, but at the same time...."

Television images of Israeli soldiers battling – and killing – Palestinians in their current offensive in the West Bank have inflamed many young people of Arab extraction here. Since the beginning of the latest Palestinian uprising 18 months ago, say Jewish residents of Bondy, they have been repeatedly harassed, insulted, and spat at on their way to and from the local synagogue on Saturdays.

This sort of abuse has disturbed what had been good relations between Arabs and Jews in Bondy. Many people from both communities came to France from the same town in Algeria after Algerian independence in 1962, and the older generations know one another well.

"The head of the Muslim community here and I were friends in Algeria and we are still friends" says Roger Benhamou, a retired lawyer who leads the local 350- family-strong Jewish community.

"I always handled inheritance questions for Algerians here because I am an expert in Islamic law, and when my son took over from me, the Muslim association asked him to do all the legal paperwork for the construction of a mosque," Mr. Benhamou recalls.

Charles Chemla, a retired Jewish subway driver who lives in a rundown apartment block a few hundred yards from the soccer field, says he has no problems with his Arab and African neighbors.

"Parents tell their kids to help us carry our shopping when we come back from the market," says Mr. Chemla. "We respect our neighbors, and they respect us."

But, on the walls of the stairway leading to Chemla's fifth-floor walkup, someone has scrawled "Long live Islam," followed by a vulgar reference to Jews.

"That's just the kids," says Chemla. "They are imbeciles."

Bondy's mayor, Gilbert Roger, agrees. "There is a very big difference in approach between the adults and the kids" in the projects, he says.

"The kids don't practice Islam, but they use it to give themselves an identity."

Unhappy with their lack of integration into French society, "they try to identify themselves with another world" such as the global Muslim community, says Mr. Roger. But they do so with little political sense or understanding, says Mouloud Aounit, who heads the Movement against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples.

"These kids are lost, they feel badly treated, and they unload their revolt against anything they can demonize," he suggests. "Sometimes it's the police, now it is synagogues and Jewish schools. But I don't think this is political or ideological anti-Semitism."

The authorities in Bondy, however, are worried that there is more to it than that. "We have to find out why a bunch of 14- to 16-year-olds got together to do this anti-Semitic act," says Roger. "There has to be someone behind it, but the question is who?"

Benhamou, the leader of the Jewish community, suspects Islamists.

"There are Islamic cells in France who are using (events in the Middle East) to set the communities here against one another," he says. "There is a lot of manipulation by extremists, which is very dangerous."

The Bondy police have no clues yet: Nobody has yet been arrested in connection with last week's assault.

Indeed, nobody has been arrested either for the arson attack on Bondy's synagogue in October 2000 that burned down half of the building, nor for any of the petty attacks that worshippers have suffered.

Now, riot police guard the temple at night, and police officers are on hand on Saturdays to protect people coming to pray on the Sabbath.

Meanwhile, Mr. Roger is trying to turn junior soccer matches into teach-ins that might break down barriers. The idea, he says, is to get teachers or journalists to lead debates about Middle Eastern politics and local issues before soccer games, "so as to dispel confused ideas" in the youngsters' minds.

"It's a question of education, especially civic education," says Roger. "Talking about the conflicts would help a lot more than putting a policeman on every street corner."


TOPICS: Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: france; israe; jacqueschirac; jews; muslims
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To: Travis McGee
Wasn't there an article posted to FR a few weeks ago, wherein Muslim immigrants in France attacked French police who were protecting a politician who was trying to give a speech? This was before the synagogue burnings, but I did not post to or book mark that thread. Hopefully, the freeper who posted the article will see this and provide a link.
21 posted on 04/16/2002 4:17:39 PM PDT by kaylar
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To: FITZ
"Middle East Muslims in Europe incensed by Jews living in Middle East"

Good point - I'll have to remember that one. All we ever hear about is Western "imperialism" in the Middle East, but it would be racist or intolerant to criticize the increasing Muslim presence in Europe.
22 posted on 04/16/2002 4:49:17 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: knighthawk
It's starting again.

If the US were the size of Isreal, we would get the same thing.

It's not about anything except individual freedom, and those that can't stand it. Control freaks vs. trust in the individual.

They are starting in France, the capitol of surrender. Beyond the Middle East, of course. No surprise there.

EU, being socialists to the core, hate the rights of the individual. They don't like democracies, period

What I really don't understand is the Jews in America who crave gun control. I thought self preservation of Jews, by Jews, was first and foremost. "Never again."

The vast majority of Jews in Isreal would totally support guns for all America.

How did this disconnect happen?

23 posted on 04/16/2002 7:27:27 PM PDT by MonroeDNA
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To: MonroeDNA
What I really don't understand is the Jews in America who crave gun control. I thought self preservation of Jews, by Jews, was first and foremost. "Never again." The vast majority of Jews in Isreal would totally support guns for all America. How did this disconnect happen?

American Jews are stupid?
24 posted on 04/16/2002 8:44:55 PM PDT by Michael2001
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To: Michael2001
No, American Jews are taught liberalism from an early age. Hopefully, this will change. Take it from me. Growing up in New York as in a Conservative Jewish family was extremely rare. My parents had many friends, but when it came time to socialize, it was difficult because invariably conversation would turn to politics and all hell would break loose. Of course, my Father was brilliant and nobody could come close to arguing with him. But he never swerved, always stayed principled, and that's why I loved him so much.
25 posted on 04/16/2002 8:52:42 PM PDT by Hildy
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To: knighthawk
I want out of Europe before it's too late. I rather not be jihaded by the people who 'enrich our multi-cultural society'.

Or euthanized by one of your killer doctors if you get a bad illness, and they decide they need your bed for someone younger.

26 posted on 04/16/2002 9:06:38 PM PDT by Travis McGee
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To: Kenny Bunk
We are, as far as I can see.
27 posted on 04/16/2002 9:07:28 PM PDT by Travis McGee
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To: swarthyguy
I seem to recall that as well, I think it's still a touchy subject in certain areas of England with police.
28 posted on 04/16/2002 9:09:29 PM PDT by Travis McGee
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To: kaylar
Yes, at a big national soccer match, (France vs Tunisia or Morocco), Chirac came and they pelted him with trash and bottles and curses.
29 posted on 04/16/2002 9:11:04 PM PDT by Travis McGee
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To: Travis McGee
How about a soccer match against Sharon and Arafat??? Now your talkin'.
30 posted on 04/16/2002 9:16:08 PM PDT by jobedo
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To: Travis McGee
Radical islam is an insane death cult, and "moderate" islam is its trojan horse in the West

I agree. Coming to a neighborhood near us.

31 posted on 04/16/2002 9:20:48 PM PDT by paul51
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To: knighthawk
The attack was the worst incident in a recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in France that has seen synagogues burned, a Jewish cemetery desecrated, and Jewish school buses stoned.

Q:Where were the Police?Do the French Police carry Guns? WHERE is the outrage of this behavior?Hmmm?I wonder how many people will get injured in that country before they decide 'Enough is Enough'?Are they capable of reacting w/ any strength against violent people?

32 posted on 04/16/2002 9:44:02 PM PDT by Pagey
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To: knighthawk
There are Islamic cells in France
Really????

Say It isn't so !!! (sarcasm off)

33 posted on 04/16/2002 9:51:05 PM PDT by HP8753
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To: Pagey
The French police carry guns. But it are 'just' Jews that are victimized. THe lefties don't mind that. But if the Jews would burn down mosques, that would be a different story!
34 posted on 04/17/2002 3:38:47 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: Bruce Leroy
Imagine: in the UK it's even worse!
35 posted on 04/17/2002 3:40:27 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: Phillip Augustus
I got a theory about that:

In the US people are allowed self-defence. So muslims will get shot up in places like Texas when they start to jihad.

In Europe they got the guns and the large groups of jihadies to terrorize the people.

36 posted on 04/17/2002 3:42:44 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: knighthawk; cardinal4
France, like the UK, is paying the price for previous empire. The islamic chickens have come home to roost and befoul the barnyard. Poor Germany: they never had an empire, beyond some meager holdings in Africa, Shanghai and some Pacific islands, and are suffering just like their neighbors.
37 posted on 04/17/2002 4:09:55 AM PDT by Ax
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To: Ax
But France was able to build an empire through military might. In other words, the Islamic nations that were colonized had very little choice about it. By way of contrast, France does have a choice about the colonization in reverse. And it's high time they did something about it. NO MORE TURD WORLD IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN HOMELANDS.
38 posted on 04/17/2002 10:59:35 AM PDT by Phillip Augustus
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To: FITZ
Interesting how the Middle East Muslims living in Europe are so completely incensed by the thought that there are Jews living in the Middle East.

Damn, you're good FITZ.

39 posted on 04/17/2002 11:55:05 PM PDT by Semaphore Heathcliffe
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