Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned France's Toulouse attack as a
“savage crime,” but refrained from blaming anyone in particular for the
murders.
By contrast, Netanyahu squarely blamed Iran for the attacks
earlier this month on Israeli targets in Georgia and India just hours after they
took place.
“Today we had a savage crime in France that gunned down
French Jews, among them children. It’s too early to say what the precise
background for this act of murder is, but I think that we cannot rule out that
there was a strong murderous anti-Semitic motive here,” he said at a Likud
faction meeting. “I’m sure that Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, and
his government will do their utmost to find the killer and we, in Israel, will
do everything to help them in this task.”
One government official, who
requested anonymity, explained that Israel had confidence in the French ability
to find those behind the attack, but that if it turned out that the attack had
an “international footprint,” then “we can help sometime.”
Diplomatic
officials clarified that it was too early to draw conclusions as to who was
behind the attacks, and that the possibilities ranged from Jihadists to
neo-Nazis.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement saying that it
was not clear whether this was “a terrorist attack, the action of criminals or a
hate crime.” He said that Sarkozy, the rabbi of the community and French law
enforcement officials immediately took action, and he was sure that those
responsible would be “found and punished.”
“Only someone with demonic
evil can carry out the horrible murder of small children in a school,” said
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.
Israel’s envoy in Paris, Yossi Gal,
met the bereaved families, and it was decided that the victims would be brought
to Israel for burial as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, condemnations of the
attack came in from around the world.
The White House expressed strong outrage, with National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor saying,
“We were deeply saddened to learn of the horrific attack this morning against
the teachers and students of a Jewish school in the French city of
Toulouse.”
“We stand with a community in grief,” he continued. “We join
the government of France in condemning this unprovoked and outrageous act of
violence in the strongest possible terms.”
German Foreign Minister Guido
Westerwelle issued a statement saying he was “deeply shocked” by the attack,
adding that “there is no place in Europe for anti-Semitism and violence towards
Jewish institutions or Jews.”
Hilary Leila Krieger contributed to this
report.