Israel condemns attacks on Jewish targets in the riots across France, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
“The government views with utmost concern the displays and waves of antisemitism sweeping over France,” Netanyahu said. “In recent days, we have witnessed criminal assaults against Jewish targets."
“The Government views with utmost concern the displays and waves of antisemitism sweeping over France.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“We strongly condemn these attacks and we support the French government in its fight against antisemitism,” he added.
Rioters vandalized the Holocaust memorial site in Paris, known as The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation, during the ongoing violent anti-police demonstrations on Friday.
The monument honors the memory of 200,000 people sent from Vichy France to Nazi concentration camps.
Footage of the vandalized memorial went viral
Video footage of the incident shows rioters shouting and writing anti-police slogans on the wall of the site. Other videos circulated on social media appeared to show the phrase “we’re going to make a Shoah” spray-painted nearby.
“It is truly horrifying to witness the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation in Nanterre being vandalized,” the European Jewish Congress tweeted. “This shameful act of disrespect for the memory of the victims of the Holocaust must be unequivocally condemned and those responsible held accountable.”
Netanyahu ally and French-Israeli lawmaker Meyer Habib, who represents French expats living in the Eastern Mediterranean region, said on Saturday that the riots come from areas where antisemitism was allowed to flourish unfettered.
“This looks like an Intifada in the heart of France,” Habib said. “France is on fire, with 249 police officers injured. Nothing, not even the dramatic death of a young man justifies this chaos.”
According to Habib, “in these lost areas of the republic, for years there has been an undisturbed growth of hatred of France, white people and Jews.”
Habib contrasted the response to the killing of 17-year-old Nahel M. by a police officer, which sparked the riots, to the murder of 65-year-old Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, who was murdered in her home in 2017 by a man who shouted “Allahu Akbar” while attacking her.
“Sarah Halimi was beaten for 20 minutes in front of 20 police officers. Her murderer is practically free and no one rioted or burned anything,” said Habib.