Chabad House in France Fire Bombed

PARIS, France [AFP] — French politicians and religious leaders on Monday condemned a petrol bomb attack on a synagogue, the latest incident in a spate of anti-Semitic violence since the start of Israel’s Gaza offensive.

Vandals hurled nine firebombs at the Ohr Menahem community centre and synagogue in the ethnically mixed Paris suburb of Saint-Denis late Sunday, sparking a fire in the next-door kosher restaurant, local police said.

Rabbi Mendel Belinow and other people were inside the synagogue when the fire broke out, but no one was injured.

The attack came less than a week after a synagogue in the southern city of Toulouse was targeted, while a Jewish prayer room in eastern France also suffered minor damage after vandals threw fire-bombs late Sunday.

France has been on edge since Israel stepped up its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with President Nicolas Sarkozy last week warning he will “not tolerate international tension mutating into communal violence.”

The country has witnessed 30 anti-Jewish incidents since the Israeli military operation started in Gaza end of December.

Home to Europe’s biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, France has been rocked by major pro-Palestinian protests and pro-Israeli rallies in recent weeks while surveys show public opinion is divided on the conflict.

On Monday, police found anti-Semitic graffiti — “Kill the Jews”, “Free Gaza” and “Long Live Palestine” — daubed on a wall near the local mosque, in Le-Puy-en-Velay in central France.

In a suburb of the eastern city of Strasbourg, police found three shattered petrol-filled bottles outside a Jewish synagogue, alerted by a resident who spotted black smoke marks on the wall.

Four teenagers from the rough Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel were charged last week with beating a Jewish schoolgirl and taunting her over the Israeli offensive in Gaza, now in its third week.

One of her attackers allegedly told her: “We don’t like what your brothers are doing in Gaza,” according to lawyers.

After meeting with local Jewish leaders, the Communist mayor of Saint-Denis condemned the “intolerable” attack on the synagogue and called a demonstration for Monday evening to show public outrage over the violence.

But Jewish associations said the municipality favored the attack by repeatedly denouncing Israel’s military operation in Gaza and by organizing a demonstration in the city’s streets last Thursday.

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie vowed no effort would be spared “to find the perpetrators of the attack and have them answer before justice for this intolerable act.”

Joel Mergui, president of the Central Consistoire, the religious umbrella body of French Jews, expressed “anger” over the attack and denounced “a succession of threats and dangerous acts against the Jewish community across France.”

A spokesman for the governing UMP party called for “severe punishment” to be handed down to those found guilty of hate violence while several anti-racism groups appealed for calm.

“Let’s not let the Middle East conflict spill over to France,” said the Union of Jewish students of France (UEJF) in an appeal.

The head of the Paris Grand Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, appealed to French Muslims to “maintain calm in the face of strong emotions” unleashed by the war in Gaza.