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Sammy Ghozlan, head of the French national anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau
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Sammy Ghozlan, head of a French anti-Semitism monitoring group, has said that the speech of an “alleged comedian” influenced the killers of Ilan Halimi, the young Jewish man murdered in a Paris suburb last week.
“The tortures inflicted upon Ilan could only be perpetrated by criminals motivated by anti-Jewish hatred instigated by a certain comedian who has made headlines,” Sammy Ghozlan said in an interview with European Jewish Press.
Ghozlan made no direct reference to Dieudonne, a controversial black comedian who has been accused of repeated anti-Semitic remarks and who generated outrage among French Jews.
Dieudonne, who is of African origin, asserted that Jews had played a “central role” in the 15th-century slave trade. In December 2003 he appeared on French TV dressed as an Orthodox Jew and performed the Nazi salute while shouting “IsraHeil”.
He is to stand trial for comments made in 2003 in which he declared that Jews were “a sect, a rip-off”.
“One cannot treat a human being like Ilan was treated if one isn’t an animal with a deep anti-Jewish hatred transmitted by racist declarations,” Gozhlan added.
“This is the climate in the suburbs: hatred of the Republic, of police forces and of Jews.”
Shift in anti-Semitism
As the founder and head of the official anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau (BVCA) that was created in 2000 to monitor anti-Semitic acts in France and collect testimonies, Ghozlan was among the first to ask police to investigate and determine whether there was an anti-Semitic motive to Halimi’s murder and whether the gang was targeting Jews.
Ghozlan said there was a shift in the character of anti-Semitism in France since mid-2005.
“The perpetrators of such acts are no longer the same people. Before they were mainly of Arab-Muslim origin who expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and as such became anti-Semites. Today we have noticed that it is no longer the same. People of African origin are also becoming quite violent,” Gozhlan, a 63-year-old former police superintendent, said.
He attended Monday’s dinner meeting of CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish secular organisations, during which the French prime minister Dominique de Villepin declared that "light had to be shed" on Halimi’s murder last week.
Ghozlan praised the French authorities’ transparency and courage in revealing the truth about the anti-Semitic character of the murder.
“It’s true that it was both disturbing and embarrassing. Nobody could imagine the consequences,” he said.
Strange behaviour
Ghozlan said that Halimi’s kidnappers displayed a very strange behaviour towards the family and the police regarding the ransom.
“A hostage or a kidnapped person cannot be detained more than eight days.”
After this, kidnappers get worried and the hostage becomes a burden. I think that time did harm this affair. Ilan’s mother was not happy about the police order to not communicate with the kidnappers.”
“I wonder if they didn’t take revenge on her son’s body because they didn’t receive an answer,” Ghozlan commented.
He believes the 47 per cent drop in anti-Semitic acts in France in the past year can be attributed to the increased security around Jewish sites. “Synagogues and Jewish schools have been turned into fortresses and there is an efficient network of patrols and police monitoring.”
“Moreover a lot of young Jews no longer wear the kippa (skullcap) in the street,” he added.
