Word: halimi
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...murder of Ilan Halimi was an anti-Semitic crime. That fact, with which virtually everyone in France now concurs, was established at the opening of the trial this week in Paris of the self-styled "Gang of Barbarians" charged with kidnapping, torturing and then killing the young Jewish man. And although acknowledging Halimi's death as a hate crime may seem like stating the obvious, it's a far from insignificant detail in a country that has tended to minimize the bias aspect of past violence against Jews...
...From the opening moments in the trial of 27 youths accused of involvement in the February 2006 abduction, persecution and murder of Halimi, the anti-Semitic attitude and motivations of alleged gang leader Youssouf Fofana became quite clear. Previously, Fofana had told police he and his cohorts had chosen to kidnap Halimi for ransom because the victim and his family were Jews and therefore, Fofana believed, had to be rich. But once in court, Fofana sought to frame his behavior in jihadist language: after shouting "Allahu akbar" at the court, for example, Fofana gave his name as "Arabs, African, Revolt...
...time of Halimi's death, many commentators - and, initially, even the French police - declined to see Halimi's abduction and murder as an anti-Semitic crime. Instead, they explained it as a naive ransom attempt by plotters whose motivation was financial gain, even if their social milieu and limited education had led them to accept grotesque racist stereotypes of Jews. No one is offering such rationalizations any longer...
...Ilan Halimi was targeted because he was a Jew and because his tormentors believed he had to be rich and deserved what was coming to him," says Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of France's Jewish Institutions. "This gang attempted kidnapping two people before Ilan Halimi - both Jews. They were not dissuaded upon realizing Ilan worked in a mobile-phone store, didn't earn much and came from a modest family that couldn't be rich. To them, he was a Jew, so he was victimized...
...done recently in facing up to its darker history under Nazi occupation, France is showing clear intent to confront rather than deny anti-Semitism - as much of the commentary regarding Halimi's murder indicates. French Jews are not ready to claim that anti-Semitism is no longer a problem, but Prasquier says most now do feel that things are moving in the right direction...