The tip of the anti-Semetic iceberg? From today’s New York Times:
Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA…. But it is clear that plenty of people did know, both that Mr. Halimi was being tortured and that he was Jewish. The police, according to lawyers with access to the investigation files, think at least 20 people participated in his abduction and the subsequent, amateurish negotiations for ransom. His captors told his family that if they did not have the money, they should “go and get it from your synagogue,” and later contacted a rabbi, telling him, “We have a Jew.” … So far, a total of 19 people, ages 17 to 39, have been arrested in connection with Mr. Halimi’s abduction and death, including the French-Iranian woman, whose first name is Yalda. The police found Islamist literature and documents supporting a Palestinian aid group in the home of at least one of the people arrested, but lawyers involved in the case dismiss Islamic extremism as a motivation, noting that many of the people involved were not Muslim. The Halimis’ lawyer, Mr. Szpiner, denied French news reports that the gang had called Mr. Halimi’s family and recited the Koran…. Standing in the doorway in Bagneux near where Mr. Halimi was held, the young French-Arab man smiled when asked about Mr. Fofana. “He was nice, everybody liked him,” he said. “If the police bring him back here, the guys in the neighborhood will liberate him.”
