We need wise speech, not free speech


January 10, 2015
Sarah Benton

This posting has these items:
1) Jewish Forward: Four Hostages Killed as Police Storm Paris Kosher Supermarket — Terrorist Also Dead;
2) Muslim Times: Islam backs free speech, by Qasim Rashid, first published in USA Today;
3) Time: Kosher Grocery Assault Confirms Worst Fears of French Jews;
4) Al Akhbar: On Charlie Hebdo, Freedom of Speech, Terrorism, and the Value of Lives, also takes critical stand on seeing Charlie Hebdo as heroic;
5) Haaretz: Paris terror attack not likely to be the last – against Jews or otherwise, Amos Harel says this won’t be the last attacks in Europe in which Jews, among others, will be the victims;
6) Ynet: Charlie Hebdo attack sparks debate on free speech limits;
7) Quartz: Muslims and Jews can defeat French xenophobia by looking out for each other, reports antisemitism in France, but also hostility to Muslims;
8) Al Arabiya: Anonymous declares ‘cyber war’ against Islamist militants;



The primary victim of Islamic terrorists are other Muslims. July 29, 2013, a car-bomb attack in Basra, one of 17 attacks that day in Iraq by Sunni Muslims that killed at least 60 Shi’ite Muslims.


Four Hostages Killed as Police Storm Paris Kosher Supermarket — Terrorist Also Dead

Francois Hollande Calls Deadly Siege ‘Antisemitic Attack’

PARIS — French President Francois Hollande confirmed reports on Friday that four hostages were killed at a siege of a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

Hollande called for national unity and said the country should remain “implacable” in the face of racism and antisemitism.

“It is indeed an appalling antisemitic act that was committed,” he said of the hostage-taking by an Islamist gunman at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in the Vincennes district.

Some hostages were seen rushing from the market after heavily armed police broke the siege at the same time as they ended a separate stand-off in northern France involving the two Islamist suspects behind the mass killings at Charlie Hebdo magazine this week.

News footage of the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in the Vincennes district showed dozens of heavily armed police officers massed outside of two entrances. The assault began with gunfire and a loud explosion at the door, after which hostages were rushed out.

Reuters photographs taken from long distance showed a man holding an infant and looking distressed being herded into an ambulance by police. Others were carried out on stretchers.

Police identified the grocery store gunman as Amedy Coulibaly, 32. He is believed to have also killed a policewoman in Paris earlier.

Coulibaly said he had jointly planned the attacks with the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the magazine attack, and police confirmed they were all members of the same Islamist cell in northern Paris.

Police had already been hunting 32-year-old Coulibaly along with a 26 year-old woman after the killing on Thursday of the policewoman. The woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, remains on the run.

Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins told a press briefing that the two Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly had an arsenal of weapons and had set up booby traps. He said they had a loaded M82 rocket launcher, two Kalashnikov machine guns and two automatic pistols on them.

“On the body of one of the terrorists, the de-mining teams also found a grenade that had been positioned as a trap,” Molins said.

He said Coulibaly had attacked police forces with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a “Skorpion” military pistol. After he was shot, police found two Russian-made Tokarev pistols, two machine guns, a bullet-proof vest and ammunition in the kosher supermarket.

“The supermarket had also been booby-trapped,” he said, noting that Coulibaly had placed 15 explosive sticks and one detonator in the supermarket.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder [above] joined the condemnations, saying, “Jewish life in France under threat if terror does not stop.”

President Barack Obama said on Friday he hoped the immediate threat stemming from the recent shootings in Paris was now resolved and pledged U.S. support to the people of France.

“I want the people of France to know that the United States stands with you today, stands with you tomorrow,” Obama said during a trip to Tennessee.

“In the streets of Paris the world’s seen once again what terrorists stand for: they have nothing to offer but hatred and human suffering. And we stand for freedom and hope and the dignity of all human beings. And that’s what the city of Paris represents to the world.”

The mayor of Paris ordered all Jewish schools and institutions closed in the Marais district. Others were taking similar actions as Shabbat approached.




This is the photo chosen by The Muslim Times to illustrate this column

Islam backs free speech

By Qasim Rashid, The Muslim Times, first posted in USA Today
January 04, 2015

Free speech is a fundamental Islamic tenet. So are the tenets of morality, wisdom, and goodly exhortation in speech.

Between the first attack on Charlie Hebdo and the latest hostage taking, I’ve spent days in media overdrive. Between a New York Times interview, anOn Faith opinion editorial, a Fox News television segment, and a HuffPost Liveinterview, I’ve categorically condemned the horrific attack in Paris that left 12 innocent people dead.

A friend finally asked me if the cartoons mocking the Prophet offend me. “Yes,” I replied, “but while finding something distasteful is one thing, killing over it is beyond unconscionable.”

And this is why it is critical to make a distinction between protecting free speech and promoting moral and wise speech. Free speech purists raise the, “nothing is sacred” mantra. To an extent I agree — no idea is above criticism. But as human beings, we would benefit by asking what utility exists in insulting for the sheer sake of insulting?

Does it help build bridges of understanding with an opposing point of view?

Does it help build compassion from an antagonistic enemy?

Does it foster maturity among our youth as they grow up?

Insulting for the sheer sake of it does none of those things, but each of those things are vital to a progressive and peaceful society. This is why the Quran — while championing free speech for all people — prescribes Muslims to hold themselves to a higher standard. The Quranic standard of speech promotes independent thought while encouraging respectful disagreement. For example the Quran 6:109 states, “And abuse not those whom they call upon beside Allah, lest they, out of spite, abuse Allah in their ignorance.”

Thus, Muslims are Islamically forbidden from reviling other’s sacred religious sentiments. But the Quran yet continues. In 5:9 it adds, “…let not a people’s enmity incite you to act otherwise than with justice. Be always just…” Thus, in situations likeCharlie Hebdo, if the perpetrators felt the cartoons were unjust, their Islamic obligation was to maintain justice and not respond with insults, let alone violence.

The Quran 4:141 further confirms this principle, “…when you hear the Signs of God being denied and mocked at, sit not with those who indulge in such talk until they engage in a talk other than that…” Thus, the Quran neither permits retaliation with insults, retaliation with violence, nor isolationism. Instead, when discussing complex and sensitive ideas the Quran 16:126 admonishes Muslims to, “Call…with wisdom and goodly exhortation and argue with them in a way that is best.”

In a sentence, Islam champions free speech while promoting a moral speech that obliges Muslims to attain a higher standard of wisdom.



Kosher Grocery Assault Confirms Worst Fears of French Jews

Jewish community in Paris had already been on high alert

By Noah Rayman, Time
January 09, 2015

The worst fears of France’s already tense Jewish community came to be on Friday when an assailant believed to have killed a policewoman the day before took hostages at a Kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

The suspect was killed when police stormed the market and several hostages were reportedly freed, but the fate of others remains unclear. Prime Minister Manuel Valls told reporters earlier that the suspect, believed to be Amedy Coulibaly, 32, had ties to the gunmen in the terror strike on Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, who were killed in a separate police operation on Thursday.

The assault on the Kosher supermarket shook the Jewish community in France and abroad. As dual hostage situations unfolded, police ordered the closure of all shops in the tourist-filled Jewish neighborhood in central Paris, far from the supermarket under siege in the city’s east, according to the Associated Press. And ahead of the Sabbath Friday evening, the iconic Grand Synagogue of Paris was closed, USA Today reported.

The Jewish community in France, numbering more than 400,000, had already been on guard after an uptick in antisemitic violence in recent years, including the shooting of four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in May 2014, allegedly by a French Muslim man. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, Jewish institutions were on maximum alert, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. Volunteers joined police deployed by the French authorities to secure schools and religious sites.

“We are past red alert at this stage, it’s all hands on deck because, sadly, the question is not whether the French Jewish community will be targeted, but when,” Chlomik Zenouda, vice-president of the National Bureau for Vigilance against antisemitism, told JTA before the assault on the supermarket.

When an attack materialized, on the Kosher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes, condemnation of the assault and expressions of support flowed in from the Jewish community around the world. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin tweeted in solidarity:

Reuven Rivlin @PresidentRuvi · 21h
Out hearts and prayers are with our brothers and sisters in France. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered assistance to French authorities and convened a teleconference with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his security staff, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“The terror attack that has gone on for three days now is not just against the French nation, or against the Jews of France, but is aimed at the entire free world,” Lieberman said, the Jerusalem Post reported. “This is another attempt by the forces of darkness emanating from extreme Islam to sow fear and terror against the West, and the entire international community must stand like a wall and with determination against this terrorism.”

In a statement, the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League “expressed deep concern” over the attack. “Islamic extremism is a common enemy of Jews and democratic states. That message needs to be heard and internalized by governments and mainstream society,” the ADL said.



On Charlie Hebdo, Freedom of Speech, Terrorism, and the Value of Lives

By Yazan al-Saadi, Al Akhbar
January 08, 2015

An attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a controversial French satirical magazine, and the mainstream discourse immediately rehashes the same concepts and talking points about the importance of safeguarding freedom of speech, battling an ill-defined notion of terrorism, and maintaining Western values. However, the essential issue of whose lives have value continues to be disregarded.

There are a few points that need to be addressed about the public discussions after the deaths of at least 12 people in Paris yesterday.

First, and most notable for me, I take issue with the argument made by some that Charlie Hebdo’s staff are “heroic” because of their past publishing cartoons and articles that attack and mock Islam. While it is true they also have a history of publishing material that mocks other religions and ideologies, I highly doubt Charlie Hebdo would have been as “courageous” in mocking Judaism with the same robustness they do in mocking Islam, for example. In fact, looking at its history, the magazine fired one of its cartoonists in 2008 over a satirical statement that it argued was ‘antisemitic’.

There is a fine line between satire and offensive material that Charlie Hebdo willfully dances around. I think much of their material is offensive, Islamophobic (and antisemitic, as well as racist, sexist, and homophobic), and the argument that is “freedom of speech” is a very crude way to allow offensive material to be published. “Freedom of speech” gets thrown around quite easily during events like yesterday’s, but serious public debate about the parameters and nature of “freedom of speech” are few and far between.

I see nothing heroic about a bunch of elite white writers and artists picking on the identities and beliefs of minorities. Satire is supposed to be an act that punches up to power, and not down to the weak. The argument for “freedom of speech” and freedom of the press should not, and must not, place aside the question and understanding of privileges and differing power dynamics that are at work. By acknowledging and understanding that, perhaps we can all work to refine and develop a notion of freedoms that is truly universal and conscious of its role and duties. What is common today is that freedom of speech and freedom of press is brought up to espouse Islamophobic sentiments, and maintaining power, but is ignored when facing issues of immigrant rights at home or wars fought abroad. In other words, “freedom of speech” is already restricted in many ways.

Muslim communities, immigrants, and “others” will pay dearly, and already are in France and elsewhere. French (and European) politics will sway more to the right. French support of repressive states and its military ‘adventures’ in North Africa and West Asia will continue.

The knee-jerking romanticizing and mythologizing of victims, particularly if the perpetrators are Black, Brown, or Muslim, that occurs after such acts allows the perpetuation of this cycle of violence. Anyone who dares to mention facts, make critical assessments, or initiate a thoughtful debate is quickly chastised, and accused of siding with “terrorists” which, in effect, silences them. Yet, it is rare for free speech advocates to come to the aid of those raising serious questions; instead, this freedom of speech is used, time and again, to vilify such individuals.

After the launch of the American “Global War on Terror” 14 years ago, the level of the debate has stagnated as a righteous binary, and absolutist statements reign supreme. Much needed nuances, contexts, and depth are quickly swept aside.

This leads to the second point.

I find it absolutely interesting how there is an almost immediate expectation that Muslims apologize and take responsibility for the horrible attack on Charlie Hebdo. This is interesting because not once is there an equal expectation in regards to Westerners (shall we shall say Christian or Jewish?) to take responsibility or apologize for the killing of Al-Jazeera’s staff by US forces in Iraq (as well as a number of other Arab journalists later on during that horrendous war) or the killing of tens of Palestinian journalists by the Zionist forces over the past decade. This is never expected, nor demanded, or even ever considered by the mainstream press.

But Muslims, especially in France, have nothing to apologize for. This does not mean they shouldn’t take a stance and condemn these acts of violence as individuals. Collectively, however, apologizing implies responsibility – one that is not theirs to bear.

The only responsibility “Muslims” (whatever that means) have is to confront forces of repression, whether internal or external, and that does not mean apologizing for being a Muslim. And yes, I do think, that there is a lot that individuals within Muslim communities should and can do in combating fundamentalism and narrow-thinking, but that does not mean they should be collectively punished, harassed, mocked or immediately grovel when events like yesterday’s occur.

I make the same argument for any group; just like we shouldn’t attack or punish all Jews for the brutal crimes by Zionism, or all Christians because of the horrors of Colonialism, and the same holds true for Muslims. This is an important distinction that fundamentalists, of varying stripes, do not make and ‘we’ must.

In fact, I argue that the French state has the largest share to blame for:

a) Not creating a system that allows certain communities to assimilate easily into society. I’m talking politically, socially, and economically;

b) Pursuing a foreign policy that is destructive of other societies, and furthers repression;

c) Not coming to full terms, acknowledging, and apologizing for a history of military occupation and intervention in the North African and West Asian region (as well as elsewhere in the world). This is a history that continues to shape actions, ideas, and positions today, and has yet to be adequately confronted within French society;

d) Being supportive and part of the political support of states like Saudi Arabia (the beating heart of ferocious Islamic fundamentalist tenets) and Israel (the nation of Zionism, a racist and violent ideology, born out of ethnic cleansing and continued incremental genocide).

We need to understand context. We need to understand history. We need to understand power dynamics and inequalities.

Terrorism, or as I define it, political violence, and indeed most violence, does not happen in a vacuum, and without understanding the historical and contemporary strands, we will be dragged deeper into a cycle of violence, counter-violence, and destruction. We need to understand that these men who committed these acts are not “foreign entities” but most likely are a product of French society, a society that does not make integration easy for everyone.

Much of the reactions yesterday and today call for blood. It is a position that is reactionary.

And even then, it’s interesting how it seems that one society’s call for blood is more acceptable than another’s…

And we arrive at one last point, and this is about the value of lives. I have witnessed on social media and on news agencies a flurry of articles, statements, and dismay about the lives lost in Paris. Twelve people have died, people are horrified, and rightly so.

Yet, on the same day, a car bomb exploded in Sanaa, Yemen, killing at least 38 people. At least nine people, including two children, have died in attacks in Afghanistan, and an unknown number of dead as the violence rages in Syria and Iraq.

What is true today, and has been true for a while, is that ‘white’ lives matter more. It garners more of an emotional reaction. It horrifies, and causes dismay, shock, and tears. Their faces and names will be etches in collective memory. Politicians will read eloquent, heart-felt eulogies.

Black and Brown misery and deaths, on the other hand, have become so normalized, so accepted, so routine. They are numbers, footnotes, and statistics. There was no personalized video message by US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in the language of the victims, that offered sadness over the killing of seven pro-Syrian regime journalists after gunmen attacked their offices in June 2012. There were and are no Twitter hashtags for the dead civilians who were killed by French airstrikes during their military adventures in Mali, North Africa, and elsewhere. No one paid attention to the (terrorist?) bombing of the Colorado Springs offices of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) on January 6.

Lives are simply not equal. We must ask ourselves why? To quote the American philosopher Judith Butler, “Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? And, finally, What makes for a grievable life?”

These are key questions that are necessary and the answers can help us move on collectively, and the answers, I think, offer more solutions that simply hunting down and killing “terrorists.”

Yazan al-Saadi is a senior staff writer for Al-Akhbar English. Follow him on Twitter: @WhySadeye



“I am Muslim, I am Jewish, I am Catholic, I am Charlie”, Paris demonstration. Photo by Jacky Naegelen / Reuters

Paris terror attack not likely to be the last – against Jews or otherwise

Massacre followed by a prolonged conflict aimed at drawing as much attention on international media seems to have become a preferred MO for Jihadists in recent years.

By Amos Harel, Haaretz
January 10, 2015

The deadly events in France Friday evening brought, it seems, to an end to the drama that began 48 hours earlier at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, with mixed results. Two of the terrorists who committed the massacre at the newspaper and the terrorist who followed their lead and took hostages at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris – were killed. But at least four of the hostages at the grocery store lost their lives as well.

It seems that the French security forces didn’t have much room for maneuver. From the moment the two Kouachi brothers were spotted at the print shop north of the capital, and from the moment the second terrorist attack at the Paris supermarket was discovered – it was clear that the counterterrorism units were operating on borrowed time. There was no real possibility for negotiating with the brothers, after they had murdered 12 people in cold blood at the magazine headquarters. The demand made by the third terrorist Amedy Coulibaly, to let the brothers leave unharmed, was unacceptable. What was needed was a coordinated raid at both scenes, even at the risk of putting some of the hostages’ lives in danger.

The forces’ main objective was likely ending the crisis as fast as possible, as well as rescuing as many hostages as they could. Every hour that passed, with the world media paying undivided attention, only benefitted the kidnappers.

A rescue operation necessitates visual intelligence from cameras and floorplans, an operational assault plan, and the choosing of the right course of action. All these take time, but according to the initial reports from France on Friday, the Kouachi brothers were the ones dictating the pace of events. From the moment they emerged with guns blazing, the Paris kidnapping had to be ended immediately, since Coulibaly was threatening to kill the rest of the hostages if the brothers were harmed.

The series of attacks in France bears a certain resemblance to the terror attack in Mumbai in 2008, and is especially similar to the raid on the mall in Nairobi, Kenya in 2013. In some of the biggest terror attacks in recent years, the terrorists – affiliated with radical Islam – didn’t intend to hold real negotiations. The objective was simple: A massive massacre followed by a prolonged conflict aimed at drawing as much attention to their acts as possible. And an attack in a European capital – today more than ever – guarantees a global marathon broadcast on television and the Web, with resonance of these attacks amplified as time goes by (the massacre at a Pakistani school last month and the ongoing terror attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria received a fraction of the coverage of the Paris crises).

The terrorists said they attacked the French magazine because it published cartoons that insulted the Prophet Mohammed. This excuse for violence didn’t originate with ISIS (Islamic State) or with Al-Qaida. It was Shi’ite Iran that, back in the 1980s, issued the fatwa against author Salman Rushdie for his book “The Satanic Verses.” This was followed by the outcry over the cartoon in the Danish newspaper.

What has changed is that the link between the West and the events transpiring in the Middle East has become stronger. The airlift of Jihadists to Syria and to Iraq and back, as well as the Arab satellite channels widely covering the horrors of war in the region, have led to an escalation in the radicalization of some of Europe’s young Muslims. Tensions with the West were exacerbated further by the aerial campaign against ISIS announced by the international coalition last September. European intelligence services predicted that this attack would lead to a wave of revenge attacks on Western targets.

If the reports that one of the Kouachi brothers trained at an Al-Qaida camp in Yemen are credible, this points to a significant intelligence gathering breach on the part of French intelligence services. Such a man should have been under constant surveillance, especially since it was known that he was in contact with extreme Islamists in France.

In a kind of media consensus, the attacks are already described as “France’s 9/11.” It is likely that surveillance of Muslim extremists in France will be greatly tightened and intelligence and security measures will be stepped up. For their own good, one can only hope that the French don’t overreact in the way the Bush administration did, leading to the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, Guantanamo, and the intrusive and systematic tracking of citizens on the Internet and on their phones, exposed more than a year ago by Eduard Snowden.

Like previous attacks in Toulouse and Brussels, a “Jewish” target was picked on Friday for the attack. This follows a series of reported harassments of French Jews in recent months. On Friday, Israel’s security services and government officials held consultations on the possibility of helping European Jewish communities protect their institutions. Security measures at synagogues, community centers, and other Jewish institutions will surely be tightened, but a willing terrorist can always identify a “soft” unprotected target to attack – like a kosher grocery store.

The reasonable (and disparaging) assumption is that the dramatic events of the past week are not the last link in the chain. In light of the popularity of organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaida among young Muslims in the West, one should expect more terror attacks carried out by European Muslims, targeting – among others – Jews.




Charlie Hebdo attack sparks debate on free speech limits

After #JeSuisCharlie hashtag spread around the world in the wake of murderous attack on French satirical magazine, ‘I am not Charlie’ hashtag triggers debate about free speech and its limits – and whether right to offend should always be used.

By Associated Press / Ynet news
January 10. 2015

“Je suis Charlie” – I am Charlie – was the cry that that raced around the world in the wake of the murderous attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It has been displayed on placards, scrawled as graffiti and shared millions of times on social media.

Soon, though, came a riposte: “Je ne suis pas Charlie” – I am not Charlie – as the tragedy triggered a debate about free speech and its limits, and whether the right to offend should always be used.

For many civil libertarians, the issue was clear. Charlie Hebdo had published crude, rude cartoons that mocked everyone from politicians to the pope to the Prophet Muhammad. It saw its mission as challenging taboos and sacred cows. The best way to honor the 12 killed and stand up for free speech was to print the cartoons again.

The group Index on Censorship ran a selection of Charlie Hebdo cartoons online and called on other publications and websites to follow suit, “to show that fear should not be allowed to stifle free expression.” Historian Timothy Garton Ash said that if newspapers didn’t publish the images, “the assassins will have won.”

Some websites and newspapers did print the Muhammad cartoons. But many, especially in the US and Britain, did not, saying they violated editorial policies against willfully giving offense.

The Associated Press has decided not to run the images, explaining, in part, that “AP tries hard not to be a conveyor belt for images and actions aimed at mocking or provoking people on the basis of religion, race or sexual orientation. … While we run many photos that are politically or socially provocative, there are areas verging on hate speech and actions where we feel it is right to be cautious.”

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper, said “we completely defend Charlie Hebdo’s ethos and values and the right to offend in the way that they did.”

But he said that “there are some very offensive ones that the Guardian would never in the normal run of events publish” – and it would be wrong to change in response to terrorism.

Others point out that in all societies freedom of speech has its limits. In France, several people have been arrested this week for glorifying the killings on social media. And even staunch defenders of free speech may be alarmed that #Jesuiskouachi – identifying with the brothers who were the assailants in the Charlie Hebdo attack – has become a Twitter hashtag.

Some who condemned the killings used the “I am not Charlie” hashtag to express unease at what they saw as publishing hurtful, inflammatory and sometimes racist images. Charlie Hebdo once depicted a black government minister as a monkey, and in 2012, amid an uproar over an anti-Muslim film, the magazine published drawings of Muhammad naked and in demeaning or pornographic poses.

Such Muhammad images offend many ordinary Muslims and, some argued, target a community that already feels beleaguered in France: under-represented in the corridors of power, over-represented in prison, and stigmatized by a law against religious displays that bans headscarves in schools and face-covering veils in public places.

American cartoonist Joe Sacco drew a cartoon in response to the attacks in which he mused that “lines on paper are a weapon, and satire is meant to cut to the bone. But whose bone?”

“Though tweaking the noses of Muslims might be as permissible as it is now believed to be dangerous, it has never struck me as anything other than a vapid way to use the pen,” Sacco wrote.

Charlie Hebdo’s supporters say such criticism misses crucial context: The newspaper’s humor stands in a tradition that mocks hypocrisy and punctures pretension without fear or favor. French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet described it as “rude, obscene, irreverent, and anti-religious … the last true heir of the French revolutionary and republican traditions.”

Amid the heated debate, some Muslims and others embraced a third hashtag: “Je suis Ahmed,” in tribute to Ahmed Merabet, the Muslim policeman shot dead by the attackers.

Lebanese writer Dyab Abou Jahjah tweeted: “I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed.” His tweet has been reposted more than 25,000 times.

Julien Casters, a magazine editor in Morocco who was the first to tweet #JesuisAhmed, said the slogan had become popular “because a number of Muslims felt stigmatized by the attack.”

“(Sharing) this hashtag is a way of saying, ‘We are Muslims and we are also victims of the religious fanaticism,'” he told the AP in an email.

As the free speech debate rages, one thing seems clear – Charlie Hebdo has not been silenced.

Individuals, media organizations and the French government have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the cash-strapped newspaper going. Before the attack, Charlie Hebdo sold fewer than 100,000 copies a week. The next issue will have a print run of 1 million.



Muslims and Jews can defeat French xenophobia by looking out for each other

By Emma-Kate Symons, Quartz
January 10, 2014

Last night, when they were needed most, the synagogues of Paris were closed on the Sabbath for the first time since World War II.

Jewish neighbourhoods in the Marais and on the edge of the city had been in police-ordered shutdown after a comrade of the Kouachi brothers – the Charlie Hebdo magazine killers – took hostages in a Kosher supermarket near Port de Vincennes, killing four.

But after Wednesday’s satirical magazine massacre by Islamist terrorists resulted in the death of 12, France and the world turned to the likelihood that Muslims would become scapegoats.

Media and political debate focused squarely on the risk that the terrorists’ aim of sowing hate and discord and thus isolating France’s Muslim minority – Europe’s largest with estimates of between 6 and 8 million – would come to fruition.
A backlash has begun and it is to be condemned as mosques and prayer halls are attacked and Muslims singled out in an alarming escalation of anti-Islam feeling and action.

It turns out that for all the well-founded anxiety about rising Islamophobia, France’s Jews, already under siege in their synagogues and shops and homes, were first in the frontline.

Jews make up less than 1% of France’s population yet almost half of all acts of racist violence are visited upon them.

They had much to fear – they had to fear for their lives, at the hands of French-born, French-educated, and French-raised men. Muslims, they had adopted the antiemitic prejudices flourishing today in France’s cities and suburbs, fell into crime, and were lured by the appeal of jihadist ideology, nourished by a hatred of Jews and Israel.

Now four people who happened to be in a supermarket that sold Kosher products lie dead. Because they were Jews. And they were the next targets of the terrorists, after the killing of Charlie Hebdo’s irreverent, often offensive cartoonists and staff, and three police officers.

The Kosher market shoppers are the innocent victims of an Islamofascist ideology that when imported to countries with a long history of antisemitism like France, places Jews and Israel at the apex of a hate scale. This includes Westerners or ‘kaffir’ of all types: writers, caricaturists, artists, all who fight for freedom of speech, democracy and sexual equality and those who simply live in liberty.
France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, estimated to be about 600,000, a fact that never escapes the propaganda spinners of Islamic State and Al-Qaida,who have specifically urged their followers to kill Jews.

Jacques Chirac transformed history in 1997 when he became the first president to recognize and apologize for France’s collaboration in sending 80,000 Jews to the gas chambers. Today, however Jews in France must fear being beaten up, tortured and yes murdered.

According to official figures antisemitic attacks have surged 91% over the past year. Jews make up less than 1% of France’s population yet almost half of all acts of racist violence are visited upon them.

The death toll for French Jews over the past decade reveals that those acts are more frequently of a murderous nature.

In 2006 Ilan Halimi was kidnapped in Paris, then tortured for weeks in a suburban apartment block before being murdered by the ‘gang of barbarians’ who specifically hunted him down because he was Jewish.

Mohammed Merah in 2012 killed three children and an adult at an orthodox Jewish school in Toulouse (He also killed a Muslim French soldier along with two others). Last year Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche shot two people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

Over the summer during the anti-Gaza marches, Jewish shops and synagogues were attacked. Pro-Palestinian marchers called out ‘death to the Jews’, while some protestors knelt down and prayed to Allah in demonstrations that shocked for their blatant antisemitism.

Amid the threats and violence, France’s Jews are perhaps unsurprisingly emigrating to Israel in record numbers.

The disturbing reality as revealed in a series of surveys notably Fondapol’s study of antisemitism published late last year, is that the ‘‘new antisemitism’’ in a nation that has a long history of it, is growing in Muslim communities.
‘‘Muslims are two to three times more likely than the average to hold prejudices against Jews,’’ Fondapol’s director, the political scientist Dominique Reynié said.

Prejudice towards Jews remains very high as it has historically been among supporters of Marine Le Pen’s National Front, and also among the smaller numbers of backers of the extreme left.

The survey results do not incriminate French Muslims en masse for antisemitic violence, but they do show that a normalization of anti-Jewishness is taking place.

The Kouachi brothers and their ally Amédy Coulibaly appeared to carry a form of antisemitism in their hearts that was both of the foreign jihadist variety and at the same time very French, melding anti-Israel hatred with classic tropes about Jews being too rich and powerful.

There is no hierarchy of pain or oppression here. Intolerance, racism and hatred must be acknowledged and combated.

France’s Muslims, who understand so well how it feels to be targets of suspicion and intolerance, therefore need to join hands with Jews, their fellow people of the Abrahamic faith, and say that there is nothing right about killing people because they are Jewish. Will the hashtag #JeSuisJuif also take hold of Twitter as #JeSuisCharlie did ?

At the same time French citizens, politicians and Europeans need to be vigilant in fighting all forms of anti-Muslim sentiment and action, be it the defacement of mosques or harassment women wearing veils and children of Muslim confession.
Yes Muslims who have nothing to do with the Paris terrorist atrocities are suffering the blowback as some of their bigoted, fearful compatriots and extreme right demagogues try to finger them for the violence.

A Muslim French police officer, Ahmed Merabet was killed in the Charlie Hebdo carnage, prompting the popular Twitter hashtag #JeSuisAhmed. One of the murdered magazine writers killed, Mustapha Ourrad, was a Frenchman of Algerian background, and he also got his hashtag #JeSuisMustapha.

France’s Muslims braced themselves for reprisals after Wednesday’s assassinations.
And they came, no doubt to the pleasure of the Kouachi brothers, their allied killer Amédy Coulibaly at the Porte de Vincennes Kosher market, and their Al Quaida and ISIS puppet masters who want to divide Muslims and others living in secular nations like France.

French Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun rightly described the Charlie Hebdo attackers as also attacking Islam and Muslims because they were declaring war on secular democracy.

‘‘This is not just about a few vengeful thugs, but a ferocious and radical willingness to stop Muslims being able to live their religion in a secular land, in respect of the laws of the Republic, and to isolate them and turn them into France’s enemies. This is why we must all resist because we are all concerned.’’
Ben Jelloun was perfectly right. Still, he along with countless other intellectuals, political leaders and Muslim activists could have had a word for their Jewish brothers and sisters, who in the end lost their lives at the hands of these same killers before police shot them.

Jews are special targets in these terrorist horrors, and we all need to step up to protect them.

That includes tackling the cancer of antisemitism that finds fertile ground along some of France’s intellectual elite, particularly in anti-Zionist rhetoric. It is rife in France’s cities and immigrant suburbs, where it is fueled by Jew haters and conspiracy theorists like the comedian Dieudonné, whose antisemitic shows have been banned.

While the Vincennes hostage siege was taking place and Paris resembled a war zone, some were comparing the panic to Kristallnacht. This was the night of broken glass in 1938 when the Nazis ordered attacks on Jewish properties and establishments across Germany and Austria.

Let’s hope, as European leaders like Angela Merkel, David Cameron and Matteo Renzi come to Paris for tomorrow’s republican march for unity and peace, that Muslims and Jews can unite as French citizens mindful of the continent’s terrible twentieth century history. And determined to never let it happen again.

We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.



Anonymous declares ‘cyber war’ against Islamist militants

By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News
January 10, 2015

The Belgian offshoot of Hacktivist group Anonymous vowed to attack websites belonging to radical Islamists in revenge for the Paris killings of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and journalists.

In a YouTube video, the group posted a message in French stating it had “declared war” against terrorist groups.

Directing its message to “al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorists,” Anonymous said it would take down the websites and social media accounts of these militant groups.

Anonymous posted a message on Pastebin, a popular website for storing and sharing text, also in French, which was addressed to the “enemies of the freedom of expression.”

It dubbed its operation as #OpCharlieHebdo.

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