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8 January 7 • 2016

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Targeted French Theater Long On Jewish Ties

J ews or Jewish sites may not have been primary targets of the Islamic State-inspired assault on

Paris that left France reeling from its deadliest siege since World War II, but they had to be on the terrorists’ radar.

The Nov. 13 multiple attacks left at least 130 dead and more than 350 injured. Investigators believe at least nine young men, thought to be largely French and Belgian nationals who became radi-calized in Europe, were responsible.

It’s more than coincidence that one Paris target, Le Bataclan concert hall, had been owned by Jews, brothers Pascal and Joel Laloux, until September, when they made aliyah. The hall had been Jewish owned for 40 years; anti-Zionist radicals long had marked it for protest and attack. Pro-Palestinian online networks considered it a cru-cible for Zionist support.

The 150-year-old theater took its name from an operetta written and composed by two 19th-century Jews, according to Jewniverse, a 70 Faces Media property.

At least 89 people were killed in the attack on Le Bataclan during a perfor-mance by the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal, which was in the midst of a European tour. Terrorists randomly shot victims while shouting Allahu akbar! — Allah is great!

JEWISH TEXTUREThe hall, popular in the gay community, no doubt was targeted because the ter-rorists knew it would be full on a Friday night with more than 1,000 patrons — allowing mass confusion and casual-ties. While the top French Jewish orga-nization, the CRIF, announced it didn’t believe anti-Semitism was necessarily a factor in any of the night’s coordinated attacks, Le Bataclan’s Jewish ties must have heightened its significance.

Over the years, the theater has hosted many pro-Zionist events, including an October conclave drawing 500 Christian Zionists in support of Israel.

From 2005 to 2009, Le Bataclan hosted the annual fundraiser for Migdal, a French Jewish nonprofit benefiting the Israeli border police. In 2008, according to the New York Times, 40 pro-Palestinian

protestors wearing Arab kaffiyehs demonstrated outside the theater. A video captured one of the masked protesters saying, “You’ll pay the consequences of your acts,” adding, “In the neighborhoods, things are moving and heating up. The next time, we won’t come to talk.”

In 2010, Al Qaida’s branch in the Gaza Strip, Jaish Al Islam (“the army

of Islam”), plotted to organize a Le Bataclan attack because “the owners are Jewish,” according to a statement to French police by a woman arrested in Cairo in con-nection with an assault on French students there. That assault was believed retaliatory for France’s role in Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, the French daily Le Figaro reported.

California-based band Eagles of Death Metal was about to perform at Le Bataclan with its own Israel

connection. On July 12, it performed in Tel Aviv, breaking from a music industry boycott of Israel precipitated by Roger Waters, former leader of Pink Floyd.

“I would never boycott a place like this,” Eagles of Death Metal lead singer Jesse Hughes told the Tel Aviv crowd, according to the Jerusalem Post.

TRACKING THE LINKSThe Islamic State-tasked senior member of the Paris assault cell, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan origin, and a female cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen, died in a shoot-out with police Nov. 18 at a Saint-Denis apartment north of Paris.

On Nov. 27, Reuters reported that Abaaoud not only had targeted Le Bataclan, a soccer stadium, two cafes and two restau-rants, all struck Nov. 13, but also other French sites, including Jewish ones. According to a confiden-tial police witness state-ment released to Reuters,

Abaaoud told Boulahcen two days later “they would do worse in districts close to the Jews and would disrupt transport and schools.” Abaaoud also boasted of entering Europe amid Syrian refugees and spending two months in France undetected.

It’s not hard to trace Le Bataclan’s Jewish ties. Whether Islamic State specifi-cally targeted the stately theater because of those ties remains speculation, even among French Jews. Some believe the hall was attacked as payback for hosting pro-Israel events. Others insist it was attacked because it’s a popular public venue, not because jihadists had it in their sight lines.

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt threw the Le Bataclan massacre in sharp relief, urging French authorities to investigate “the pos-sibility that virulent anti-Semitism was a motive in the attack.”

Sadly, the possibility seems all too real. *

Le Bataclan, the Paris concert hall attacked by Islamic State terrorists

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Robert SklarContributing Editor