A French court closed the Ilan Halimi murder/torture trial to the public. This is a case in which every disgusting detail of Ilan Halimi’s 24 days of torture should be plastered all over the media. Because this is the subhuman monster who was the ringleader of those crimes:
The leader of the “barbarians,” Youssouf Fofana, smirked at Halimi’s relatives and shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“God is Greatest!” in Arabic) at them as he entered the courtroom.
Bearded and wearing a white tracksuit, Fofana gave his identity during formal questioning by the judge as “Arabs African revolt barbarian salafist army.”
The 28-year-old said he was born on February 13, 2006, in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, the date and place of Halimi’s death.
Barbarian is the perfect name for him. But when most of the details will remain out of the public view, the French public will be able to drive this story to the back of the news cycle while the trial is ongoing, and after the verdicts have been given—instead of getting the shocking details of the vicious anti-Semitism that pervades their society.
The decision to bar the public from hearing the testimony was protested by the Halimi family. “It’s the law of silence that killed Ilan,” said Francis Szpiner, the lawyer representing the family. “It would be unbearable if the court also imposed silence.”
But the court imposed the silence, because that’s what the world does: It manages to use the excuse of protecting minors to silence its inability to protect its Jews—again.
And even in the face of the evidence, even today, people are denying an anti-Semitic motive behind the attack.
Most of the gang members were arrested a few days later, Mr. Fofana after two weeks in Ivory Coast, where he had continued to bombard the Halimi family with insulting phone calls. Over the past year, according to lawyers in the case, he has also sent dozens of letters filled with anti-Semitic comments to various court officials.
Mr. Fofana has not been linked to any political or religious movement, and does not appear to represent or illustrate a larger trend, according to Michel Wieviorka, a sociologist who has written extensively about anti-Semitism in France.
Uh-huh. Let’s take another look at what he pulled in the courtroom:
The leader of the “barbarians,” Youssouf Fofana, smirked at Halimi’s relatives and shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“God is Greatest!” in Arabic) at them as he entered the courtroom.
Bearded and wearing a white tracksuit, Fofana gave his identity during formal questioning by the judge as “Arabs African revolt barbarian salafist army.”
The 28-year-old said he was born on February 13, 2006, in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, the date and place of Halimi’s death.
But of course, he doesn’t appear linked to a religious movement, or illustrate a larger trend.
Although statistics for early 2009 have yet to be finalized by the institute, it estimated that in January alone, close to 1,000 manifestations of anti-Semitism occurred worldwide, with approximately 90 violent incidents (including use of arms, assaults and desecrations) – three times that of January 2008.
Once again, anti-Semitism is minimized by the chattering classes known as the mainstream media. Considering how many are so eager to insist that Iran is not an existential threat to Israel, I am not surprised. I expect a guilty verdict for the ringleader, at least, in this trial. But France would have been far better served if the trial had been open, and public. Nor am I surprised by that, not when the courts refused to force France 2 to give them the uncut film of the Mohammed al-Dura hoax.
Once again, France, J’accuse.
It’s simple, really. Jews don’t matter. Certainly not in France. Very little in Europe. Less and less in the US. And the world simply shrugs its shoulders.
What’s one more Jew?