On July 3, 2009, members of the Jewish Defense League, wearing masks, attacked and vandalized the cultural center "Résistance" in Paris.

Created by Olivia Zemor, "Résistance" comprises a book store, a documentation center and a conference room, mainly used by the militant group CAPJPO (Coordination Group Calling for a Just Peace in the Middle East), of which Ms. Zemor is the co-founder.

The Jewish Defense League is a Jewish supremacist movement which was founded at the end of the 1960s, in the United States, by rabbi Meir Kahane (the Kach movement). Kahane moved to Israel and was elected to the Knesset (1984); however his incessant provocations prompted the assembly to modify the Israeli penal code, making it possible to prosecute him for inciting racial hatred. Back in the United States, he was assassinated (1990) by an individual who will much later be portrayed by the U.S. Justice as a member of Al Qaeda.

"Gas the Arabs" painted on the gate outside a Palestinian home in Hebron (al-Khalil) by Jewish settlers. It is signed "JDL" (Jewish Defence League)

After two bomb attacks (1981) and the assassination of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee chairman (1985), the Federal Bureau of Investigation branded the US branch of the Jewish Defense League as a terrorist organization.

The same label was attached to the Israeli branch following the Hebron shooting (1994), during which 29 people were killed by one of its members, Baruch Goldstein.

The French Branch is a de facto association, with no legal personality. With less than one hundred members, since October 2007 this group has made itself known through the internet. Its members have perpetrated several agressions, in particular against human rights activist Mouloud Aounit, sociologist Alain Soral, and well-known comedian Dieudonné. More recently, they staged an attack against the communist city hall of Vitry-sur-Seine during a ceremony conferring on Palestinian Leader Marwan Barhouti the title of "citizen of honor".

With the exception of one conviction for acts of violence committed inside the Administrative Tribunal in Paris (2003), all the other crimes by the JDL have remained unpunished. The majority took place in the period between May 2002 and March 2004 and, again, since November 2004, coinciding with Nikolas Sarkozy’s mandates as Minister of the Interior and as President of the Republic respectively [1].

For their Krav Marga training (a martial art practiced in Israel) the JDL members were granted access to the sports facilities belonging to the French national police.

In the course of the last presidential election, the Jewish Defence League called their members to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy and enlisted them to serve in his campaign.

Video in French: "Résistance book store attacked"

Librairie Résistances agressée from chris den hond on Vimeo.

[1] The general public remains ignorant of these aggressions, while it is regularly informed by television of even relatively minor acts of anti-Semitism – some of them imaginary (as the famous case a few years ago of the young woman who totally invented a story of being the victim of an “anti-Semitic assault” by blacks in the suburban commuter train. She got the attention of everyone in France all the way up to the President of the Republic).

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