AJC: Multiple Terror Attacks Wake-Up Call to Radical Islam Threat to France

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Jan 09, 2015, 01:44 ET

PARIS, Jan. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC Paris called for stepped up efforts to combat Islamist terrorism in France as violent attacks in Paris over the past two days expanded to a kosher supermarket.

"What happened over the past 48 hours was a shock to the entire French nation," said Simone Rodan-Benazquen, director of AJC Paris. "It was our 9/11."

Terrorists carried out a massacre at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 10 magazine staff and two police officers, murdered another police officer in a Paris suburb and attacked Cash Cacher Naouri, the kosher supermarket.

French police, in separate operations today, killed the two brothers who had attacked Charlie Hebdo, and the terrorist in the kosher market. Three hostages died in the market.

"Hatred of Jews never ends with Jews," said Rodan-Benzaquen, "Radical Islamists have struck violently, from the murders at a Jewish school in Toulouse two years ago, to repeated incidents of violence against Jews and synagogues in Paris, to the vicious rape of a Jewish woman in her own home, and today's assault on a kosher supermarket in the middle of Paris."

Rodan-Benzaquen praised French authorities for mobilizing quickly after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher market attacks.

"We have warned that the menace of rising anti-Semitism threatens French society at large," said Rodan-Benzaquen. "The Charlie Hebdo massacre makes clear that the war against France's democratic values is in high gear."

AJC is the premier global Jewish advocacy organization, with headquarters in New York, offices across the U.S. and around the world.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee