Paris, 19 March 2012

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, has called on French Interior Minister, Claude Guéant, to secure all Jewish institutions in the wake of the shooting this morning at the Toulouse "Otzar HaTorah" school.

Samuels has expressed indignation that "while the number of casualties in this assault are still unknown, it is clear that antisemitic hate speech in France has crossed a new threshold" 

He added that "the reported inflammatory discourse of the Anti-Zionist Party of France can encourage  this type of violence just as, in the pre-war period, antisemitic parties of East/Central Europe set the path for the Holocaust". 

The attack in Toulouse was a motorbike drive-by shooting which has all the markings of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. Samuels stressed that "in the context of the Syrian imbroglio and the now probability of Teharan's nuclear weaponization, warnings are now current of Iranian proxy attacks on Jewish institutions around the world." 

"The perpetrators of this outrage must be promptly arrested and prosecuted", concluded Samuels.