"A school is a place to inculcate fraternity and tolerance, not hate and violence."

Paris, 5 February 2013

In a letter to French Education Minister, Vincent Peillon, the SimonWiesenthal Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. ShimonSamuels, protested  newspaper ad invitations to an anti-Israel hatefestat a Paris primary school – l’Ecole Primaire publique, 13 rue Fagon.

Samuels noted that, "frustrated by their failed attemps to use Parisuniversities as their propaganda podium, Palestinian organizations andtheir French fans will now target infants and teenagers in theirpolitical campaigns for boycott, Gaza, support for Hamas"

The letter stressed that "it was the diet of Jihadist websites andIslamist satellite television that has transplanted the Middle Eastpowderkeg to the streets of Paris, Marseilles and other cities acrossFrance", continuing, "now children in public schools will be vulnerableto the antisemitic poison that turned on the kidnappers of Ilan Halimiand motivated the murder of Jewish children in Toulouse by Mohamed Merah.

Samuels pointed out that "while France combats Islamic terrorism inMali, Algerian Salafist leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has publiclythreatened to hold the Jews of France as responsible scapegoats and‘targets of new Mohamed Merahs’".

The Centre urged the Minister "to ban this gathering as a menace topublic order and, by demonizing the Jewish State, encourages anatmosphere for further antisemitic assaults in France".

The Centre emphasized that "this ban should stay in force and apply toall further abuse of State Schools as platforms for political agitation".

"A school is a place to inculcate fraternity and tolerance, not hate andviolence", concluded Samuels.