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despite the previous threats, Le Bataclan is not generally associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Le Bataclan may have had a Zionist link in the past, but if the perpetrators wanted to select a site tied to Israel to send a message, it doesn’t strike me as a very effective target,” Shashani said. “To the general population, Le Bataclan is just a concert hall and nothing more.” Shashani noted that “unsubstantiated rumors” also linked the attack to the Eagles of Death Metal band because it performed in Israel in July. During the concert in Tel Aviv, lead singer Jesse Hughes recalled how Roger Waters, the former frontman for the Pink Floyd band and a promoter of a boycott against Israel, asked the band to stay away. “I answered with two words: F*** you!” Hughes told the cheering audience, adding: “I would never boycott a place like this.” The band escaped the attack unscathed, according to reports in French media. Shashani said it was “far-fetched” to suppose the band was the reason for Le Bataclan’s targeting. “In previous attacks, there were clear targets,” Shashani said. “Soldiers, cops, a kosher supermarket. This time, the attacks were against cafes, restaurants, a soccer stadium—attacks against the Frenchman on the street.”

Dutch pol: Frustration over Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a cause in Paris attacks AMSTERDAM (JTA)—The chairman of the Dutch Socialist Party said the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris acted in part out of frustration over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Jan Marijnissen linked the Friday, Nov. 13 attacks, which left at least 129 dead and which French President Francois Hollande said were planned by the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, to the Palestinian issue during an interview with the Dutch station NPO Radio1. “Their behavior eventually is connected also to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Marijnissen said of the perpetrators. “The guys—I assume they were guys— who carried out the attacks probably come from a group of outraged people from the French suburbs.” The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he added, “is the growth medium for such an attack.” On Monday, Nov. 16, Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the European Jewish Congress harshly condemned similar comments by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot

Wallstrom, who said, “To counteract the radicalization, we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is no future: We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.” EJC President Moshe Kantor said her view was “borderline racist” because she focused on the one conflict involving Jews in explaining the attacks. Israel said her comments were “appallingly impudent.” Susanne Sznajderman-Rytz, a Swedish Jewish linguist, said she confronted the minister about the issue on the street, and the minister told her, “The Jews are campaigning against me,” though a ministry spokesman later denied the minister had made the comment. Sweden’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Wallstrom “has neither directly nor indirectly linked the terrorist attacks in Paris to the situation in Israel and Palestine,” adding the controversy owes to “a misunderstanding” that “will be clarified shortly.”

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jewishnewsva.org | November 23, 2015 | Jewish News | 13