Early in the afternoon of Friday, July 3, a half dozen thugs, mostly masked, openly belonging to the Jewish Defence League (Kahana group), assaulted and vandalized the bookstore Résistances in the 17th arrondissement of Paris (4 Villa Compoint).

The bookstore includes a reading room offering free use of computers, plus an auditorium which often hosts well-attended conferences by authors. The day before, a conference was given there by Mahmoud Suleiman from the Palestinian village of Al-Masara on non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation.

Instead of burning books, the Zionist fanatics ruined them by drowning them in cooking oil. They also smashed the computers.

As usual, they escaped before the police arrived. So far this highly active group has enjoyed total impunity for its attacks on property and persons.

Some of us went there to see what had happened, seeing as the Résistances telephone line was no longer functioning. This isn’t the first time they’ve been victims of the Betar or the Ligue de Défense Juive (Jewish Defence League) – remember the teargas attack the night when Tanya Reinhart was speaking. Just two weeks ago, when the store was closed at night, the shutter had been painted with the star of David plus the LDJ signature.

Today the bookstore is in a terrible state – thousands of books covered in oil litter the floors – there is oil everywhere on the floors, and attempting to move anywhere is treacherous. The attack took place around 2 p.m., shortly after the store opened. Present at the time were only Genevieve at the front desk, Olivia at her computer behind the counter in the middle room, and two clients. Five men dressed in black and wearing cagoules and black gloves rushed in yelling loudly through the front door and claiming they belonges to LDJ. They hurled the books off the shelves and doused them with cooking oil and then charged down the corridor to the middle reading-room where they did the same; they also smashed the five computers there. The thugs stayed no more than 4-5 minutes, and were seen leaving by the library’s neighbours.ve called the police.

The police subsequently showed up, too late to apprehend anyone of course. They took photos, taking away some of the empty oil bottles. It was even dangerous to move on the pavement outside, as that was completely covered in oil also. Quite a lot of the Résistances supporters were milling around outside, having gone there like us to show solidarity.

The LDJ, banned in the US – and even in Israel – are able to go on the rampage in France and are never punished, even when they’ve been occasionally caught on film while attacking.

annie (AAW = Americans Against War)

Numerous peace organisations, bookstores and library networks are calling for a rally next Wednesday to demand that these dangerous thugs be brought to justice and that the JDL be banned from operating in France. The rally will take place on Wednesday 8 July at 7 p.m. in front of the Résistances bookstore at 4 Villa Compoint, near 42 rue Guy Moquet, Paris 17 (metro Guy Moquet or Brochant, line 13).

We would like to thank the many who have sent messages of support to the bookstore. A video with English subtitles will be available tomorrow on www.europalestine.fr and other websites.

(translated by Diana Johnstone)

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Video: www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article4252

More (in French): www.europalestine.com/

HEBREW And ARABIC TEXT

See on the Israeli website : kedma.co.il/index.php?id=2527&t=pages