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Official Iranian and Palestinian Media Claim Israel Orchestrated Paris Attacks

In the wake of the horrific attacks, anti-Jewish bigotry bubbles to the surface

by
Yair Rosenberg
November 17, 2015
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While Western intelligence agencies work to find the perpetrators and plotters of last Friday’s horrific ISIS attacks in France, it turns out other enterprising investigators have already cracked the case. In the days after the Paris massacres, both Iranian and Palestinian media quickly fingered the culprits: the Jews.

On Sunday, an op-ed in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the Palestinian Authority’s official daily paper, blamed the Mossad for carrying out the attacks: “It is not a coincidence that human blood was exploded in Paris at the same time that certain European sanctions are beginning to be implemented against settlement products, and while France leads Europe in advising the [United Nations] Security Council that will implement the two-state solution.”

“The wise and correct thing is to look for who benefits; in short, they need to search the last place reached by the octopus arms of the Mossad,” the piece went on. “It is clear that its ‘Mossad’ will burn Beirut and Paris in order to achieve Netanyahu’s goals.”

This official Palestinian editorial line was also evident on social media, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party promoted similar accusations of Israeli complicity on its Facebook page, including this cartoon:

(The post, formerly found here, has since been removed after it was reported by watchdogs and media outlets.)

Not to be outdone, Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars News also pinned the ISIS attacks on the Jewish state, and added that French Jews had foreknowledge of the plot—an echo of anti-Semitic claims made after 9/11. “The French Jewish community had been informed in advance about the attack,” Fars claimed, suggesting Israeli intelligence agencies tipped them off. The title of the piece? “Paris Bombings—Fingerprints of the Zionists Are Found Again.”

With the official media of Palestine and Iran attempting to blame one of the most heinous terrorist attacks in European history on Israel, it becomes more understandable why many in the Jewish state would distrust both countries’ willingness to coexist peacefully—and why such peace has proved so elusive.

Yair Rosenberg is a senior writer at Tablet. Subscribe to his newsletter, listen to his music, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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