The French Legal System Tries to Blame Sarah Halimi’s Murder on Marijuana Rather Than Anti-Semitism

On April 4, 2017, Kobili Traore, a Mali-born Parisian, broke into the apartment of his neighbor, a sixty-five-year-old Jewish widow named Sarah Halimi, and brutally murdered her. During the attack he yelled “Allahu Akbar” and “Satan”; on previous occasions he had shouted anti-Semitic slurs at Halimi and her relatives. A French court is now evaluating a psychiatric report—commissioned by the investigating judge in the case—according to which Traore was so intoxicated from cannabis that he can’t be held criminally responsible. Ben Cohen comments:

There is, of course, a well-documented connection between the use of cannabis and episodes of psychotic violence, but these examples invariably involve users with preexisting mental-health conditions. No one has indicated that Traore suffers from schizophrenia or a related condition; the argument being entertained by the investigating judge, therefore, rests on the claim that cannabis use alone robbed Traore of his “discernment.” . . .

The second and third psychiatrists who assessed Traore believe this to be true; the first psychiatrist, Daniel Zagury, manifestly did not, and had no doubt that the killer’s mind was sound enough for him to stand trial for murder aggravated by anti-Semitic prejudice toward his victim. . . .

There should be no mistaking . . . that a final decision that goes against putting Traore on trial, opting instead for some kind of medical supervision instead, will be an irremovable stain on France’s reputation, . . . denying basic justice to the victim of a hate crime that was sickening even by current French standards of anti-Semitism and racism. It means that France, as a nation, will be denied a further opportunity to learn how anti-Semitic beliefs can transition into anti-Semitic violence—since previous and subsequent episodes in recent memory, such as the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi (no relation) in 2006, or the terrorist shooting of three small children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, or the murder of eighty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll exactly one year ago, have seemingly failed to teach the French public that lesson.

Read more at JNS

More about: Anti-Semitism, Drugs, France, French Jewry, Politics & Current Affairs, Radical Islam

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa