Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens Waffles on Terror…no Longer limited to Jews
Belgian Justice Minister: Terror No Longer Limited to “Synagogues and the Jewish Museums”
Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens remarked that terrorism in Europe
was no longer limited to Jews and law enforcement officials, but now
affects targets of a different profile, including the general public,
The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Geens, the justice minister, said that the Paris attacks had shown
that the profile of potential targets had changed. “It’s no longer
synagogues or the Jewish museums or police stations, it’s mass
gatherings and public places,” he said.
Geens’ insinuation that terrorist attacks against Jews and police
officers are of a different nature than those that target the general
public echoes a recent controversial statement by U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry, who said last week that “There’s something different
about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would
feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a
legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you
could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry
because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.
It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to
terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for.”
Geens’ statement was similar to that made by French Prime Minister
Raymond Barre following the bombing of a Paris synagogue in 1980 that
left four people dead. In a critique of Kerry’s remarks, Elliott
Abrams quoted Barre, who said, “This odious bombing wanted to strike
Jews who were going to the synagogue and it hit innocent French people
who crossed Rue Copernic.”
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