A growing phenomenon places the police as representatives of the "Jews" who must be attacked, according to the extreme right • According to them, Israel is training the French police - against them

• Police officers guard the scene of a terrorist attack at the "Hyper Kosher" supermarket in the suburbs of Paris, January 10, 2015 // Photo: Canaan Lifshitz

On April 27, Yosef left her home near Paris with the aim of retaliating, he said, for "the situation in Palestine."

But Tihla, a 29-year-old Muslim with a history of minor offenses, did not try to harm Jews. According to his confession after the crime was committed and a letter he left before leaving the scene, he decided to hit the police. A police officer ran over two policemen in the suburb of Comb with his car and seriously injured one of them.

French police and anti-Semitic activists said the attack was the latest example of a growing trend in France, in which anti-Semites see police and security services as a branch of the "Jewish force" - an idea often raised in conspiracy theories behind these attacks.

Allegations of brutal police conduct, inspired by protests in the United States following the death of George Floyd, only "added fuel to the fire," said Sami Gozlan, a former Paris police chief and founder of the National Anti-Semitic Office, BNVCA.

"The antisemitic equation between police and Jews is a new development stemming from conspiracy theories, and it is already inciting violence and bloodshed," Gozlan says. "It is dangerous not only for the Jews, but also for the rule of law in France."

On June 13 in central Paris, in a demonstration against what was perceived as racism by police in France, a number of protesters shouted "dirty Jews" at protesters on the other side of the barricade, waving a banner titled "Justice for Victims of Crimes Against Whites." The protesters on the other side not only were not Jews, but belonged to the far-right Generation Identitaire movement accused of anti-Semitism.

At the same rally, posters were also hoisted claiming that Israel was teaching the French police how to suppress minorities.

Gozlan says the phenomenon of comparing Jews to security forces and harming both was first seen "on a large scale" in a 2012 Toulouse attack in which a jihadist named Muhammad Marah shot dead three soldiers near Toulouse after killing four Jews in a two-day school Earlier, Marah also said that his motive was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Amidi Coulibaly, another Muslim extremist who murdered four Jews at a "hyper kosher" supermarket in the suburbs of Paris on January 9, 2015, killed a black policeman the day before. He also said that the motive for his actions was the desire to "protect the Palestinians."

In 2018 in St. Quentin, a town about 110 km northeast of Paris, a man attacked a policeman in a residential building. For the torture and antisemitic murder of Ilan Halimi near Paris in 2006. The man was later arrested and sentenced to four months in prison.

Michel Turis, a Jewish policeman and activist in the police union in the south of France, also says that joint assault on police officers and Jews is "particularly common." Toris says that although he has never personally experienced an anti-Semitic background in the course of his work at the National Police, he has noticed that many of his non-Jewish colleagues have experienced it.

In his view, the phenomenon made the streets more dangerous for the police.

"The word 'Jew' is now an insult in immigrant neighborhoods, so it is used as a curse," Turis said, referring to suburban areas where there is a large Muslim population with crime and extremism problems. "But it also stems from a host of conspiracy theories that Jews and Israel run the world and France, and that the police are their puppet."

The same trend is also evident in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Western Europe. In 2017, Turkish protesters rioted and shouted "Jewish cancer" at police, after they learned that Dutch authorities had prevented a minister in the Turkish cabinet from entering the country.

This worldview is reinforced by the fact that "soldiers, policemen and other security forces in Western Europe" are now seen around synagogues and other Jewish institutions, says Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the European Rabbinical Conference.

Their defense is required due to the danger of violent attacks, "but for the anti-Semites it is a visual confirmation of their narrative that the Jews are the police, and vice versa," Goldschmidt said.

"Some Muslims see inhuman Jews as unclean animals or parasites," added Torris, who supports the far-right Marin Le Pen party, which has a complex history of anti-Semitism. "When you extend this to the police, it justifies and invites brutal violence."

Gozlan, who served in the police force for decades until his retirement in the 1990s, has never been harmed by an antisemitic background in the police force and says it is a new development.

And while in antisemitic circles there are growing calls for harm to the police, many French Jews do not hesitate to support the police. In public rallies you can often see groups of Jews singing the Marseilles, the French national anthem, in honor of the police who protect their institutions. Prominent Jewish groups such as the BNVCA and the umbrella organization CRIF have issued numerous statements expressing gratitude and solidarity with the police, especially when security personnel are injured while on duty.

At a dinner in 2017 with President Emanuel Macron, CRIF President Francis Califet told about his father who was a proud policeman. "French, Jewish - I know he has found something that deeply connects these two identities: the connection to the law, the love of justice and a commitment to freedom," Caliphate said.

In 2016, when the French nation erupted after the killing of Earth Trauma, a young black man who died in custody after being abused by police officers, the CRIF organization chose to take the side of the police. A number of commissions of inquiry cleared of any guilt the police officers who arrested him, but the incident led to riots. These demonstrations have recently resumed after the killing of George Floyd in the United States - including a June 13 rally in which protesters chanted "Dirty Jews."

In 2016, the CRIF held a rally of solidarity with police officers who were injured while on duty. That same year, the organization also published an article called The Golden Book that includes "Messages to the Police and the Army Protecting Us" with quotes of praise from ordinary community members alongside more prominent figures.

Last month, Gil Tayeb, CRIF's vice president, came out in defense of the French police, following a wave of anti-police protests that erupted following the events of George Floyd in the United States. "No, the police are not racist," Tayeb wrote in a June 5 statement, "some policemen are racist and it has nothing to do with this pillar of law and order."

Anne Sinclair, one of France's best-known journalists and a prominent figure in the Jewish community, generally agrees with this view. But during an online meeting this month on the occasion of the publication of her new book on the Holocaust, "Detention of the Honorable," she mentioned a painful period in French-police relations: World War II, when police collaborated with the Nazis in deporting Jews and stealing their property.

"Not long ago, the Jews of France were very afraid of the police, who now protect them," she said in a conversation. "In this respect, the creators have turned upside down."