Julien Bahloul: "How dare LFI make a hero of a man convicted in Israel for attempted murder?"

Franco-Israeli, Julien Bahloul was a journalist at I24 News.

In the past, the author also served as a reservist in the IDF Spokesman's Unit.

Now business development manager in an Israeli high-tech company in Tel Aviv, he regularly analyzes Israeli news on Twitter and in several French media.

How would you have reacted if you had seen an S file, sentenced by the courts for belonging to a terrorist group and for having planned to assassinate a French priest, welcomed as a hero at Algiers airport by Algerian deputies from an opposition party?

The indignation would probably have been national.

And rightly so.

However, this is more or less what happened at Roissy airport on December 18.

Salah Hamouri, Franco-Palestinian, was received by several deputies from France Insoumise who had come especially to acclaim this

.

MP Ersilia Soudais, present that morning, even went so far as to tweet about the

.

A thinly veiled allusion to the Holocaust.

Salah Hamouri as the persecuted Jew, the State of Israel as the Nazi.

Soudais is a certified teacher by training.

A pure product of National Education supposed to educate the next generations.

With such more than dubious parallels, there is cause for concern.

Let's go back to the facts.

Salah Hamouri was born to a French mother and a Jordanian father in 1985 in Jerusalem.

In 2003 he began his university studies in Bethlehem and became on campus one of the key figures of the PFLP, the Popular Front of Palestine.

This group has been on the list of organizations recognized as terrorist by the European Union since 2009.

In 2004 he was suspected of having been linked to terrorist cells responsible for attacks with firearms.

In 2005 he was again arrested by the Israeli security forces and convicted by an Israeli court of having taken part in a project whose aim was to kill the former Chief Rabbi of Israel.

During the hearing, Salah Hamouri did not dispute this version of the facts and did not express the slightest remorse.

Julien Bahloul

In 2005 he was again arrested by the Israeli security forces and remanded in custody for three years.

Then he was found guilty in 2008, by an Israeli military court, of having taken part in a project whose aim was to kill Ovadia Yosef, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel.

During the hearing, Salah Hamouri did not dispute this version of the facts and did not express the slightest remorse.

He ended up pleading guilty to obtain a sentence adjustment.

He was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap deal with the Islamists of Hamas, before being detained again in 2017 and 2022 by Israel, which claims that Hamouri has not ceased his activities in the country. within the PFLP.

Let's summarize: Salah Hamouri was an active member of an organization recognized as terrorist by France and the European Union and he pleaded guilty in a trial where he was accused of having prepared the assassination of a rabbi.

This shot dating from the 2000s that freezes the blood.

We see Salah Hamouri posing proudly alongside Samir Kuntar and Marwan Barghouti.

Kuntar, in 1979, smashed the skull of a 4-year-old Israeli girl against rocks with the butt of his gun.

Barghouti is serving a life sentence for the murder of five Israelis.

Julien Bahloul

And if those facts aren't enough to overwhelm Hamouri, there's this photo.

This shot dating from the 2000s and which freezes the blood.

We see Salah Hamouri posing proudly alongside Samir Kuntar and Marwan Barghouti.

The names may be unfamiliar to you, but they resonate with trauma for Israelis.

Samir Kuntar, in 1979, smashed the skull of a 4-year-old Israeli girl against rocks with the butt of his gun.

Marwan Barghouti is serving a life sentence for the murder of five Israelis.

These are the friends of Salah Hamouri.

At Roissy airport this Sunday, December 18, deputies from La France insoumise therefore celebrated the release of a person found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization.

This Sunday, a member of the French nation dared to make a comparison with the Holocaust to defend a man who pleaded guilty to having planned the assassination of a rabbi and who poses proudly alongside the murderer of a little girl from 4 years.

And all this in relative indifference.

While the criticism of the legal process inflicted on Hamouri and the decision to expel him is completely legitimate and part of the public debate even in Israel, the attempt to present him as an innocent freedom fighter persecuted by settlers does not hold. not face the examination of the facts.

Julien Bahloul

While the criticism of the legal process inflicted on Hamouri and the decision to expel him is completely legitimate and part of the public debate even in Israel, the attempt to present him as an innocent freedom fighter persecuted by settlers does not hold. not face the examination of the facts.

Beyond the case of Hamouri, there is obviously the question of the political line of insubordinate France which connects more than disturbing gestures.

In 2021, Jean-Luc Mélenchon made conspiratorial remarks about the Toulouse attacks (which cost the lives of French soldiers and four people in a Jewish school), then he organized his biggest meeting of the election last March. presidential election at the very moment when the ceremonies for the tenth anniversary of the attacks in Toulouse were taking place.

During the legislative campaign, LFI chose to invite the British Corbyn, former leader of the Labor Party, whose anti-Semitic scandals in Great Britain are notorious.

And now LFI MPs are celebrating the release of a man who admitted planning to kill a rabbi.

All while making a reference to the Holocaust.

What game is La France insoumise playing?

Is it a pure electoral calculation or a real ideology that it tries to convey?

History will tell.

In the case of Salah Hamouri, history has already spoken: there was no reason to celebrate his release and his arrival in France.