On the face of it, the sight of Kobili Traore walking the streets of Paris is not so unusual. On TikTok, the young Frenchman in his 30s appears hanging out with friends in his Paris quarter. Definitely not something that should generate too much interest among millions of other videos. But someone who knows a thing or two about his resume cannot remain even-tempered. Just less than seven years ago, in the very same neighborhood where he walks and cheers, Traore infiltrated the home of Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old French Jew, assaulted and tortured her, and threw her out of a window.
For nearly an hour, her stunned neighbors listened to her blood-curdling screams. They called the Paris police, whose personnel did arrive at the scene, but hesitated and demonstrated a complete failure to manage the incident. They were unable to stop the murder, and the affair shook the Jewish community in France and sent shockwaves around the world. But in stark contrast to the atrocities, the scandal did not end here, continuing with the resounding failure of the French authorities to bring justice to Halimi. No less horrifying was the banality with which the case was investigated, handled and decided by the judicial system.
In 2017, Sarah Halimi was buried on Jerusalem's Mount of Rest among many other graves, with no discernible evidence of the horrific manner in which she was murdered. Traore, a Muslim born in Mali, Africa, still roams free. He spends most of his time in a psychiatric institution, where he was hospitalized after claiming in his testimony that a demonic spirit, an evil demon, had overtaken him at the time. The result of what he called a "psychotic attack" after smoking cannabis. But on certain weekends he goes free, meets his neighborhood friends and terrorizes the homeless people on the street where he murdered Halimi.
PHOTO: PHOTO FMARGOLIN X
The court's decision not to hold a trial, not even a reenactment of the incident, raised many questions about the country's legal and order systems and their commitment to the security of French Jews. Above all - the choice to ignore the facts. Family members in the building whose home Traore arrived at the time of the incident heard him reading verses from the Koran, the cry of "Allahu Akbar" that came out of his mouth during the act, and the refusal of the authorities to treat the murder as an anti-Semitic crime drew outrage and criticism from Jews, intellectuals and intellectuals.
They were forced to stand and watch their country completely ignore the details of the horrific murder, its severity and the background in which it took place, burying its head in the sand and deciding dryly like scorched earth - the murderer was not responsible for his actions. The late Halimi has since been considered a symbol of anti-Semitism, injustice and moral decay. A kind of modern version of Alfred Dreyfus.
Theatre of Folly
This is exactly how Francois Margolin sees her – a French journalist, director and documentarian, who puts her and her shocking death at the center of his new docuseries "Sarah Halimi: An Antisemitic Crime with No Punishment," which will be shown as part of the Jewish Film Week at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. As its name implies, the film dives deep into Halimi's murder, its horrific details and the court's puzzling decision not to hold a trial and prosecute the murderer.
Everywhere else, presumably, there was no disregard for so many blood-curdling details that frame the incident as more than a psychotic act by a cannabis consumer. In the end, the horrifying truth: Halimi, a doctor and kindergarten director who contributed greatly to the community in which she lived, is gone. The man who took her own life, well, uploads content to TikTok.
Sarah Halimi was a doctor and kindergarten director. A story of moral decay, photo: from the film about the Halimi murder affair
"I wanted to meet all the people who were involved in the story," Margolin explains by phone from Paris, which led him to dive deep into the rabbit hole, which is one of the most outrageous affairs in his country's history. Among other things, he met with lawyers, including that of the murderer, and psychiatrists. "I didn't want to say, 'That's a bad guy.' I tried to understand how it was possible that in France a judge or police officers were not doing the right thing. I also wanted to convince those who don't know the details of the murder that it's absurd that the country has an anti-Semitic judge, police officers who are utter idiots, and mental health professionals who are willing to accept the murderer's world. The judge who appears in the film is, in my opinion, a clear anti-Semite. She didn't want to do the right thing and just looked for an excuse for the murderer: 'He smokes hashish, he's a poor guy from a poor family.' They don't want to see it as it is."
It must be admitted that the argument for impunity for drug use is patently illogical. It's like a drunk driver who killed a family in a car accident and says, "It's not me, it's because of the alcohol."
"Yes, it's terrible. This man leaves the psychiatric hospital every weekend! If you kill someone with a car, it is probably more significant than if you murdered a person. When you murder a Jewish woman, that's probably a good excuse, but it's impossible to accept. I think that Sarah Halimi's story will in the future be a symbol of a great change in the perception of protection of the Jewish community in France. It is already a symbol of growing anti-Semitism and the possibility of killing Jews without sanctions. It's a huge scandal, especially because there was no trial, because enough people thought or preferred to think that the killer was crazy. This is terrible, because when a trial is underway, the judge can at least make a decision, even if incorrectly. But in this case there is no conviction or acquittal! This story doesn't even have a proper ending."
In the film you show the incompetence of the police and their lack of understanding of the situation. Could it be that this tragedy was not necessarily an anti-Semitic issue so much as it was the result of stupidity?
"I think it's a combination of the two. There are a lot of stupid policemen, and the way to fight radical Islam isn't really clear to the police. In the case of the Bataclan bombing, for example (a combined terrorist attack in Paris in 2015 that claimed the lives of 130 people), not many people know that there were police officers there who decided not to enter the club. Far fewer people would have been killed if a few policemen had gone in there and killed one or two of the terrorists, but the organization of the police in France is not as good as in Israel. They are afraid, they don't know how to identify a terrorist attack, even if the attacker shouts 'Allahu Akbar.' They can't decide what to do.
"I don't want to say that the police here are not good, but a lot of mistakes were made in Sara Halimi's story and in the way they tried to protect her. Because if they had decided to take the right actions, maybe she would still be alive. But in reality, the police were just waiting. It's terrible, it's like dealing with bureaucracy. In Israel, everyone knows that it is important to neutralize a terrorist."
Were there people who refused to be interviewed for the film?
"Yes, absolutely. All of Sarah Halimi's neighbors and those who lived in the same building were afraid to speak. I was obliged to find a solution to this, because one of the terrible things about the whole story is that it's more dangerous for Sarah's friends to talk than for the killer's friends. The killer's friends can talk easily, but the neighbors are just afraid, because they meet the killer's friends later in the same building! These days in France, when there is a terrorist attack, it is impossible to show the faces of the people who want to testify about the murderer. People don't want to show their faces – and that's terrible. The killer's friends are more protected than the victims' friends."
, Photo: EPA
This is not a film that adheres to the rules of hetero-crime, the docu-crime genre that became particularly popular a decade ago. There is no sensational editing or narrative editing in "Antisemitic Crime Without Punishment." In an orderly, dry and matter-of-fact manner, the docu presents a series of failures at various levels, which led to the outrageous decision not to hold a trial and to rid Traore of serving a prison sentence.
It shows an opaque senior judge, confused and useless police officers, and an affair over which hangs a heavy cloud of anti-Semitism that no one will admit. Margolin's documentary can also cause calm and consider that viewers want to pull out their hair out of frustration. What seems like a case whose details are clear, and which requires a simple investigation in which all that needs to be done is to connect the logical and necessary points, becomes a theater of the absurd under the auspices of the law.
Thus, for example, the policemen claimed that they did not hear Halimi's screams (a simple demonstration makes it clear that this is complete nonsense). The judge herself claimed that this was an "exceptional case," explaining her decision not to allow a reconstruction or a deeper investigation of the murder.
At the same time, a peaceful and limited protest in the Belleville neighborhood was greeted with bottle-throwing and dark anti-Semitic chants by Dario in one of the liveliest areas of the City of Light. For the organizers of the demonstration, this was proof that the non-Jewish people of the area were, as one of the interviewees in the film describes it, "at least passive witnesses to this assassination, which lasted between 40 and 45 minutes, and perhaps even those who were aware of it and reacted calmly."
A safe route for anti-Semites
This methodical and chilling document is being screened at an already fraught time. The events of October 7 and Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza seem to have dragged the entire world, and with it reminisces of dark days that seemed to have passed. Condemnations of the Israeli response are more reminiscent of anti-Semitic rhetoric, only this time they are well laundered in terms such as "pro-Palestinian" or "anti-Zionist."
Not that it surprised Margolin. It is not that he remained indifferent to the atrocities committed by Hamas members on Black Saturday. He, too, reacted with disgust to the terrible scenes and the unimaginable cruelty of the terrorist organization. But the 30 years of studying Islamic fundamentalism, meeting its leaders and documenting its rise in documentaries have long prepared him for the worst.
"I was in Afghanistan in 2000, during the first Taliban regime, and at that time no one was really interested in the subject, because it was before the September 11 twin disaster," he says by phone from Paris. "It wasn't a subject that was dealt with much, but I felt that this was an important issue and that this was, unfortunately, the future of the world and the challenge it would have to face."
How did you come to research a topic that would become so significant only a few years later?
"I have been visiting Islamic countries for three decades. I was in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets (the Afghan war), I met the mujahedeen fighters, I came into contact with a lot of people there and I understood very clearly that the future of the West will come from this side of the world. I realized that Afghanistan was going to be the source of conflict in this world. I don't want to say that I'm better than others, I think there were a lot of intellectuals who knew that as well, but not many people wanted to photograph and document this subject. I remember very well the Taliban of before 2001. It was very difficult for me to raise money and bring in a budget for a film about jihad (the docu-series "Taliban Opium" that he directed), everyone wanted to bury this film. For me, documentaries are very important to understand the world."
You continued to document the subject a decade and a half later, in the documentary "The Selfists" released in 2016.
"In 2015-2014, I met the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [a branch of the terrorist organization in North Africa] because I wanted to understand what was in these people's heads, what their thought process was, and what the Salafist ideology was. I think the world doesn't want to understand the fact that these people are saying exactly what they think. They are very clear in their intentions. Until recently, no one wanted to understand what was in these people's heads, even though they were really simple to understand and explain. For example, when I met the leader of al-Qaeda in 2014, he explained to me exactly what they were going to do in places like the Bataclan Club in Paris a year later, and the other terrorist attacks in Europe. But at the same time, the French public didn't want to understand the way these people think."
I remember a street story that was broadcast on the news in the days after the Bataclan bombing, in which it seemed that the residents of Paris did not find the connection between the attack on the twins and the massacre at the club they experienced.
"People around the world, especially in my country, have so far refused to accept the fact that there are about 5 million Muslims living in France today. They simply won't understand that these people are led by radical Islam. Of course, I don't want to say that this applies to all Muslims in France, certainly not, many of them oppose terrorism. But there are a lot of them who advocate this belief and method."
., Photo: None
How do you explain this blind spot?
"As with everything, there is also a political issue here: I know that a lot of politicians from the right and the left don't want to have problems with the Muslim community in France, where there are several hundred thousand Jews versus millions of Muslims. Muslim communities are a larger electoral force, and that makes them more important to the right and left. Look at President Macron, who is constantly changing his position. One day he says, 'I support Israel,' and two days later he says, 'It's very important to protect the people of Gaza, it's genocide.' This is a very dangerous approach. Politicians in France until now do not want to use the term 'Islamist.' They say 'terrorist' because they are afraid of the Muslim community. I think that in the near future there will be many more acts of murder and terror than before. Just a few days ago, such an event took place in Paris."
Do you think the events of October 7 and the events you predict will change the world's attitude toward radical Islam?
"So far, it hasn't really changed. That's starting to change, because there's already an increase in terrorist attacks in France, and along with the events of October 7, people are starting to understand that it's a very dangerous ideology. It is very clear that Salafists or radical Islamists want to destroy our society. They want to destroy it and they declare it. That's why I've been interested in meeting these people for a long time. Because the killer is not stupid in any way. He is a radical Islamist."
Or rather crazy, as many will insist. It's hard not to connect the disgraceful conduct in the treatment of Halimi's murder with the reactions to the war in Israel.
"Yes, what is happening is that until recently radical Islam did not talk so much about Israel, this is a relatively new thing. Even radical Islamists have ignored the Israeli-Palestinian context. But now it is considered an interesting topic in France, the USA, on the Internet, in the eyes of artists, universities and the world media. Suddenly it's important for them to be involved in what's happening with you.
"Anti-Semitism in France has been growing for a long time, it is much more present than it was 25 years ago. There is now a real and tangible danger to the Jews, and many of them want to leave because they do not feel safe here. Suddenly, Osama bin Laden is a hero on TikTok, and that's because there is no ideology in the world anymore. Not socialist, not communist, so these people turn to Islamic ideology and look for a new hero.
"There are a lot of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in France these days. They are crazy, they don't understand anything about the history of the conflict, they don't even know where Gaza is and where Israel is exactly. But they want to be on the side of the Palestinians, because it's a convenient way for them to be anti-Semites. Especially for leftists. It's just a convenient path to anti-Semitism, to say, 'I'm an anti-Zionist.' It sounds better than 'I'm an anti-Semite.'"
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