Amsterdam Kosher Restaurant Attacker Fought In Syria

Image by Google maps

By JTA December 13, 2017

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The man whom Dutch police released hours after he attacked a kosher restaurant while waving a Palestinian flag reportedly is a Damascus-born ex-combatant in Syria’s civil war.

GeenStijl reported Wednesday that the perpetrator of the Dec. 7 assault in southern Amsterdam is Saleh Ali, who has said that he participated in the war fighting against the Islamic State terrorist group, according to information obtained by the news site.

Police knew this information when they released him several hours after two officers arrested him outside the restaurant, the report said. The officers and passers-by looked on as the perpetrator smashed several windows with a bat while staffers were inside. He then broke in, removed an Israeli flag and exited before the officers overpowered him.

The incident happened one day after President Trump signed a document recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The perpetrator of the restaurant attack, whose lawyer has denied that his client acted out of any anti-Semitic motives, was charged with vandalism and theft, according to De Telegraaf, with no mention in that paper’s reporting of an aggravated element of a hate crime. Thus he was released shortly after his arrest.

A spokesman for the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, a Hague-based watchdog on anti-Semitism, wrote on Facebook that it was “shocking” that the perpetrator was released in light of the information reported by GeenStijl.

The center, or CIDI, has called for the perpetrator, who is on a temporary staying permit, to be tried on hate crime charges.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO