France Promised Not To Harm Palestinian Terrorists Who Killed Jews
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — France agreed not to target Palestinian terrorists who killed French Jews in Paris in 1982 if they refrain from carrying out further attacks on French soil, a former top spy revealed.
Yves Bonnet, who headed the now-defunct DST service in the 1980s, said this in January to a judge investigating the 1982 attack in which six people were murdered and 22 injured at a kosher restaurant on Rosiers Street in Paris, Le Parisien reported Thursday.
The suspects in the attack on the Jo Goldberg deli are wanted for questioning as per a 2015 French arrest warrant. One of the suspects lives in Jordan, another near Ramallah in the West Bank and a third in Norway, according to the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.
None of the relevant governments have agreed to extradite the suspects, whom French investigators believe belonged to the Abu Nidal terrorist group affiliated with Fatah.
“We entered a sort of verbal deal which tells them: I want no more attacks on French soil, but I will allow you to come to France and guarantee nothing will happen to you.”
French authorities allowed two of the alleged perpetrators to visit their brothers in arms in French prisons after the 1982 attack, in which the terrorists threw grenades into the packed restaurant, which became the scene of the bloodiest anti-Semitic attack in France since World War II.
“It worked, there were no further attacks from the end of 1983, throughout 1984 and until 1985,” Bonnet said.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
