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‘F—k Israel’: Monument in France Honoring Nazi Victims Defaced With Antisemitic Graffiti

Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

A monument honoring victims of the Nazis located in eastern France was vandalized over the weekend with graffiti reading “Nique Israël,” or “F—k Israel” in English, continuing a surge in antisemitism over the past year that has devastated the French Jewish community.

The vandalism in Bron, a suburb of the city of Lyon, was discovered on Saturday afternoon, according to French media.

The defaced World War II memorial pays tribute to 109 Jews and anti-Nazi resistance fighters, detainees at Montluc prison in Lyon, who the Germans took to Bron and murdered in August 1944 before leaving the area. Days later, Montluc — which the Nazis used to intern, torture, and kill people during their occupation of France — was liberated.

In a post on X/Twitter, the prefect of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the region that includes Bron, lambasted the defacement and said law enforcement had launched an investigation into the incident.

“The act of vandalism committed on the monument in homage to the dead of Montluc, victims of Nazi barbarity in Bron, is despicable,” the prefect wrote. “The [police] made the findings and opened an investigation under the direction of the judicial authority.”

So far, the perpetrators have not been identified, according to the regional French newspaper Le Progrès.

Saturday’s incident came as France has experienced a record surge of antisemitism in the wake of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Antisemitic outrages rose by over 1,000 percent in the final three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 1,200 incidents reported — greater than the total number of incidents in France for the previous three years combined.

This year, anti-Jewish hate crimes in France have continued to skyrocket.

Last month, for example, a man wearing a sports jersey with the words “Anti-Jew” written in French was photographed riding the Paris metro, prompting an investigation by law enforcement and outcry from Jewish leaders who lamented what they described as public indifference to surging antisemitism in France.

Days earlier, a visibly Jewish teenager was assaulted by two youths as he was leaving a metro station in the northwest suburbs of Paris.

That incident followed three men brutally attacking a Jewish woman at the entrance to her home in Paris on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities. The victim stated that the assailants threatened her with a box knife, made antisemitic threats, and mentioned the events of last Oct. 7.

In September a kosher restaurant in Villeurbanne, near Lyon, was defaced with red paint and tagged with the message “Free Gaza.”

The incident came days after French police arrested a 33-year-old Algerian man suspected of trying to set a synagogue ablaze in the southern French city of la Grande-Motte.

Two months earlier, an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”

In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a different Paris suburb on June 15. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack. In response to the incident, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of antisemitism” plaguing his country.

Around the same time in June, an Israeli family visiting Paris was denied service at a hotel after an attendant noticed their Israeli passports.

In May, French police shot dead a knife-wielding Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue and threatened law enforcement in the city of Rouen.

One month earlier, a Jewish woman was beaten and raped in a suburb of Paris as “vengeance for Palestine.”

Such incidents are part of an explosion of antisemitic outrages across France that has continued since last Oct. 7.

In August, then-French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned that incidents targeting the country’s Jewish community spiked by about 200 percent since Jan. 1.

“Two-thirds of anti-religious acts … are against Jews,” he added, according to French broadcaster BFM TV.

Darmanin’s comments followed him stating weeks earlier that antisemitic acts in France have tripled over the last year. In the first half of 2024, 887 such incidents were recorded, almost triple the 304 recorded in the same period last year, he said.

Amid the wave of attacks, France held snap parliamentary elections in July which brought an anti-Israel leftist coalition to power, leading French Jews to express deep apprehension about their future status in the country.

“It seems France has no future for Jews,” Rabbi Moshe Sebbag of Paris’ Grand Synagogue told the Times of Israel following the ascension of the New Popular Front (NFP), a coalition of far-left parties. “We fear for the future of our children.”

The largest member of the NFP is the far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”) party, whose leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has been lambasted by French Jews as a threat to their community as well as those who support Israel.

Despite widespread concern among French Jews, senior officials including Macron have repeatedly said they are committing to combating antisemitism and supporting the country’s Jewish community.

The post ‘F—k Israel’: Monument in France Honoring Nazi Victims Defaced With Antisemitic Graffiti first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Conservative Pro-Israel Advocate Charlie Kirk Assassinated at University Event in Utah

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist credited with amassing youth support for the Republican Party, speaking at the inauguration of Donald Trump in January. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

Conservative activist and staunch pro-Israel advocate Charlie Kirk died on Wednesday after being shot during an event at Utah Valley University, according to a statement by US President Donald Trump posted to the Truth Social media platform. He was 31 years old.

“The great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family.”

He added, “Charlie we love you!”

Kirk — founder of the Turning Point USA nonprofit, which is credited for drawing masses of young people, typically a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, to the Republican Party — was answering audience questions when a gunman fired off the fatal shot which impacted his neck, causing him to become limp and bleed profusely.

Since the advent of his career, Kirk has been a faithful supporter of Israel, taking on activists of both the far left and far right who promoted rising antisemitism and sought to undermine the US-Israel alliance.

“There’s a dark Jew hate out there, and see it, and I see it,” Kirk told a student during a podcast episode which aired earlier this year. “Don’t get yourself involved in that. I’m telling you it will rot your brain. It’s bad for your soul. It’s bad. It’s evil. I think it’s demonic.”

Born on Oct. 14, 1993, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Kirk formally entered the political arena in 2012, five months before the reelection of former President Barack Obama, to found Turning Point USA (TPUSA) — which served as a bellwether of declining youth support for the progressive consensus on race, free speech, and economics that took hold in American college campuses in the 1960s.

TPUSA grew rapidly, challenging campus primacy of the College Republicans organization and exuding confidence in conservative ideas at a moment when political scientists and other experts speculated that the Republican Party would decline to the point that the Democratic Party would achieve long-standing majorities in local and federal government.

Following news of Kirk’s death, the Jewish community deluged social media with tributes to Kirk and prayers for his family and friends.

“Please stop what you’re doing and pray for our friend Charlie Kirk. Many in the Jewish community are reciting chapters from the Book of Psalms, and I ask you do the same,” Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish civil rights advocate, tweeted. “Something is deeply broken in America. The political violence must END. GOD HELP AMERICA.”

“We have no words,” StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, tweeted.

Meanwhile, Jewish conservative influencer Emily Austin said, “With deep pain and sorrow, we mourn the passing of Charlie Kirk. May he rest in peace, and may God welcome him into His eternal care. This is a profound loss for the world — Charlie was a truly blessed soul whose impact will never be forgotten.” 

Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika, and his two young children.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Lebanon’s Army to Disarm Hezbollah Near Israeli Border Within 3 Months in First Step to Restore State Control

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and members of the cabinet stand as they attend a cabinet session to discuss the army’s plan to disarm Hezbollah, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Sept. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Lebanon’s army plans to fully disarm Hezbollah near the Israeli border within three months, the first step in the Lebanese government’s plan to restore authority and curb the influence of the Iran-backed terror group within the country.

On Tuesday, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi confirmed to AFP that the government received a five-stage plan last week from the military to enforce a policy placing all weapons under state control.

The move follows Lebanese authorities’ approval last month of a US-backed initiative to disarm Hezbollah in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in the country’s south.

Amid mounting international pressure to disarm the terrorist group, Lebanon’s cabinet tasked the army with developing a strategy to establish a state monopoly on arms.

For years, Israel has demanded that Hezbollah be barred from carrying out activities south of the Litani, located roughly 15 miles from the Israeli border.

However, Hezbollah has pushed back against any government efforts, insisting that negotiations to dismantle its arsenal would be a serious misstep while Israel continues airstrikes in the country’s south.

The terrorist group has even threatened protests and civil unrest if the government tries to enforce control over its weapons.

But as Hezbollah emerged weakened from a yearlong conflict with Israel, calls for the Islamist group’s disarmament have gained new momentum, reshaping a power balance it had long controlled in Lebanon.

Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s attacks on Jerusalem — which they claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas amid the war in Gaza.

In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.

Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.

However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.

Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — calling this “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

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Israeli Military Expert: Doha Strike Was Backed by US and Qatar Coup, Will Bring Hostage Deal Closer

A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas leaders in Doha this week was not a rogue act of military aggression, but rather the outcome of quiet coordination between Qatar and the US that could bring a hostage deal closer, Israeli intelligence expert Eyal Pinko said on Wednesday.

The strike, which officials have said was planned months ago, came a day after 10 Israelis were killed by Hamas in Gaza and Jerusalem. Four were soldiers who died in an attack on an Israeli tank in northern Gaza. The separate shooting attack in Jerusalem, in which six Israelis were killed and several more wounded, was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Pinko, a national security expert who served in Israeli intelligence for more than three decades, said in a press briefing.

Pinko contended that while Qatar publicly condemned the attacks, it also enabled them. “I am sure they were involved and the attack was coordinated with the [Qataris],” Pinko later told The Algemeiner. 

The most recent round of negotiations to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal were nothing more than a “deception” by the US and Israel designed to gather Hamas leaders in one place “in order to set the timing to eliminate them,” he said. 

Pinko said the strike should also be seen in light of US President Donald Trump’s impatience with the stalled hostage talks, arguing it showed Trump was on board with assassinations of Hamas leaders despite public declarations that he was “very unhappy” with the attack. He also pointed to Trump’s comments from last month, in which the US president predicted the Gaza conflict would reach a “conclusive ending” within two or three weeks.

Qatar, which has long hosted Hamas’s exiled leadership, benefits strategically from replacing the terrorist group’s leaders loyal to Iran with figures it can trust, Pinko maintained. Doha holds billions of dollars belonging to Hamas officials and has no interest in letting Ankara or Tehran displace it as the group’s patron. The timing of the attack is also significant, Pinko said, coming in the wake of Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program over the summer. “Iran is in a very bad situation. Qatar can easily overcome Iran,” he said.

Pinko further argued that the strike may serve to bring forward the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza since Hamas itself was no longer a coherent negotiating partner. The terrorist group operating in Gaza had become fragmented, “divided into five families that are fighting each other” and sometimes giving the impression that “they hate each other more than they hate Israel,” Pinko said. Recent talks proved “there was no longer a decisionmaker in Hamas,” and this disarray had allowed Hamas leaders to drag out the process with unrealistic demands. Removing those figures, he argued, would leave room for Qatar to install leaders who could cut a deal. “This will make the negotiation process much faster,” he said.

Pinko’s assessment stands in stark contrast to the fears of some of the families of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, who said in a statement they had “grave fear” the Doha strike could sabotage the chances of bringing their loved ones home. 

He placed the operation in a wider context, linking it to the revival of the Abraham Accords and US efforts to build a trade corridor from India through the Gulf to Israel and Europe as a counterweight to China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, ending with Gaza as a key trade hub. “Trump is very serious in making the northern part of the Gaza Strip as [having] US autonomy. That will be the end of the American belt and road initiative to compete with the Chinese,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar, which “gives safe haven [and] harbors terrorists,” to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don’t, “we will.”

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his part said his country would retaliate over the strike, and accused Netanyahu of “wasting” Qatar’s time in negotiations and “leading the Middle East to chaos.”

Pinko called out Doha for its “duplicity” in pretending to be a peacemaker on the one hand, while “fueling Hamas and hatred” in the US and Europe, on the other. 

“They are against Israel in their DNA. They don’t want Israel to exist,” he said. “So Gaza and Hamas are a very important asset for them.”

Some critics have denounced the Doha strike as a violation of international law, but international law experts note that Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes a state’s inherent right to self-defense and that this right is not confined by geography if attacks are directed from outside its borders. The so-called “unwilling or unable” doctrine holds that if a host country does not act against militants on its soil, the victim state may use proportionate force.

The US relied on this doctrine when it killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in a 2011 operation that was widely hailed by Western governments and the UN, whose then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said at the time that he was “very much relieved by news that justice has been done” and called it “a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.”

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