Violent Islamists have murdered two members of Morocco's shrinking Jewish community in the past four days and look set to drive out most of the remaining members of a community whose history stretches back centuries.
| That's that "path that respects diversity, pioneers new ideas and empowers people throughout society" that King Abdullah was talking about yesterday... |
The stabbing to death of 75-year-old Elie Afrat as he left his house in Meknes, 90 miles east of Rabat, to go to the synagogue on Saturday has finally shattered what the Moroccan authorities had always held up as a model of coexistence between Muslims and Jews.
| 75 years old, was he? That's the kind of target Islamists like best. Shows their bravery, y'know... |
The killing of Mr Afrat, one of just 120 Jews left in Meknes, came two days after a similar murder in Casablanca. On that occasion the victim was Albert Revivo, 55, a timber trader in the city's Lakria market. The authorities and community leaders first claimed that Mr Revivo's murder was connected to the black market and smuggling trade that goes through Lakria. But the killing of Mr Afrat, whose unidentified assailant ran off, drove home the message Islamist militants first sent when they bombed a Jewish centre in Casablanca on May 16. A series of suicide bombings that day, which killed 45 people in Morocco's first experience of Islamist terror, also targeted a restaurant in the city owned by a Moroccan Jew. Serge Berdugo, general secretary of Morocco's Jewish association, said: "These are all acts of terrorism aimed against us, and through us against all Morocco." A Jewish woman told the Spanish newspaper El Pais yesterday: "We must leave, not just for own security but for that of our children. What future do [Jews] have left if they must live in hiding?" Although Morocco's monarchs, including the current king, have traditionally sworn to protect the country's Jews, the community has fallen from 350,000 to 3,500 in half a century. Most young Jews have emigrated either to Europe or to Israel, where some 700,000 people claim Moroccan origin. Morocco held local elections last Friday, in which the country's main legal Islamic party, the Justice and Development party, made modest gains, despite a campaign against it by Moroccan authorities and the pro-government press, which have accused it of "moral responsibility" for the May 16 attacks. |