Stages of loss in Toulouse

All Thursday’s Israeli media eyes are fixed on Toulouse, where the standoff between Mohammed Merah — the confessed “scooter shooter” — and French security forces continued till after press time (it ended at about 1 p.m. the next day).

Rage

From the front page of every paper stares Merah’s “face of evil,” as Israel Hayom calls it: image captures from video footage published by France 2 on Wednesday night showing Merah joyriding in a car.

His admissions to the police and French press — “I wanted to take revenge on Israel for killing my Palestinian brothers, I only regret not killing more,” and that he intended “to bring France to her knees”– are judge and jury for Israel’s tabloids. Maariv calls Merah the “Toulouse terrorist,” Yedioth Ahronoth simply “the murderer.” Only Haaretz correctly calls him “the suspect” in its headline.

Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv detail the emerging profile of the alleged murderer. Merah’s friends describe a typical 20-something-year old, interested in girls, mopeds, sports, and nightlife — hardly the typical jihadist. Maariv’s headline reads, “From football and nightclubs to murdering children.” Yedioth Ahronoth describe him as a “mechanic, jihadist, murderer of children.”

Haaretz sticks to hard facts. Its headline reads: “The murderer: criminal in Toulouse, terrorist in Kandahar.” Merah has a lengthy criminal record — no fewer than 15 criminal convictions in his 24 years of life. Although these were largely minor offenses, Yedioth Ahronoth writes that police psychologists who spoke with Merah pegged him as a “violent, cold-spirited criminal.”

According to French intelligence, he was a member of Forsane Alizza, an outlawed radical Muslim group, and in 2007 was in Pakistan and Afghanistan for terrorist boot camp before he was imprisoned by Afghan troops in Kandahar. He was later freed by Taliban fighters and escaped back to France. According to Merah, he was sent by al-Qaeda.

Frustration

The Israeli media detail the police’s daylong siege of Merah’s apartment, and images of ski-masked special forces officers outside Mareh’s building adorn the papers. Haaretz gives the play-by-play: Merah called France24, telling a journalist of his motivation; 400 police encircled Merah’s building; Merah fires on officers, injuring two; negotiations which last most of the day begin, and Merah trades his Colt .45 for a cell phone.

President Sarkozy ordered the police to take Mareh alive, and as of the time that the papers were printed, Merah remained barricaded, and the siege continued.

Writing in Israel Hayom, Brig. Gen. (ret.) David Zur, formerly of the Israel Police, commends the management of the Mareh situation by the French police. Despite the difficulty of the circumstances — “a surgical procedure in a populated area and an arrest operation after exchanging live fire”– the siege of Mareh’s apartment is clearly under their complete control. Their prioritization of intelligence work, protecting the lives of civilians, and use of negotiation over brute force receives Zur’s praise.

Sorrow

Alongside the suspected murderer are images of the victims and their mourners. In Jerusalem, those killed at Ozar Hatorah were buried in Israel. “How do we proceed from here?” asks Yedioth Ahronoth’s headline, in bold red letters beneath pictures of mourners at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery. Every paper captures what Israel Hayom terms the “unfathomable crime” with a shot of thousands of solemn, black-clad people surrounding four bodies — one larger than its three companions.

Haaretz quotes French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe telling the bereaved that though their loved ones are buried in Jerusalem, “we will honor their memory in France.” He closed his eulogy with Hebrew words of consolation: “Their souls shall be bound in the bond of life.”

In France, tricolor-draped coffins borne by paratroopers received their last respects from President Nicolas Sarkozy. Eulogizing the slain soldiers, Sarkozy negated Merah’s comment to police, saying “the terrorist wanted to bring the Republic to her knees, but failed, as did his attempt to divide the Republic and weaken it.”

Yedioth quotes the French president telling Jewish and Muslim community leaders that “the very fact that the despicable murderer mentioned Israel as a pretext for murder is a sacrilege.”

Reactions to Toulouse

MK Daniel Ben Simon (Labor) calls France an “illusion of home” in Maariv, and predicts a new wave of French aliya. French Jewry, he says, many of whom fled Muslim animosity in North Africa, have long considered Israel a second home, a security policy against the rising Muslim hostility in France.

“In the coming summer,” Ben Simon writes, “French Jews will hop over to Israel to enjoy their traditional summer vacation here. It is nearly certain that many will look at Israel with different eyes: not only as a preferred and beloved tourist destination, but as another stop, perhaps a final stop, on their long and excruciating wandering journey.”

Sefy Hendler raises the more poignant question asked in France of late in Haaretz: Is France incompatible with Islam? “How will France vomit up [Mareh] and his like from its midst without causing more and more tensions which threaten the basis of modern France: “liberty, equality, fraternity.” France will have to redefine what it means to be French; “unfortunately, it is not clear that the current presidential election will give them such a model,” Hendler says.