France
“Masada, Action and Defense Movement,” is a group that claimed responsibility for three small bombing incidents in France. The first bombing was in October 1972; the target was an Arab bookstore. Some 16 years later, two separate bombings targeted hostels housing North African immigrants.
On the surface, the bombings seem to suggest that Masada was a Jewish terrorist group. At the scene of the 1988 attacks, anti-Muslim leaflets were found bearing Jewish stars, and in a claim of responsibility, a caller to the Nice-Matin newspaper said that “Masada was ‘the secular arm of execution’ of the national council of French Jewish groups.” Even the name of the group, Masada, an ancient Jewish fortress and symbol of resistance, implies a Jewish organization was behind the attacks.
However, a year after the bombings, French police arrested several ultra-right extremists who admitted to carrying out the attacks on the hostels, as well as several other bombings. The perpetrators were not Jewish, but were in fact French racists, who had hoped that the hostel bombings would inflame tensions between Arabs and Jews alike. The name “Masada” was a smokescreen for the group's true motivations and goals.
“Masada, Action and Defense Movement” is inactive.
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