Mohamad Merah

The massacre of Jewish children at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse presents us with an appalling encapsulation of the depraved nature of our times - although at first glance, the opposite seems to be the case.

On the surface, the situation was cut and dry. A murderer drove up to a Jewish school and executed three children and a teacher.

An investigation by Israeli intelligence revealed on Monday that Mohamed Merah, the gunmen responsible for last week’s Toulouse shootings, spent time in Israel and Palestinian territories over a year and a half ago.

"I will hire the best lawyers and work for the rest of my life to pay the fees. I'm going to file a lawsuit against France for having killed my son," declared Mohamed Benalel Merah. "France is a great country that had the means to arrest my son alive. They could have knocked him out with gas and arrested him. They preferred to kill him," he affirmed.

Muslim extremists commonly justify the deliberate murder of innocent Jewish and Israeli civilians as an act of retaliation for what they deem to be the predicament of the Palestinians. Yet it is important to state loudly and clearly that jihadi terrorism is a grave threat to all law-abiding citizens — not just Jews. In France, it was not only Jews who were targeted by Mohammed Merah; French soldiers were also murdered, and by chance, they were all French citizens from minority groups, some of them Muslim.

In a drama gripping France five weeks before a presidential election, some 300 police have laid siege since Wednesday to the five-storey house in a suburb of the prosperous industrial town in a bid to capture the shooter, Mohamed Merah.

According to the Shin Bet, Merah entered Israel after crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in September 2010. He was investigated by the Shin Bet. The investigation did not bring up any suspicious information, and he was allowed to enter the country.

Furthermore, The Shin Bet investigation could not confirm a claim by the French intelligence that Merah was arrested in Israel with a knife.

Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, all of France decried the massacre and announced its solidarity with the French Jewish community. World leaders condemned the crime. The killer died in a standoff with French security forces. Justice was served. Case closed.