Jewish members of an extremist leftwing terrorist organization, “Direct Action,” last night claimed responsibility for the attack on an Israeli diplomat’s car. Direct Action, a group which has carried out numerous attacks on western diplomats in Paris, said that some of its “Jewish members carried out the attack to protest the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and to prevent the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Three shots were fired last evening at the parked car belonging to a low ranking official serving with the Israel Embassy here. The car was empty and Embassy spokesmen said the owner has been on summer vacation for more than a week.
The Direct Action statement said that some of its Jewish members carried out the attack under the name of “Special Action Group Marcel Rayman.” The statement also referred to Thomas Elek and Mendel Langer. All three were prominent leaders of the anti-Nazi Jewish Communist resistance movement during World War II. They were captured by the Nazis and executed in 1944. The statement said, “We shall remain faithful to the example given to us by the three” former Jewish resistance fighters.
Police believe Direct Action is responsible for the murder of an American deputy military attache in Paris and for the machine gunning of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s purchasing mission here last spring. According to local intelligence reports, many of the terrorist organization’s members come from middle class Jewish families.
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