A Paris conference featuring Israeli speakers was interrupted briefly by a man who threatened to jump from the building’s roof.
The conference, which was organized by the France-Israel Association and conservative Jewish activist lawyer William Goldnadel, featured Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu and former chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon. As a handful of pro-Palestinian demonstrators with large banners and Palestinian flags chanted slogans outside calling Ya’alon a war criminal, the man climbed to the roof of the five-story Lawyers Guild building and threatened to jump if two Palestinians were not released from a Paris jail.
Police and firemen immediately surrounded the building, while a guild official interrupted the conference, attended by several hundred people, to inform the participants about the situation. Firefighters set up a hook-and-ladder truck on the side of the building and climbed up to speak with the jumper; the conference broke early for lunch.
The man, in his mid-20s, was convinced to leave the roof and was led away in handcuffs by police. It was not clear if he was linked to the demonstrators.
Ya’alon left the building without being bothered and returned to speak in the afternoon.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
