Those of you who were worried that repeated Muslim attacks on French Jewish kids was a problem can rest your minds at ease:

Paris judicial officials have decided that an attack on three Jewish youths earlier this month did not have anti-Semitic motives and charged five suspects Wednesday with voluntary violence... A judicial official said preliminary charges of voluntary violence were filed Wednesday against five youths - two of them minors - in connection with the incident... The charges were filed after the prosecutors office dismissed suspicions the violence was motivated by anti-Semitism... The assault occurred on a street in a working class neighborhood of eastern Paris where a Jewish teenager was beaten in June.

Which is a weird finding, since it looked enough like anti-Semitism to get condemned as such at France's highest political levels:

Three Jewish youths on their way to the Paris branch of the Bnei Akiva movement were attacked by a group of teens on Saturday, a short while before the end of the Sabbath. The three youths were hospitalized for a day due to the facial fractions caused by stones that were thrown at them by the attackers... one of the Jewish youths suffered a broken nose and another a fractured cheekbone, while all three had considerable contusions... Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie issued a statement saying she "strongly condemned the anti-Semitic violence."

At least that kind of legal and bureacratic acquiescence could never happen in the US:

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a man who stormed into a Jewish center two years ago and shot six women, killing one, as he ranted against Israel and the Iraq war. Jurors... were hopelessly deadlocked and struggling to determine whether Naveed Haq, 32, was not guilty by reason of insanity... "There is no argument Haq killed Pam. There is no argument he viciously shot five others. There is no argument that he made anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements. Somehow, all this was not enough," Jewish Federation President Richard Fruchter said.

So - presumably - the jury would have been willing to convict a sane anti-Semite who blamed Jews for global conflict and shot up Jewish children. It's just that this particular anti-Semite was insane. It's not that anti-Semitism is now literally a Get Out Of Jail Free card - that's be absurd.

Also back on the global agenda: blood libel. From vicious leaflets in Russia to "the Jews have it coming" justifications in Australia, the true classics never get old. Meanwhile there's audacious anti-Semitic vandalism in Milan, "No Jews Allowed" restaurants in Belgium, and a return to popular anti-Semitism in Germany. To say nothing of the age-old anti-Semitic canards being screamed at political rallies in Los Angeles.

I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Probably just over-exuberant anti-Zionism.

References and Previously moved behind the jump...