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Even early Tuesday morning, Vienna was unable to wake up from the night of nightmares. In a coordinated terrorist attack involving six downtown locations as of this writing
In any case, Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish community in Vienna, wrote about the latter on Twitter:
You can follow our ongoing news story on the terrorist attack in Vienna here in the Index. This morning an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers will be held in Vienna.
But the Austrian media had already drawn two parallels in the evening. One is that what happened is linked to the wave of terror in France in recent weeks and the resurgence of the Muhammad cartoons, which has upset the Muslim world not only against Paris but against the entire West.
The leading Viennese newspaper believes: “Austria has never been protected from this, even if many would have liked to think so … The (objective) was obviously to kill as many people as possible. Indiscriminate, cruel and ruthless ”.
The other major Viennese newspaper, Der Standard, draws an even more concrete parallel to the Mohamed cartoons and fears that the perpetrators will turn out to be Austrian residents.
According to the liberal newspaper, Austria has become a pioneer in the ongoing attack on Europe and Western values and fears “that the perpetrators are real from here.”
Macron in German: We won’t let you!
For all these reasons, it is significant that French President Emmanuel Macron was one of the first in Europe to condemn the assassination attempt in Vienna, as well as in German:
We French share the shock and sadness of the Austrians after an attack in Vienna. After France, it is a friendly country that is under attack. This is our Europe. Our enemies need to know who they are dealing with. We will not give up on anything.
– Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 2, 2020
After France, a friendly country was attacked. This is our Europe. Our enemies need to know who they are dealing with. We will not miss anything!
The Palestinian Thread: 1981, 1985
The other parallel that Der Standard refers to is the wave of Palestinian terror of the 1980s, which hit Vienna twice. In 1981, Abu Nidal’s hostile terrorist organization against Israel, which had split from Yasser Arafat Fatah a few years earlier, attacked the same Viennese synagogue, the Stadttempel, near which a murder was carried out tonight. The assault with a firearm and grenades was carried out on the occasion of the inauguration of a Jew, although it was a mitzvah ceremony; two people died, thirty were injured. A Jordanian perpetrator and another Iraqi were convicted. In 1985, terrorists from Abu Nidal (Palestine) also carried out an attack at Schwechat airport, against passengers waiting for the Israeli airline El-Al, also with hand grenades and firearms. Three died and more than forty were injured. One of the perpetrators was shot dead and two were convicted.
Among the injured were Hungarian actors preparing for an appearance as Israeli guests. Géza Molnár Szegedi (1939-2008) suffered a spinal cord injury so severe that he was paralyzed for the rest of his life. Ervin Kibédi (1924-1997) was also injured.
Top image: Police and fire brigade near the Stadttempel synagogue in Vienna on November 2, 2020 – MTI / EPA / Christian Bruna
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