What's Causing the Anti-Semitic Attacks?

When French president Jacques Chirac learned on Nov. 15 that a Jewish school had been set ablaze in the Paris suburb of Gagny, he sounded the tocsin. Officials flocked to the scene of the fire, and, 48 hours later, Chirac summoned his closest advisers to the Elysée Palace to brainstorm new ways to fight anti-Semitism. "When one attacks a Jew in France, it's France in its entirety that is attacked," he told reporters. "Anti-Semitism is contrary to all the values of France."

Chirac has said that before. But this time, something was different. When a wave of anti-Semitic...