Yves Herman/Reuters
The State Department is backing up President Obama’s assertion in an interview with Vox that the victims of a terrorist attack on a kosher deli in Paris last month were targeted at “random.” The lead spokesperson for the State Department, Jen Psaki, said Tuesday: “They were not all victims of one background or one nationality.” Psaki emphasized that the store was a Jewish grocery but the people inside were targeted individually. Psaki is wrong, though: All four victims were Jewish (and buried in Israel). Furthermore, gunman Amedy Coulibay called from inside the store to a broadcast news outlet and said: “I have 16 hostages and I have killed four, and I targeted them because they were Jewish.”
Psaki later tweeted: "We have always been clear that the attack on the kosher grocery store was an anti-semitic attack that took the lives of innocent people."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also defended the administration via Twitter: "Our view has not changed. Terror attack at Paris Kosher market was motivated by anti-Semitism. POTUS didn't intend to suggest otherwise."