For video
http://youtu.be/ge8h8XCeaGs
[Dr. Aaron Lerner -: It was an extremely emotional moment.
Yes. The crowd applauded up to this point of Mr. Netanyahu's remarks.
Yes. they applauded when he said "You have the full right to live in safety
and tranquility as citizens with equal rights wherever you wish, including
here in France."
But there was a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT response to the following lines:
"But Jews of our time have been blessed with another right, a right that did
not exist for previous generations of Jews: The right to join their Jewish
brothers and sisters in our historic homeland, the Land of Israel; the right
to live in our free country, the one and only Jewish state, the State of
Israel; the right to stand tall and proud at the walls of Zion, our eternal
capital of Jerusalem.
Any Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel will be welcomed with open arms
and warm and accepting hearts. They will not arrive in a foreign land but
rather the land of our forefathers. God willing, they will come and many of
you will come to our home. Am Yisrael Chai."
There are some in the Israeli media who are so hell bent to spin every iota
of news in order to try and defeat Binyamin Netanyahu in the coming
elections that they insisted on putting these words in a bad light - as if
the French Jews hearing it were somehow offended.
But the French Jews in that room responded in a way that indicated that they
were anything but offended.
They ROARED IN APPROVAL.
They cheered these words in a way that made their response to everything
before it no more than a formality.
And then the cantor lead in the singing of the Prayer for the State of
Israel.
The media in Israel has been going overtime picking away at Netanyahu's
visit.
Some are claiming it was improper for Netanyahu to push to the front line of
the march - the front line that [master world leader?] Abbas was already
strategically placed in for the photo op.
Improper? Anything but. He did his job.
And then some of the same idiots are complaining that when the bus Binyamin
Netanyahu was supposed to board pulled out without him that it was bad
behavior for Netanyahu and his security team to push ahead of many to get
into the next bus. Why idiots? Because the clock was ticking for a
security nightmare.
================
PM Netanyahu's Remarks at the Great Synagogue of Paris 11/01/2015
GPO Translation
On this day, all citizens of Israel and Jews around the world stand with
France and the French people. I greatly appreciate the determined stance of
the President of France, Francois Hollande, and Prime Minister Valls against
any expression of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism and against terror. This
stance is important to France and it is important to the world.
I wish to convey my condolences to the families of the journalists and
police and all those innocent people who were murdered while realizing their
most basic rights: freedom of expression, freedom of thought and freedom of
belief, even the freedom not to believe. These are the values on which
modern France is built and these are values that are worth fighting for.
Today I marched through the streets of Paris, in one line with leaders from
around the world, in order to say that terror must end. It is time that we
fight against terror together. And I would like to use this opportunity to
salute the French security forces who acted with remarkable bravery, as well
as to express my appreciation to the Malian, who is a Muslim, who helped
save seven Jews.
My dear brothers and sisters, I came here from Jerusalem, the eternal
capital of Israel, to share in your pain over the murders of
Francois-Michel, Philippe, Yoav and of Yohan, who bravely tried to grab the
terrorist's gun and was fatally wounded. The memory of our four holy
brothers will be forever engraved on the hearts of our people.
Unfortunately the people of Israel have experienced this pain. We have
experienced it many times because we have been fighting against terror for
many years, and like many in Israel, I am personally familiar with the
wounds of terror as well as the agony of bereavement. As a soldier, I was
wounded in an operation to free hostages who had been kidnapped on a Sabena
airplane. My late brother, Yoni, was killed in Entebbe when rescuing the
hostages kidnapped on an Air France airplane. For years, the best of our
sons and daughters were killed in many terror attacks, and the finest of our
fighters fell in heroic battles against terrorism, including just recently
during Operation Protective Edge.
Today we bow our heads in memory of the victims in Paris. However, as
representatives of an ancient and proud people, we stand tall against evil
because we can overcome it. "The more they were oppressed, the more they
multiplied and spread" – because truth and justice are on our side. And here
is the truth: Our shared enemy is radical Islam, not Islam and not just
radicals – radical Islam. This form of Islam has many names: ISIS, Hamas,
Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, al-Shabab, Hezbollah; but they are all
branches from the same poison tree.
Although the various factions of radical Islam are given to local bloody
conflicts, including amongst themselves, they all share the same aspiration:
To impose a dark tyranny on the world, to return humanity one thousand years
to the past. They trample anyone who does not share their path, first and
foremost their Muslim brothers, but their greatest hatred is saved for
Western culture, that same culture that respects freedom and equal rights –
all the things they so despise.
For this reason it is not a coincidence that radical Islam has sought to
destroy Israel from the very day it declared its independence: Because
Israel is the only Western democracy in the Middle East, because Israel is
the only place that is truly safe for Christians, women, minorities, that
respects all human rights.
Well, here is another truth: Radical Islam does not hate the West because of
Israel. It hates Israel because it is an organic part of the West. It
rightly views Israel as an island of Western democracy and tolerance in an
ocean of fanaticism and violence that it wishes to impose on the Middle
East, Europe and the entire world.
Israel is not under attack because of this or that detail of its policies,
but rather because of its very existence and nature. But we are not the only
ones under attack. Look around you: The entire world is under attack, the
entire world – the Twin Towers in New York, the subways in London and
Madrid, tourists in Bali, students at schools in Russia and Pakistan, a
hotel in Mumbai, the mall in Nairobi.
A very short path connects the issuing of the fatwa against the author
Salman Rushdie, the murder of Theo van Gogh in Holland and the attacks on
Jews in Israel and around the world – it is a short distance from this to
the murderous attacks in Paris on the office of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher
supermarket not far from here. These are not isolated actions and we must
see what they have in common. Otherwise we will not be able to fight against
terror in methodical and consistent manner.
We must recognize that there is a global network of radical Islam at work –
a network of hatred, fanaticism and murder. I believe that this threat will
only grow larger when thousands of terrorists come to Europe from the
killing fields of the Middle East. The danger will grow much greater and
will become a serious threat to humanity at large if radical Islam gains
control over nuclear weapons, and therefore we must use all means to prevent
Iran from acquiring an atomic weapon. We must support each other in this
fateful struggle against radical Islamic fanatics wherever they are.
Israel stands with Europe and Europe must stand with Israel. As the
civilized world today stands with France against terror, so must it stand
with Israel against terror. It is the exact same terror. Those who
slaughtered Jews in the synagogue in Jerusalem and those who slaughtered
Jews and journalists in Paris belong to the same murderous terrorist
movement. They should be condemned in the same measure and they must be
fought in the same manner.
Only when the international community fights our shared enemy in a uniform
manner will we know that we are on the path to victory. I promise you:
Israel will continue to fight against terror. Israel will continue to defend
itself and we know that when we defend ourselves, we defend the entire
civilized world.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, Jews of France, I would like to say to you
what I say to our Jewish brothers and sisters from all countries: You have
the full right to live in safety and tranquility as citizens with equal
rights wherever you wish, including here in France. But Jews of our time
have been blessed with another right, a right that did not exist for
previous generations of Jews: The right to join their Jewish brothers and
sisters in our historic homeland, the Land of Israel; the right to live in
our free country, the one and only Jewish state, the State of Israel; the
right to stand tall and proud at the walls of Zion, our eternal capital of
Jerusalem.
Any Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel will be welcomed with open arms
and warm and accepting hearts. They will not arrive in a foreign land but
rather the land of our forefathers. God willing, they will come and many of
you will come to our home. Am Yisrael Chai.
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