Netanyahu:"Forget Europe, We're Doing Business with Asia"

With the International Criminal Court opening an investigation against Israel and anti-Semitic incidents becoming more frequent, Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu suggested Sunday that Israeli businesspeople change their focus from Western Europe to other areas. 

Such a change, he said at Sunday's cabinet meeting, would be an appropriate response to the ongoing “Islamization” and “anti-Zionist” positions countries in Europe are espousing, he said.

Instead, he said, Israel should concentrate its efforts on developing markets in the East – like in Japan, where Israeli companies were welcome, as evidenced by the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a visit that began Sunday. 

“I am emphasizing markets in the East not in order to give up other markets, but we specifically want to reduce our dependence on certain markets in Western Europe,” Netanyahu said Sunday.

“Western Europe is undergoing a wave of Islamization, there is anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. 

We want to secure the future of Israel, by developing a variety of markets around the world,” Netanyahu added.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel imported NIS 70.1 billion of goods and services from the European Union between January and November of 2014, and exported NIS 49.9 billion there. 

During that period, imports from Asia were NIS 44.1 billion, while exports were NIS 31.7 billion.

'Son of Imad Mugniyeh Killed' in IAF Syria Strike

Hezbollah admitted today that one of its senior men was killed along with four Iranians in an IAF strike in Syria. 

Reports quoted in Israeli media said that the man is Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah officer who was also killed by Israel several years ago.

The men were reportedly assisting terrorists in preparing missiles for launch against Israel. 

"A group of Hezbollah mujahedeen were martyred in a Zionist rocket attack in Quneitra, and their names will be revealed later," said a message flashed on Hezbollah's Al Manar news channel Sunday.

AFP reported that a source in Israel's defense establishment confirmed that Israel had carried out an attack in Syrian territory. Such admissions by Israel are rare.

Al Manar reported that an IAF helicopter fired rockets at Jabhat al-Nusra targets near the Golan border, in the early afternoon.

According to Elnashra, a news source with close ties to Hezbollah, a senior Hezbollah operative was hurt. It later turned out that he was killed.

Jabhat al-Nusra is Al Qaeda's Syrian arm.

According to Al Manar, two rockets were fired at a target in Mazraat al-Amal near Quneitra.

Meanwhile, Al Mayadeen TV said that the missiles were launched by an IAF aircraft, without specifying that it was a helicopter.

Western security sources said that the missiles were fired at a team of terrorists who had begun laying explosive charges on the Syria-Israel border near Quneitra.

According to the report, shortly before the IAF struck, two drones were seen circling above the area, apparently to collect intelligence.

Mazraat al-Amal is located in the Syrian Golan, near the border with Israel, and recent reports said that Jabhat al-Nusra forces were occupying it.

The IDF refused to formally confirm or deny the report of the strike and said that it “does not respond to reports in foreign media.”

Earlier in the day, it was reported that Israeli forces fired smoke grenades and tear gas toward Lebanese territory. Three Lebanese soldiers were taken to a hospital for treatment following that incident.

Hezbollah Nearing Bankruptcy

Hashem works in strange ways, let's hope the following report from Newsweek is true!

Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is on the verge of bankruptcy, according to a report in Newsweek.

The terror group's financial troubles are a fallout from the dramatic slide in the price of oil, the report claimed. 

Hezbollah receives most of its funding from Iran, but Tehran - which is losing tens of millions weekly because of the lower prices for what is virtually its sole export - has been forced to cut allocations to “special projects,” like funding Hezbollah terrorism.

The magazine interviewed several Lebanese who claimed to be Hezbollah members, and complained that they had not been paid for several weeks. Others said that they were being denied medical care and pensions.

In addition, Hezbollah has less money in its “slush funds” to bribe politicians. According to the report, a Druze politician affiliated with the terror group saw his monthly “take” reduced from $60,000 to $20,000, while another's payoff was cut to $15,000 from $40,000.

This is not the first time Hezbollah has faced a financial crisis, Newsweek noted. In 2008, the price of oil fell to $32 after peaking six months earlier at $147, and payments from Iran fell by half, according to experts' estimates. 

With analysts predicting that the price of oil is likely to stay low for the foreseeable future, top Hezbollah terrorists are scrambling to make up the losses from Iran, the report said.

But according to Matthew Levitt, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., the current crisis is the worst the terror group has faced, the report quoted him as saying. "I think Hezbollah is very concerned,” says Levitt. “When you position yourself as the party which fills these needs, expectations grow."

The drop in oil prices is believed to be the direct result of a form of "economic warfare" by Iran's arch-nemesis, Saudi Arabia, which flooded the market with its own oil reserves late last year.

The impact on Hezbollah is just the latest headache for the Shia Islamist group, which has endured mounting casualties in Syria, where it is fighting alongside pro-regime forces.

Hezbollah was also recently shaken by revelations that an alleged Israeli agent had reportedly managed to infiltrate the group's highest operational echelons.

Obama: Europe should better integrate Muslims

Nope, this is not a joke! 

 US President Barack Obama on Friday urged European governments to try to better assimilate their Muslim minority populations as they respond to extremist attacks like last week’s shootings in Paris.

At a White House news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, his first foreign guest since last week’s Charlie Hebdo massacre, Obama said the allies would stand by France.

But he also warned that the answer to the recent violence must not simply be a security crackdown.

“I know David joins me when I say that we will continue to do everything in our power to help France seek the justice that is needed, and that all our countries are working together seamlessly to prevent attacks and to defeat these terrorist networks,” Obama said.

Obama said the Paris attacks “underscored how terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) are actively trying to inspire and support people within our own countries to engage in terrorism.”

The US leader said the 2013 Boston marathon bombing showed that the United States was not entirely safe from Islamic militant cells, but suggested that it had had more success than others in integrating minorities.

“Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations feel themselves to be Americans and there is this incredible process of immigration and assimilation that is part of our tradition,” he said.

“There are parts of Europe in which that’s not the case... it’s important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems.”

And he added: “There also has to be a recognition that the stronger the ties of a North African or a Frenchman of North African descent to French liberties, that’s going to be important over time.”

He said the United States would hold a summit in February on countering violent extremism and the threat of radicalised Islamist fighters returning to their home countries from the war in Syria.

“David and the United Kingdom continue to be strong partners in this work, including sharing intelligence and strengthening border security,” he said, dubbing Britain an “indispensable ally.”

THREATS TO STABILITY

Cameron said the two had agreed to set up “a joint group to identify what more we can do to counter the rise of domestic violent extremism and to learn from one another.”

He described the battle facing Western governments as a “long, patient and hard struggle” and dubbed the enemy a “poisonous fanatical death cult... perverting the religion of Islam.”

The United States and Britain already cooperate closely in global electronic surveillance, and Cameron said the two leaders had agreed to deepen their cooperation on cyber-security.

In a separate statement, the White House said the US National Security Agency and FBI would form a joint cyber-security cell with British domestic intelligence MI5 and eavesdropping agency GCHQ.

This will speed intelligence sharing and strengthen the allies’ defences against cyber-attacks from foreign governments and criminals, the leaders said.

The partners will begin their reinforced cooperation with a year-long exercise to test and strengthen the defences of the financial sector.

In recent weeks, Washington has been embarrassed by the seizure of a military Twitter account by Islamic militant sympathisers and angered by North Korea’s alleged hacking of Hollywood studio Sony Pictures.

But trans-Atlantic partnership has also had successes.

A young hacker – suspected of taking part in attacks that shut down online gaming platforms over Christmas – was arrested Friday in a joint operation with the FBI and British police.

Obama, 53, is beginning his last two years in office, while Cameron, 48, is preparing for general elections in May that are expected to be very close and could mark the end of his coalition government.

Agudat Yisroel defies Internet Ban and establishes a Website

The don't call the website "Agudas Yisroel" ....naaa that would make it too obvious....
They sugar coat it .. calling the website 

"Lefkowitz Leadership Initiative" "LLI" ...

but the Website is ONLY about Agudah! 
Its Logo is the Aguda logo..

They do have a tiny warning ... and you need a magnifying glass to read it!

A division of Agudath Israel of America • ע"ש רב ישראל לעפקאוויץ ז"ל LLI Encourages our Visitors to Heed the Words of our Gedolim with Regard to Internet Use

Now I believe that they should have a website.. I'm all for it!

So my question is, What kind of message is this? 
And how do you reconcile the ban of the internet, with having a website?

Victim of Paris terror attack urged friend to keep Shabbat before he was killed

On the last morning of his life, Yoav Hattab, 21, urged a friend to try and keep Shabbat.

Less then two hours before the young man entered a Paris kosher supermarket to buy wine for Friday night dinner, Yoav had the following SMS exchange with a friend.

At 11:24 a.m. Yoav wrote, “try to make the Shabbat as soon as you arrive.”

The friend responded at 11:53, “this Shabbat is very stressful. I have exams tomorrow morning and I’m taking a flight, but after the Shabbat.”

Within seconds Yoav wrote back, “This is a difficult time in France for Jews. At least try.” He added in a subsequent message, “Do not do everything, but at least try to do something.”

At 11:54 the friend wrote, “Ok, don’t worry; of course I'll do it.”

Yoav wrote, “You’re the bomb.”

“Lol, thank you," the friend wrote.

Yoav, the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis lived in Paris where he studied marketing and worked in an office near the Hyper Cacher supermarket.

He had arrived home just one week earlier from Israel, where he had participated in a ten-day Taglit-Birthright trip to Israel for young adults from France. The trip strengthened his dream of immigrating to Israel. 

You was one of four victims of a terrorist attack at the kosher market. Their bodies were flown to Israel. The victims were eulogized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, before burial in Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem.

Since then their families have sat shiva in Israel. On Thursday relatives and friends of the Hattab family gathered in a series of small apartments in a Jerusalem building, to mourn Yoav. 

People who did not know Yoav, but simply wanted to show support for the family, also made their way in the rain, to the shiva. 

His younger sister Hannah, 16, one Yoav’s eight siblings, told The Jerusalem Post that the morning of the attack started out as the most normal of days. 

She went to school and then shopped for a few items for Shabbat before arriving home.

There was no sense of the tragedy that would soon occur, she recalled, although her mother later said she had a sense of foreboding.

As she ate a snack in her kitchen with family members, Hannah said her oldest brother Avisahy walked in and asked where Yoav lived in Paris and explained there had been a terror attack.  

Hannah said she turned on the television to see what she could learn and they tried calling Yoav, but his phone was off, even his WhatsApp did not work. They called people who knew him including his best friend, who told them that he knew for sure that Yoav was in the kosher market because he had walked there with him.

Yoav was killed early in the attack around 1 p.m, Hannah said. But in Tunis, they did not yet know he had already died. As they wait for hours for more information they prayed, recited psalms and cried, she recalled.

“In our hearts we already felt the loss,” she said.

They learned of his death only around 9 p.m., said Hannah, who described the moment her father Binyamin looked at her mother and said, “Tamar, Yoav has died.” 

“It was I was like I was on another planet. It did not seem possible,” she said as she explained that she was very close to him.

“He always told me, ‘I love you, my dear one.’ And I answered him, ‘I adore you.”

Hannah smiled as she spoke of her brother who, she said, had a great sense of humor, a beautiful singing voice and a love of Israel and Judaism.

Just one month before his death he feel in love and called to tell his parents he had found the woman he wants to marry, she said.

Her brother, Hannah said, lived life to the fullest. “ I want to ask everyone to be like Yoav,” Hannah said.

“He was my inspiration. He was my everything,” Hannah said. “He was the perfect brother. When he looked a time it was like paradise.”

“He was the only one that understood me,” she said. 

No matter how big her problem was, he always assured her that it would be fine, because God was with her.

“I loved him more then everything,” she said.

“He always wanted to discover new cultures all around the world, he was in love with everything and everyone and  everyone love with him,” she said.

On Friday, Chabbad publicized Yoav’s SMS messages about Shabbat that he sent on the morning of January 9 and a letter that his father Binyamin sent out, in which he said his family had felt the love of the Jewish people in the last few days.

“This love touched our hearts deeply, and I feel the need to put to paper my feelings and share them with you. What can I write about Yoav—a charming young man, the love of my heart—who was snatched from us so suddenly? 

“Dear Yoav, you left us a gaping hole, an oozing wound in our hearts that will never be healed,” Binyamin said.

He recalled how his son had been killed after he was able to grab one of the terrorist’s guns so he could try to shoot him. He added that he believed Yoav was now in paradise, with other martyrs who had died sanctifying God’s name.

“Yoav was a great student. But even more than that, he was devoted to the service of G-d and overflowed with love for his fellow Jews.

“He was a cantor and Torah reader, whose songs and prayers were a pleasure to listen to. He would pray and read the Torah with his whole heart—and his voice touched everyone,” Binyamin recalled.

In the name of his son, he asked Jews around the world to do good deeds and increase their religious observance, particularly of Shabbat, the weekly holiday which his son so loved.

“If I can make one request, it would be to continue Yoav’s embrace of life, to perpetuate it, to be infected by his love and to try to love the Jewish people even more. And, like Yoav, to encourage everyone you know to increase in mitzvahs for the merit of his soul and the souls of his fellow victims, [Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham and François-Michel Saada].

“Your good deeds will continue their lives, which were abruptly cut short.

“I’d like to ask specifically that all add in honoring the Shabbat queen, who was so dear to our son. Even if you do not yet feel ready to keep the entire Shabbat, try to keep it at least partially. Light the Shabbat candles, hold a Shabbat meal with your family, attend prayers at synagogue—and when you hear the sweet voice of the cantor, please remember the sweet voice of our dear Yoav, the voice that is singing in heaven for all the righteous souls, “Let us sing before G-d!,” Binyamin wrote.

Bus Ad Campaign "Short Clothing Shortens Life"

Egged Bus Ad

I'm all for Tznius.... but where in the entire Torah does it say 
"Short Clothing Shortens Life?" 
And how many people are going to dress more Tzniusdik because of a Bus Ad?
How many people are they going to be Mekariev with this ad and how many people are they going to be me'racheik?
 How many people are going to ask, "What about all the people that die young and wear tznisdikeh clothing? Hmmm?

I'll tell you what "shortens life" ....
When  guys like Weingarten rape their own daughters and when guys like Weberman rape and molest countless innocent girls, and the community not only degrade and ostracize the victims, but go out and  raise funds and support these animals, that, my friends, "shortens lives"

A new Egged campaign has been launched in Jerusalem which involves signs that say “shorter clothing = shortens life”, and “in memory of the Kedoshim in Har Nof”. Needless to say the new tznius campaign has elicited the ire of anti-religious elements.

Critics of the new ad campaign are urging people to phone the Canaan Ad Company to complain. The social media network is being used to get the word out to oppose the ad campaign.

MK (Meretz) Michal Rosen has turned to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz to pull the posters. She feels the ad is offensive to women, who have the right to dress as they wish.

Both Egged and Canaan explain that the ad campaign represents a viewpoint that is legitimate as are objections to the ad campaign but one has the right to pay to advertise one’s view. Egged’s Dan Ratner added that ad campaigns represent the diversity of Israeli life and as such, there are many viewpoints being expressed.

Netanyahu in Paris – pushed Israel’s dignity to the front row

For most Israelis watching Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris over the past few days, was another reminder of the dignity that Netanyahu has brought to Israel in the world abroad, in spite of the inhospitable treatment Israel is shown.By DANIEL TAUBER

 Somehow, the Left, inhabiting some planet other than our own – one ruled by Isaac Herzog, Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid and where propaganda like Israel Hayom is banned – Netanyahu’s trip has been a public relations disaster for Israel.

On planet Earth, Israelis saw Netanyahu stand against terrorism shoulder to shoulder with world leaders. They saw him demonstrate that the leader of the Jewish state is the leader of the Jewish people, as he spoke to the French Jewish community from the Grand Synagogue in Paris, visited the supermarket that was the site of the attack and lit a candle, and consoled mourners at the funeral for the Jewish victims held in Jerusalem. They heard him remind embattled French Jewry that the Jewish homeland is always open to them, reminding all Jews that Zionism is still relevant today.

This was in spite of the giant unwelcome sign the French government hung out for the Jewish state, when it asked Netanyahu not to participate in the rally because Israel was too controversial.

They attempted to relegate Israel to a separate and unequal status among the nations on the grounds that Israel’s fight against terrorism is not legitimate – because the Palestinian terror war on Israel is.

The rally in Paris was held in defiance of terrorism that targeted the Jewish community, but no spot in the front row was reserved for the leader of the Jewish state. Yet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the PLO, the terrorist organization that pioneered the killing of Jews as an international sport in the modern era, was well placed in the front row.

Not only did Netanyahu attend the rally despite the French request, but he managed to gracefully make his way to the front of the rally, showing his understanding of the symbolism of world leaders marching against terror. He did not push or shove.

He shook a hand and stepped forward. Israel is on the frontlines in the war on terror and by stepping to the front, Netanyahu found a powerful way of conveying that.

Beyond that, in his speeches in Paris and in his statement before leaving Israel, he reminded the world, much in the way he has done with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, the war on Israel is the same as the war on the rest of the civilization. In Netanyahu’s words, “Those who murdered Jews at a synagogue in Jerusalem and those who murdered Jews and journalists in Paris are part of the same problem.”

The Left claims that French hostility was a symptom of Netanyahu’s leadership, but this is not the first time Israel has been excluded from the international struggle against terrorism and aggression.

During the Gulf War, Israel was not only not invited to take part in the coalition to roll back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, keeping Israel out of the war was a top priority for the US government. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Israel’s participation in the various “coalitions of the willing” was often kept secret or played down.

France’s attempt to exclude Israel’s leader from the rally was no different. It also follows other hostile French actions such as the French parliament’s resolution on recognition of a Palestinian state and France’s vote in the UN Security Council on the same subject, despite the PA’s refusal to stop the Palestinians’ war on Israel.

France’s position on Palestinian statehood is a rejection of Israel’s long-held position that it is prepared to withdraw from territory when the Palestinians make peace with Israel. That policy was not invented by Prime Minister Netanyahu or the Likud, but should be credited to the Labor party.

Yet in the face of such unwarranted hostility, once again, as with his speeches to the UN General Assembly, to the US Congress or in the Oval Office, Netanyahu proved himself to be a world leader in rallying humanity against the agents of death and destruction.

By contrast, one can imagine how a prime minister Isaac Herzog or Tzipi Livni would have handled the situation Netanyahu was placed in: if they would have come to France or the rally at all, they probably would have made their way to Abbas, who recently incited a number of murders of innocent Israeli civilians in Jerusalem, and shaken his hand to demonstrate their desire for peace. Then they might have gone on to lecture the Jewish community of Paris on the need to establish a Palestinian state.

The reminders that Israel’s fight against Palestinian terrorism is just as legitimate as the world’s fight against terrorism and that aliya and Zionism are still relevant would have been absent from their speeches and actions, just as the word “Zionism” was absent from Labor’s recent Arabic-language advertisement campaign.

The writer is an attorney, a Likud Central Committee member and director of Likud Anglos
.

US Consulate in Jerusalem Plans to Arm 35 Arab Terrorists for Security Personnel?

This US administration is not only crazy and getting crazier, but is reckless!

In direct violation of a 2011 agreement between the US and Israel, the US Consulate now located in the Armon HaNatziv area of the capital, has fired its Jewish security personnel and plans to arm 35 Arab security guards. 

The guards are currently undergoing weapons training in PA (Palestinian Authority) occupied Yericho.

The agreement signed with Israel stipulates that only IDF combat veterans will be armed. This represents a significant breach of the agreement. Consular officials plan to use their new security team to escort diplomatic convoys in PA area. 

It appears with the entry of Mr. Dan Cronin as chief security officer 18 months ago, the relations with Israeli security personnel took a turn for the worse. 

Fired Israeli security personnel report the consulate is training the new Arab personnel in a US base in Yericho. They add that Cronin did not hide his disdain for them and his pro-Palestinian leanings. 

They add some of the new guards have been arrested in the past for rock-throwing attacks and some have relatives that have been linked to and involved in terrorism. They add the consulate has its own armory containing hand guns, automatic weapons and shotguns in violation of the agreements with Israel, Yediot Achronot reports.

From the US perspective, the new facility located in Armon HaNatziv is in fact the US Embassy in Palestine. The fleet of armored vehicles spends a great deal of time in PA areas, meeting with PA officials and monitoring “settlement activity” for the PA and the US.

Since Israeli law does not permit armed Israelis in PA areas, to date, the diplomatic convoys were protected by American agents carrying diplomatic passports when entering PA areas.

The consulate responded to the Yediot report stating that it has total confidence in its staff, adding there are many inaccuracies in the report but it is not discussing security matters. The statement ends explaining that it works in total cooperation with local authorities.

Rabbi Wolmark pleads guilty to extorting gets from Husbands that want their wives to be Agunois!

An Orthodox Jewish rabbi today admitted conspiring to travel to New Jersey to coerce a Jewish man to give his wife a religious divorce – referred to as a “get” – through threats of violence, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Martin Wolmark, 56, of Monsey, NY, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Trenton federal court to an information charging him with conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce to commit extortion.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

On Aug. 7, 2013, Wolmark, an ordained Orthodox Jewish rabbi, spoke with a woman and her brother about obtaining a Jewish divorce from the woman’s recalcitrant husband.

A get is a divorce document which, according to Jewish Law, must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce.

Unbeknownst to Wolmark, the woman and the brother were actually undercover FBI agents. During the conversation, which was recorded by law enforcement, Wolmark informed the agents that there were two ways to go about obtaining a get from such a recalcitrant husband, one of which was to “nail him.” Wolmark also told the agents that coercing the husband into giving a get could be expensive. He then recommended that the agents speak with his colleague, Mendel Epstein, who he knew had previously used violence to coerce recalcitrant husbands into giving gets to their wives. Wolmark then initiated a conference call with the agents and Mendel Epstein.

On Aug. 14, 2013, the agents met with Mendel Epstein at his home to discuss the case further. On Oct. 2, 2013, Wolmark convened a rabbinical court (a “beth din”) with Mendel Epstein and Jay Goldstein in his office in Suffern, New York.

The purpose of this proceeding was to determine whether there were grounds under Jewish law to coerce the husband into giving the get. The female agent also attended and recorded the meeting. During this meeting, Mendel Epstein discussed openly the plan to kidnap and assault the purported husband in order to obtain the get.

On Oct. 9, 2013, a group of Wolmark’s conspirators – including Jay Goldstein, Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein, Simcha Bulmash, Ariel Potash, Binyamin Stimler, and Sholom Shuchat – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, with the intent of forcing the purported husband to give his wife a get by means of violence and threats of violence. Six of these coconspirators previously pleaded guilty to traveling to New Jersey to commit extortion.

The conspiracy count to which Wolmark pleaded guilty carries a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. Sentencing is scheduled for May 18, 201

VIN NEWS Regurgitates Reuters Anti-Zionist Propaganda

VIN a news website owned by a Satmar Aroinie, never misses an opportunity to copy and past any article by Reuters that denigrates the State of Israel.....
 Now during this latest tragedy that effected all of Klall Yisroel, this anti-Zion news-outlet went out of its way to copy a disgusting "Analysis & Opinion" by the self hating Israeli Jew Dimi Reider! Dimi Reider hates Satmar more than the Zionists, but that didn't stop the Satmar animal from printing this trash!

Here is the Article!

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned call for French Jews to immigrate to Israel, after a series of attacks on the day of the Charlie Hebdo massacre killed four in a kosher supermarket in Paris. To many, it seemed like the most natural response he could deliver. After all, this is Israel’s stated raison d’etre: to provide refuge to persecuted Jews, wherever they may be. Underlying this sentiment is a deeper one, shared by Israelis across the political spectrum. It is the idea that Jewish life is at its most meaningful, and relevant, if carried out in the Jewish state.

There are many holes in this narrative, of course. To start with, despite the Holocaust wiping out much of the world’s Jewish population, most Jews still prefer not to live in Israel. There is roughly the same number of Jews in the United States as in Israel. That’s not counting another half a million Jews in France, close to 400,000 in Canada and around 300,000 in the UK. Brazil’s Jewish population is bigger than Haifa’s. If nothing else, it shows that for most Jews, the reasons for making aliyah — the Zionist term for immigrating to Israel — is anything but self-evident.

Then there is the awkwardness of timing. On one level, packing up and taking off is a natural and sometimes absolutely life-saving response to having your community targeted. The hundreds of thousands of Jews who moved westward at the turn of the 20th century were doing just that. Tens of millions of  refugees around the world are doing so now, desperately trying to get away from conflict zones like Syria and Sudan. Jews, many Israelis would point out, at least have a home country to go to, and should be using that.

Many French Jews will, undoubtedly, do so. France has been the largest “exporter” of Jews to Israel among Western countries in recent years, and the number is rising steadily — although the yearly migration rate has not yet gone above 20,000.

But calling on Jews to pack up and leave in the immediate aftermath of an attack has a strange ring to it. It sounds like calling them to give up and discard everything they have ever achieved in their own societies because of the actions of three goons in Paris. Whatever else it says, it gives little credit to the long and resilient history of France’s Jewish community, which has survived much worse than last week’s attacks, without being compelled to give up either their Jewishness or their Frenchness.

This stinging implication of Netanyahu’s call was picked up even in Israel, where aliyah is still seen as a profoundly sensible decision for any Jew to take, in any circumstances. Haaretz’s Washington bureau chief Chemi Shalev’s reaction was among harshest. In a tweet on Sunday he wrote: “Call for mass Jewish emigration helps terrorists finish the job started by Nazis and Vichy: making France Judenrein” — Jew free. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was more diplomatic, but still pointed out that Zionism is meant to make Jews want to come to Israel, not flee there at the point of a gun.

And quite apart from ideological considerations, calling on Jews to come to Israel for considerations of safety is like offering them a ticket from the frying pan into the fire. The numbers don’t lie. Since the end of World War II, Israel was and remains the most dangerous place in the world for a Jew to live in.

For Israelis, Netanyahu’s six years in power were the most peaceful ones in over two decades (not so much for Palestinians, whose civilian casualties continue to outnumber those of Israelis by 9 to 1). But even those years saw many more Israelis killed than diaspora Jews worldwide — 60 Israelis died in the summer’s war with Gaza alone. Whatever reasons Jews might have for coming to Israel, personal safety cannot reasonably be cited as one of them.

Zionism, of course, is predicated on the insistence that Judaism is not merely a faith, but also a nationality. This is the very core of its claim for self-determination, with Israel as the Jewish nation-state. It follows that Israel is the nation-state of all Jews, even if they have not yet immigrated.

But national identity, especially among minorities, is complex — much more complex than the simple Zionist binary of homeland and diaspora will allow.

This was illustrated neatly toward the end of Netanyahu’s visit to Paris, when he gave a speech at the city’s Great Synagogue. The Israeli prime minister was received with rapturous applause, and his call to emigrate was not met with jeers or protests. But when the visit was about to conclude, the crowd — overcome by the national tragedy, and wishing to defy the hatred and violence that was visited upon this community — broke out into the national anthem. That anthem was not Israel’s ha-Tikva. It was La Marseillaise.

New Footage Of Charlie Hebdo Paris Attack

The Beginning of the End of the USA As We Know It: Pelosi to name first Muslim lawmaker to House intelligence committee

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced in a closed-door meeting Tuesday she would name the first Muslim lawmaker to the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

A senior Democratic aide said Rep. André Carson of Indiana would be named in the “coming days” to the key national security-focused panel. The California Democrat told lawmakers of the appointment during the members’ weekly caucus meeting.

Carson would be the first Muslim to serve on the committee and was the second Muslim to be elected to Congress. He already serves on the House Armed Services Committee and worked for the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center — the clearinghouse established by the federal government to streamline data sharing between the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Justice and the military.

The intelligence committee will most likely tackle a series of high-profile international crises during the 114th Congress, including the threat of Islamic militants and Ukraine.

Carson’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The announcement comes in the wake of a terrorist attack in Paris by Islamic extremists that left 12 people dead. World leaders gathered on Sunday for a 3 million person “solidarity” protest against the violence that targeted French Jews and journalists.

Funeral in Israel for the French Kedoishem

Rabbi Lau Urges French Jews to make Aliyah "Let Us end the Galus"

Rabbi Lau urges French Jews to make Aliyah, remarking that it was no coincidence that this tragedy happened in the week when all Jews read Parshas Shmos that discusses the beginning of the redemption .... click the link to hear the holy words of Rabbi Lau former Chief Rabbi of Israel and father of the present Chief Rabbi Lau!

Post by ‎חדשות כיכר השבת‎.