The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
Featuring:
Jews, get the blazes out of France . .. NOW
Caroline B. Glick
"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
~~~lll~~~
IS WALKER THE BRIDGE BUILDER?
Dan Balz at WaPo looks at the candidate trying to bridge the gap between the warring wings of the GOP: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t light up rooms when he enters. He is unassuming in that way, a proud cheesehead who wears a battery-powered electric jacket to keep warm at Packers and Badgers football games. He appears a Midwestern everyman, belied only by his burning ambition to be president…The Republican National Committee keeps a list of prospective candidates, names of those who have been mentioned as possibilities to run in 2016. It totals an astonishing 24 people. The eventual field almost certainly won’t be that big, but right now, at least among those with even an outside chance of being competitive, no one seems intimidated by the candidacy of anyone else. Candidates fill predictable lanes…
“There are many questions about a Walker candidacy that go beyond whether he can break through in a field with bigger names and flashier personalities. Is he too much a stolid Midwesterner, too narrow in his Wisconsin grounding. Would he be able to marshal the necessary forces for a national campaign and to let go some of the strategic micromanagement of his own candidacy? Would he be able to withstand the rough-and-tumble ahead? Walker has focus and determination. His hope may be that he will be long underestimated, a candidate ready to surprise at the moments it counts most.” -Fox News 
Dan Balz at WaPo looks at the candidate trying to bridge the gap between the warring wings of the GOP: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t light up rooms when he enters. He is unassuming in that way, a proud cheesehead who wears a battery-powered electric jacket to keep warm at Packers and Badgers football games. He appears a Midwestern everyman, belied only by his burning ambition to be president…The Republican National Committee keeps a list of prospective candidates, names of those who have been mentioned as possibilities to run in 2016. It totals an astonishing 24 people. The eventual field almost certainly won’t be that big, but right now, at least among those with even an outside chance of being competitive, no one seems intimidated by the candidacy of anyone else. Candidates fill predictable lanes…
“There are many questions about a Walker candidacy that go beyond whether he can break through in a field with bigger names and flashier personalities. Is he too much a stolid Midwesterner, too narrow in his Wisconsin grounding. Would he be able to marshal the necessary forces for a national campaign and to let go some of the strategic micromanagement of his own candidacy? Would he be able to withstand the rough-and-tumble ahead? Walker has focus and determination. His hope may be that he will be long underestimated, a candidate ready to surprise at the moments it counts most.” -Fox News
RUBIO OUT FRONT ON CALL FOR IRAN CRACKDOWN
The Hill: “Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) on Sunday argued for additional sanctions on Iran amid a veto threat from President nObama. The Florida lawmaker said that the only reason Iran is at the negotiating table is because of existing sanctions. On Friday, the president said he would veto any plan produced by Congress to expand sanctions on Iran. He argued that piling on sanctions would derail the steady work done to craft an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear capability. But Rubio expressed doubts that any agreement will come out of the discussions. ‘These negotiations that are going on now are really not going to bear fruit,’ he said on CBS's ‘Face the Nation.’ He argued that the proposed sanctions could go into place if talks fail.”
The Hill: “Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) on Sunday argued for additional sanctions on Iran amid a veto threat from President nObama. The Florida lawmaker said that the only reason Iran is at the negotiating table is because of existing sanctions. On Friday, the president said he would veto any plan produced by Congress to expand sanctions on Iran. He argued that piling on sanctions would derail the steady work done to craft an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear capability. But Rubio expressed doubts that any agreement will come out of the discussions. ‘These negotiations that are going on now are really not going to bear fruit,’ he said on CBS's ‘Face the Nation.’ He argued that the proposed sanctions could go into place if talks fail.”
-Fox News
nOBAMA TAX HIKES DESIGNED TO TROLL GOP
President nObama is staying on offense with a campaign-speech-style State of Union message that has appeal to the liberal Democratic base. The proposals have even less chance in a Republican-controlled Senate than they did when Democrats let similar ideas languish, but the message matters. As conservative columnist John Podhoretz, observes: “Tuesday night’s State of the Union address could be the first one in history deliberately designed solely to generate a Pavlovian rage response in members of the opposing party….nObama and his team have clearly decided that one of the metrics by which they will measure their success is by just how wild he drives his Republican opposition in Washington and conservatives across the country.”
President nObama is staying on offense with a campaign-speech-style State of Union message that has appeal to the liberal Democratic base. The proposals have even less chance in a Republican-controlled Senate than they did when Democrats let similar ideas languish, but the message matters. As conservative columnist John Podhoretz, observes: “Tuesday night’s State of the Union address could be the first one in history deliberately designed solely to generate a Pavlovian rage response in members of the opposing party….nObama and his team have clearly decided that one of the metrics by which they will measure their success is by just how wild he drives his Republican opposition in Washington and conservatives across the country.”
-Fox News
What’s in the plan - AP: “The centerpiece of the president’s tax proposal is an increase in the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 per year to 28 percent…The top capital gains rate has already been raised from 15 percent to 23.8 percent during nObama’s presidency. nObama also wants to close what the administration is calling the ‘trust fund loophole,’ a change that would require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they're inherited.…Raising the capital gains rate, ending the inheritance loophole and tacking a fee on financial firms would generate $320 billion in revenue over a decade, according to administration estimates. nObama wants to put the bulk of that money into a series of measures aimed at helping middle-class Americans. Among them:
* A credit of up to $500 for families in which both spouses work.
* Expanding the child care tax credit to up to $3,000 per child under age 5.
* Overhauling the education tax system by consolidating six provisions into two”
[The latest WSJ/NBC News poll finds the American public to be less pessimistic. 38 percent of voters chose descriptions such as “recovering” or “hopeful” up slightly from a year ago…. 48% chose negative descriptions of the nation, such as “troubled’’ and “deteriorating.’’ Fewer people chose those terms than a year ago.]
“And it is the simple proposition that, now that the economy is in a stronger place than it has been in a very long time, we need to double down on our efforts to deal with wage stagnation and declining economic mobility, and so the simple proposition that we should ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class, give the middle class a raise.” – White House Adviser Dan Pfeiffer, CBS’s “Face the Nation” -Fox News
* A credit of up to $500 for families in which both spouses work.
* Expanding the child care tax credit to up to $3,000 per child under age 5.
* Overhauling the education tax system by consolidating six provisions into two”
[The latest WSJ/NBC News poll finds the American public to be less pessimistic. 38 percent of voters chose descriptions such as “recovering” or “hopeful” up slightly from a year ago…. 48% chose negative descriptions of the nation, such as “troubled’’ and “deteriorating.’’ Fewer people chose those terms than a year ago.]
“And it is the simple proposition that, now that the economy is in a stronger place than it has been in a very long time, we need to double down on our efforts to deal with wage stagnation and declining economic mobility, and so the simple proposition that we should ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class, give the middle class a raise.” – White House Adviser Dan Pfeiffer, CBS’s “Face the Nation” -Fox News
SOTU soothsayers - It’s State of the Union time and Power Play host Chris Stirewalt is joined by Democratic strategist Liz Chadderdon and Republican strategist Steve Snyder to discuss what we can expect from the president. nObama says he’s going on offense, rolling out a wish list that is highly partisan and unlikely to pass. And then there’s the legacy imperative. The president may be concerned about his place in the history books, but his party is worried the next election. WATCH HERE. -Fox News
1.
Legendary A-10 'Warthog' sends ISIS fleeing faces Pentagon cuts
(FoxNews.com) - With a roaring engine, 30-mm. cannon and nose painted like a toothsome, snarling beast, the A-10 Thunderbolt sends ISIS fighters scattering like cockroaches on the Iraqi desert plains...but the legendary fighter plane pilots call the "Warthog" may be fighting for its own life. The venerable plane, first built for destroying Soviet tanks, has been on the chopping block since the sequester of 2011 mandated steep cuts in the Pentagon budget. Although the planes haven't been built in more than 30 years, the Defense Department believes it can save maintenance costs by phasing them out. Air Force brass believes newer, faster aircraft like the F-16, F-15E, and, eventually, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter can do a better job of the Warthog’s mission of providing close air support to soldiers on the ground. But supporters say Islamic State fighters are finding out the hard way what they have said all along. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/21/legendary-10-warthog-sends-isis-fleeing-even-as-it-faces-pentagon-cuts/?cmpid=NL_fntop
2.
Norway Finally Had Enough Of Radical Muslims, Deport Them
(americanoverlook.com) - Norway recently instated a program that seeks to deport radical Muslims in an attempt to lower crime rates throughout the country. Despite the fact that liberals are labeling this program as racist, the program has seen amazing success...According to crime data and records, violent crime in the country is down by approximately 30 percent since this program has gone into affect. However, liberals are still demanding the program be shut down because they believe it is racist and that it unfairly targets a religious group. http://americanoverlook.com/norway-has-finally-had-enough-of-radical-muslims-so-they-deported-them-all-what-happened-next-wow/34220
3.
Rubio Hints He Won’t Run In 2016
(Neil Munro) - Sen. Marco Rubio today suggested that he will not run for the presidency in 2016... “I need to make a decision in due time if I want to mount a credible campaign for the presidency,” he told reporters attending a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Staying in the GOP majority will give him the opportunity to get things done, he suggested. http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/21/rubio-hints-he-wont-run-in-2016/?advD=1248%2C48782&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJjNTliYzIxYy1kM2ZhLTQ5MWMtYjhmZC02M2M2MjhjYzNjZjMifQ%3D%3D#mnetint
4.
Will the Natural Born Citizen Requirements for Pres Haunt GOP
(Suzanne Hamner) - Most everyone is familiar with the saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” What this commonly refers to is that violating a law, ethic or moral, is justified as long as someone else does...For example, an employee embezzles from his employer because his employer is cheating on his taxes. Both are clearly wrong and in violation of the law; but one precedent of wrong-doing by one does not make it acceptable to engage in additional wrong-doing or the same wrong-doing by another. It becomes a fallacy that the actions cancel each other out. For the past six years, Barack nObama’s eligibility to hold the office of the president has been questioned on the “natural born citizen” requirement. And, many debate what constitutes a “natural born citizen.” While some may disagree, “natural born citizen” refers to a person, regardless of birth location, born to citizen parents in some sources; whereas, other sources follow natural law meaning the individual, regardless of birth location, follows the citizenship of the father to be classified as “natural born.” Either way, this brings into question the eligibility of nObama to even seek the office much less occupy the office of the presidency. It is known that nObama’s alleged mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a US citizen; but, nObama’s Kenyan father, as listed on his “legal” birth certificate, has never been proven to be a US citizen through naturalization. http://sonsoflibertymedia.com/2015/01/will-natural-born-citizen-requirements-president-haunt-gop-candidates-2016/
5.
Proof Of Green Communist Agenda, From Jarrett And Jones
(Rick Wells) - Valerie Jarrett was gushing in this event over the fact that the nObama regime was able to recruit the communist community organizer Van Jones into the administration...It was those same communist ties, along with comments related to the 911 truth movement which would eventually play a role in his later resignation. The position to which Jones was appointed was one which was created just for him in the czar mill that was the nObama regime in the early days, that of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. It’s a vague and long title for a position which, as he explains in the video, builds upon the Rosa Parks model, using the climate and global warming as a mechanism to achieve a political end.
6.
New House Bill Removes 66 Miles Of Border Fence
(Rick Wells) - What is being labeled by its RINO proponent, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-TX), as a border bill, might lead one to believe it provides for increased enforcement. That’s where the trickery part comes into play...It actually calls for the removal of 66 miles of bothersome border fencing that gets in the way of those foreigners wishing to travel back and forth into our nation illegally at will. In exchange, 27 miles of fencing will be built in other areas. It’s a dismal drop in the bucket when compared to the 700 miles of similar, double layer fencing that was approved in 2006 and never built, in spite of full funding being appropriated by Congress at a time when Michael Chertoff headed the DHS. What seemed to be an inexplicable resistance to national security at the time is now been exposed as a component in the long term plan intended to create the North American Union. http://www.rickwells.us/new-house-bill-removes-66-miles-border-fence-sellout-american-citizens-marches/
7.
States continue war over nObamacare
(Fred Schulte) - Oklahoma State Rep. Mike Ritze is a foot soldier—one of hundreds— in a passionate war over the Affordable Care Act that is reigniting as state legislatures convene across the country...The Republican lawmaker, a family doctor, has stood behind three anti-nObamacare bills supported by conservative groups in Oklahoma and other states. None has made it into law, but Ritze plans to pick up the fight in the 2015 legislative session that convenes in the Sooner state next month. “We need to do everything we can to try and reverse this,” said Ritze, who practices in Broken Arrow. “We can make it harder to enforce if the states get together…to attack it on all fronts.” http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/21/16633/states-continue-war-over-obamacare
8.
Pupils at Christian school branded 'bigots' ordered it to CLOSE
(Eleanor Harding and Mario Ledwith for the Daily Mail) - Pupils at a Christian school have been branded bigots after a young boy gave the wrong answer when asked what a Muslim was...Durham Free has been told to close after inspectors branded it an educational failure and said some children displayed ‘discriminatory views’ toward people of other faiths. The boy’s answer to the Muslim question apparently included a reference to terrorism. But teachers said the verdict was grossly unfair and based on a throwaway and ignorant comment made by a single pupil. They said the school’s Christian ethos made it an easy target for officials who wanted to show they were promoting the Government’s diversity agenda. Why don't the muslim grow some skin. The Christians are always being discriminated against. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2918711/Christian-faith-school-graded-best-performing-placed-special-measures-Ofsted-inspectors-does-not-promote-British-values.html
9.
Ex-Muslim Tells of Literal Slaughterhouses where Christians are Dissected (Onan Coca) - This may be one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had to report on. The intrepid and brave Walid and Theodore Shoebat are reporting on a story out of Albania that has been breaking over the last couple of months...Muslim Albanians in Kosovo are apparently kidnapping Christians in an effort to harvest and sell their organs before killing them. A Serbian Christian and former Special Forces officer tipped them off to the insidious story. “They abduct people in Kosovo, Serbian people — in some cases Albanian people — and they take their organs… they torture the people and take their organs while they are still live.” He also said that the victims are usually, “Christians serbs, young women, and men, and also children.” Please be advised the videos are incredibly graphic and not suitable for everyone. http://eaglerising.com/14192/ex-muslim-tells-literal-slaughterhouses-kidnapped-christians-dissected-organs-sold-islamic-nations/
10. Dems Kick And Scream As Border Security Bill Cruises The House
(Rachel Stoltzfoos) - The House version of a Border Security bill cleared committee Wednesday night, after frustrated Democratic committee members ran out of ways to effectively stomp their feet...Members of the Committee on Homeland Security met soon after 2 p.m. Wednesday to consider and debate potential amendments to the “Secure Our Borders First Act,” before passing it through to the House. Chairman Michael McCaul introduced the bill Friday, saying it would beef up border patrol capabilities, and establish an independent commission to verify the security of the border. It’s on a leadership sponsored fast track that is frustrating Democrats, so they used procedural maneuvers and delay tactics to obstruct the bill and make things difficult for McCaul and the rest of the Republican committee members. http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2015/01/22/dems-kick-and-scream-as-border-security-bill-cruises-through-the-house/
Jews, get the blazes out of France . .. NOW
Caroline B. Glick
(jewishworldreview) - January 16 is the nine-year anniversary of the beginning of the Ilan Halimi disaster.
On January 16, 2006, Sorour Arbabzadeh, the seductress from the Muslim anti-Jewish kidnapping gang led by Youssouf Fofana, entered the cellphone store where Halimi worked and set the honey trap.
Four days later, Halimi met Arbabzadeh for a drink at a working class bar and agreed to walk her home. She walked him straight into an ambush. Her comrades beat him, bound him and threw him into the trunk of their car.
They brought Halimi to a slum apartment and tortured him for 24 days and 24 nights before dumping him, handcuffed, naked, stabbed and suffering from third degree burns over two-thirds of his body, at a railway siding in Paris.
He died a few hours later in the hospital.
In an impassioned address to the French parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave a stirring denunciation of anti-Semitism, and demanded that his people stop treating it as someone else’s problem.
In his words, “Since Ilan Halimi in 2006... anti-Semitic acts in France have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the gestures, the shameful attacks... did not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.”
Valls insisted that France needs to protect its Jewish community, lest France itself be destroyed.
“Without its Jews France would not be France, this is the message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We haven’t shown enough outrage. How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked, ‘Who is your enemy?’ the response is ‘The Jew?’ When the Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it.”
Valls words were uplifting. But it is hard to see how they change the basic reality that the Jews of France face.
When all is said and done, it is their necks on the line while humanity’s conscience is merely troubled.
Ilan Halimi’s case is more or less a textbook case of the impossible reality French Jewry faces. And, as Valls noted, the situation has only gotten worse in the intervening nine years. Much worse.
But back when things were much better, Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured for 24 days and murdered. As Tablet online magazine’s Marc Weitzmann reported last September in an in-depth summary of ordeal, the gang that perpetrated the atrocity had been hunting for Jewish victims for several weeks before Arbabzadeh set her trap for Halimi. All their previous attempts had failed. Their previous marks included Jewish doctors, lawyers, television directors and human rights activists, as well as Jews of no particular distinction aside from the fact that they were Jews.
The anti-Jewish nature of the gang was clear from its chosen victims. The anti-Semitic nature of their atrocious crime against Halimi was obvious from the first time they contacted his mother, Ruth Halimi, demanding ransom for his release. They made anti-Jewish slurs in all their communications with her.
And as she heard her son's tortured cries in the background, Ruth was subjected to his torturers’ recitation of Koranic verses.
And yet, throughout the period of his captivity, French authorities refused to consider the anti-Jewish nature of the crime, and as a result, refused to treat the case as life threatening or urgent.
The same attitude continued well after Halimi was found. As Weitzmann noted, the investigative magistrate insisted “There isn’t a single element to allow one to attach this murder to an anti-Semitic purpose or an anti-Semitic act.”
The denial went on through the 2009 trials of the 29 kidnappers and their accomplices. Anti-Semitism was listed as an aggravating circumstance of the crime – and as such, a cause for harsher sentencing – only for the gang leader Fofana. And in the end, even for him, the judges did not take it into account at sentencing.
As for those 29 kidnappers and accomplices, as Weitzmann notes, each one of them had a circle of friends and family.
As a consequence, by a one reporters’ conservative estimate, at least 50 people were aware of the crime and where Halimi was being held, while he was being held. And not one of them called the police. Not one of them felt moved to make a call that could save the life of a Jew.
On January 16, 2006, Sorour Arbabzadeh, the seductress from the Muslim anti-Jewish kidnapping gang led by Youssouf Fofana, entered the cellphone store where Halimi worked and set the honey trap.
Four days later, Halimi met Arbabzadeh for a drink at a working class bar and agreed to walk her home. She walked him straight into an ambush. Her comrades beat him, bound him and threw him into the trunk of their car.
They brought Halimi to a slum apartment and tortured him for 24 days and 24 nights before dumping him, handcuffed, naked, stabbed and suffering from third degree burns over two-thirds of his body, at a railway siding in Paris.
He died a few hours later in the hospital.
In an impassioned address to the French parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave a stirring denunciation of anti-Semitism, and demanded that his people stop treating it as someone else’s problem.
In his words, “Since Ilan Halimi in 2006... anti-Semitic acts in France have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the gestures, the shameful attacks... did not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.”
Valls insisted that France needs to protect its Jewish community, lest France itself be destroyed.
“Without its Jews France would not be France, this is the message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We haven’t shown enough outrage. How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked, ‘Who is your enemy?’ the response is ‘The Jew?’ When the Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it.”
Valls words were uplifting. But it is hard to see how they change the basic reality that the Jews of France face.
When all is said and done, it is their necks on the line while humanity’s conscience is merely troubled.
Ilan Halimi’s case is more or less a textbook case of the impossible reality French Jewry faces. And, as Valls noted, the situation has only gotten worse in the intervening nine years. Much worse.
But back when things were much better, Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured for 24 days and murdered. As Tablet online magazine’s Marc Weitzmann reported last September in an in-depth summary of ordeal, the gang that perpetrated the atrocity had been hunting for Jewish victims for several weeks before Arbabzadeh set her trap for Halimi. All their previous attempts had failed. Their previous marks included Jewish doctors, lawyers, television directors and human rights activists, as well as Jews of no particular distinction aside from the fact that they were Jews.
The anti-Jewish nature of the gang was clear from its chosen victims. The anti-Semitic nature of their atrocious crime against Halimi was obvious from the first time they contacted his mother, Ruth Halimi, demanding ransom for his release. They made anti-Jewish slurs in all their communications with her.
And as she heard her son's tortured cries in the background, Ruth was subjected to his torturers’ recitation of Koranic verses.
And yet, throughout the period of his captivity, French authorities refused to consider the anti-Jewish nature of the crime, and as a result, refused to treat the case as life threatening or urgent.
The same attitude continued well after Halimi was found. As Weitzmann noted, the investigative magistrate insisted “There isn’t a single element to allow one to attach this murder to an anti-Semitic purpose or an anti-Semitic act.”
The denial went on through the 2009 trials of the 29 kidnappers and their accomplices. Anti-Semitism was listed as an aggravating circumstance of the crime – and as such, a cause for harsher sentencing – only for the gang leader Fofana. And in the end, even for him, the judges did not take it into account at sentencing.
As for those 29 kidnappers and accomplices, as Weitzmann notes, each one of them had a circle of friends and family.
As a consequence, by a one reporters’ conservative estimate, at least 50 people were aware of the crime and where Halimi was being held, while he was being held. And not one of them called the police. Not one of them felt moved to make a call that could save the life of a Jew.
After the fact, the media in France were happy to publish articles by the torturers’ defense lawyers insisting, “Only people motivated by ‘political reasons’ would try to sell the opinion that anti-Semitism is eating away at French society.”
When the Halimi family lawyer boasted of close ties to the government and announced he would appeal the sentences of the perpetrators if he didn’t think their punishments were sufficient, the French media eagerly shifted the conversation from the torture and murder of a Parisian who just happened to be a Jew by a band of sadists who just happened to be Muslims, to the more comfortable narrative of the Jewish lobby and Jewish power. So, too, when Halimi, and six years later when the three children and the rabbi massacred at Otzar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse, were brought to Israel for burial, the media reported their decision in a negative way hinting that it was evidence of the basic disloyalty, or otherness of the Jews of France.
In other words, what Halimi’s murder exposed is that anti-Semitism in France is systemic. Muslims are the main perpetrators of violence. And they operate in social environments that are at a minimum indifferent to Jewish suffering and victimization. This violence and indifference is abetted by non-Islamic elites. French authorities minimize the unique threat Jews face. And the media are happy to ignore the issue, or when given the slightest opportunity, to claim that the Jews are responsible for their own victimization.
Indeed, in live reports from the scene of the hostage taking at the kosher supermarket in Paris last week, Weitzmann noted that in the early hours of the attack, French media failed to mention that the hostages were Jews.
Under these circumstances, where the entire French system is stacked against them, what can be done for French Jewry? What can they do for themselves? It is far from clear that France is capable of correcting its downward trajectory.
When the Halimi family lawyer boasted of close ties to the government and announced he would appeal the sentences of the perpetrators if he didn’t think their punishments were sufficient, the French media eagerly shifted the conversation from the torture and murder of a Parisian who just happened to be a Jew by a band of sadists who just happened to be Muslims, to the more comfortable narrative of the Jewish lobby and Jewish power. So, too, when Halimi, and six years later when the three children and the rabbi massacred at Otzar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse, were brought to Israel for burial, the media reported their decision in a negative way hinting that it was evidence of the basic disloyalty, or otherness of the Jews of France.
In other words, what Halimi’s murder exposed is that anti-Semitism in France is systemic. Muslims are the main perpetrators of violence. And they operate in social environments that are at a minimum indifferent to Jewish suffering and victimization. This violence and indifference is abetted by non-Islamic elites. French authorities minimize the unique threat Jews face. And the media are happy to ignore the issue, or when given the slightest opportunity, to claim that the Jews are responsible for their own victimization.
Indeed, in live reports from the scene of the hostage taking at the kosher supermarket in Paris last week, Weitzmann noted that in the early hours of the attack, French media failed to mention that the hostages were Jews.
Under these circumstances, where the entire French system is stacked against them, what can be done for French Jewry? What can they do for themselves? It is far from clear that France is capable of correcting its downward trajectory.
Demography is moving France in a different direction. According to Israeli political scientist Guy Bechor, Marseilles will be the first Western European city with a Muslim majority. The ruling Socialists owe their victory to the Muslim vote. It is hard to see French President François Hollande and his comrades taking actions that could anger that constituency which votes as a bloc.
Moreover, anti-Semitism in all its forms is manifested throughout French society. For instance, the prosecutor in the Halimi murder trial is the son of a French Nazi collaborator and according to Weitzmann, spent an inordinate amount of the trial trying to understand the perpetrators.
Then there is the Israel issue. Valls has distinguished himself from his colleagues for his willingness to acknowledge that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
But his is a voice in the wilderness. The overwhelming sentiment of the French elites is hostility toward Israel.
This sentiment was manifested in Hollande’s treatment of Israel, and through it of the French Jewish community, in the aftermath of the supermarket massacre last Friday.
Hollande told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attend the anti-terror march in Paris on Sunday, claiming that Netanyahu’s presence would detract from the message of unity against terrorism that he hoped the march would communicate.
The underlying assumption of Hollande’s message is deeply disturbing.
That assumption is that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and is not, as a result, evil. The subtext is that the murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists who seek Israel’s destruction is similarly not a crime deserving of the same condemnation as the jihadist murder of French journalists.
Netanyahu rightly ignored Hollande’s request that he not attend. And for this move he was subjected to harsh criticism by the French media which accused him of crashing the party and pushing himself onto center stage against the wishes of his unwilling hosts.
Their criticism was then parroted by the Israeli media that studiously ignored the endemic anti-Israel hostility of the French media and the anti-Israel policies of the Hollande government. The Hebrew media, together with Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni, also ferociously attacked Netanyahu as well as Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett for upsetting French sensibilities by calling on French Jewry to make aliya, ascend to the Holy Land.
But aliya is the key for contending with the increasing danger that the Jews of France face from the systemic nature of French anti-Semitism. This is true first of all because as France makes it clear that it is not a warm home for its Jews, Israel is a better option. Israel exists so that Jews always will have a better option than suffering at the hands of hostile non-Jews.
Speaking of aliya is also essential because so far the only thing that has caused French authorities to speak directly against anti-Semitism and take action to defend French Jewry has been the prospect of a mass exodus of their Jews.
The year 2014 saw a 50 percent increase in French aliya. And the Jewish Agency anticipates that that number will double to 15,000 in 2015, with 50,000 more not far behind.
After Ilan Halimi was murdered, out of fear of upsetting the French, no Israeli leader, including then-foreign minister Livni, uttered a word of condemnation against the atrocity. No Israeli representative attended his memorial ceremony.
No one urged French Jews to make aliya.
And the number of anti-Semitic attacks increased massively each year. French governmental hostility toward Israel similarly escalated with each passing year.
There is unfortunately every reason to believe that the massacre at the kosher supermarket in Paris last Friday will not be the last one. But it is also clear that the best way to avert more suffering is to speak often and forcefully about the option of moving to Israel. Israel must also take active steps to prepare the country for the arrival of our French brothers and sisters.
Hollande will certainly express his annoyance as he continues to condemn Israel at every turn for imaginary misdeeds. But the French Jews will be strengthened. While the conscience of humanity may be uselessly miffed by the victimization of Jews, the Jews of France will know that there is one place on earth that exists to prevent that victimization, and that they are welcome here whenever they choose to come.
Moreover, anti-Semitism in all its forms is manifested throughout French society. For instance, the prosecutor in the Halimi murder trial is the son of a French Nazi collaborator and according to Weitzmann, spent an inordinate amount of the trial trying to understand the perpetrators.
Then there is the Israel issue. Valls has distinguished himself from his colleagues for his willingness to acknowledge that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
But his is a voice in the wilderness. The overwhelming sentiment of the French elites is hostility toward Israel.
This sentiment was manifested in Hollande’s treatment of Israel, and through it of the French Jewish community, in the aftermath of the supermarket massacre last Friday.
Hollande told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attend the anti-terror march in Paris on Sunday, claiming that Netanyahu’s presence would detract from the message of unity against terrorism that he hoped the march would communicate.
The underlying assumption of Hollande’s message is deeply disturbing.
That assumption is that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and is not, as a result, evil. The subtext is that the murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists who seek Israel’s destruction is similarly not a crime deserving of the same condemnation as the jihadist murder of French journalists.
Netanyahu rightly ignored Hollande’s request that he not attend. And for this move he was subjected to harsh criticism by the French media which accused him of crashing the party and pushing himself onto center stage against the wishes of his unwilling hosts.
Their criticism was then parroted by the Israeli media that studiously ignored the endemic anti-Israel hostility of the French media and the anti-Israel policies of the Hollande government. The Hebrew media, together with Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni, also ferociously attacked Netanyahu as well as Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett for upsetting French sensibilities by calling on French Jewry to make aliya, ascend to the Holy Land.
But aliya is the key for contending with the increasing danger that the Jews of France face from the systemic nature of French anti-Semitism. This is true first of all because as France makes it clear that it is not a warm home for its Jews, Israel is a better option. Israel exists so that Jews always will have a better option than suffering at the hands of hostile non-Jews.
Speaking of aliya is also essential because so far the only thing that has caused French authorities to speak directly against anti-Semitism and take action to defend French Jewry has been the prospect of a mass exodus of their Jews.
The year 2014 saw a 50 percent increase in French aliya. And the Jewish Agency anticipates that that number will double to 15,000 in 2015, with 50,000 more not far behind.
After Ilan Halimi was murdered, out of fear of upsetting the French, no Israeli leader, including then-foreign minister Livni, uttered a word of condemnation against the atrocity. No Israeli representative attended his memorial ceremony.
No one urged French Jews to make aliya.
And the number of anti-Semitic attacks increased massively each year. French governmental hostility toward Israel similarly escalated with each passing year.
There is unfortunately every reason to believe that the massacre at the kosher supermarket in Paris last Friday will not be the last one. But it is also clear that the best way to avert more suffering is to speak often and forcefully about the option of moving to Israel. Israel must also take active steps to prepare the country for the arrival of our French brothers and sisters.
Hollande will certainly express his annoyance as he continues to condemn Israel at every turn for imaginary misdeeds. But the French Jews will be strengthened. While the conscience of humanity may be uselessly miffed by the victimization of Jews, the Jews of France will know that there is one place on earth that exists to prevent that victimization, and that they are welcome here whenever they choose to come.
Comments