חפש

                                                    

    From the Desk of Tova Ben-Dov
    President of World WIZO

     
                                                    

    12 January 2015
     
    Dear Chaverot, 
     
    It was a day of great sadness and one of universal solidarity. Paris, Berlin, London and Jerusalem – all demonstrating for freedom and the western way of life. 
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, and Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky joined world leaders and the millions that attended the solidarity rally in Paris yesterday. PM Netanyahu held a number of informal meetings with a wide array of world leaders. During the day, Netanyahu mingled briefly with the leaders of Finland, the Netherlands, Georgia, Ireland, and the head of the OECD, among others.

    PM Netanyhu marched not far from Palestinian President Abbas, who came under attack from the Hamas for attending the rally . They claim, among other things that he should show solidarity for the Palestinians and what is happening in Gaza and questioned his legitimacy and indicated corruption.
    Our officials also attended the ceremony in the central Paris synagogue where members of the community lit 17 candles for the victims, both Jews and gentiles, of last week’s terrorist attacks. The policeman killed outside the Charlie

    Hebdo offices was a Moslem - proving that no one is safe from teh radicals. 
    (Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and Francois-Michel SaadaYoav Hattab – May G-d avenge their blood), 
    They will be buried in Jerusalem. The victims and their families are set to land in Tel Aviv early Tuesday morning ahead of the interment ceremony at Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem at 12:00 noon on Tuesday "Just as Israel stands with France against terrorism, so France must stand with Israel against terrorism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday evening at a central Paris synagogue, at the end of a day in which he marched with 60 world leaders to denounce terrorist attacks.
    “Today I walked the streets of Paris with the leaders of the world, to say enough terrorism; the time has come to fight terrorism,” Netanyahu said to the crowd of hundreds of French Jews. 
    Before he spoke, numerous senior political figures, from French President Francois Hollande to Prime Minister Manuel Valls and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, came to the ceremony.
    None of the French politicians spoke. Sarkozy was greeted warmly as he left and people climbed on the pews to salute Hollande when he left the synagogue, many of them shouting “Merci, merci.”
    When Netanyahu took the podium, the cavernous sanctuary resonated with shouts of his nickname, “Bibi, Bibi.”
    		May the light of the candles bring "bsorot tovot" – good news and a The Prime Minister repeated that the world, not only Israel, is facing the threat of Islamist extremism and must battle it together. “The truth and righteousness are with us. Our common enemy is extreme Islam, not Islam, not regular extremists, but extreme Islam,” he stated.
    He said extreme Islam doesn’t hate the West because of Israel, but hates Israel because it is an organic part of the West. 
    Careful not to overtly called for immediate immigration, he said, “ I want to say to you what I say to all our Jewish brothers, that you have a full right to live secure and peaceful lives with equal rights wherever you desire, including here in France. These days we are blessed with another privilege, a privilege that didn’t exist for generations of Jews – the privilege to join their brothers and sisters in their historic homeland of Israel.”
    Today, Monday, the Prime Minister is scheduled to hold another meeting with the head of the Jewish community in France before his scheduled return to Israel that evening. 
    Yesterday, following a meeting with President Francois Hollande, a leading figure in the Jewish community said the French army may protect Jewish sites. He told us that all the schools, all the synagogues will be protected, if necessary, on top of the police, by the army,” said Roger Cukierman, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, of his meeting with Hollande. 
    France has announced it will deploy nearly 5,000 security forces and police to protect the 700 Jewish schools in the country, its interior minister said today. Bernard Cazeneuve said soldiers would also be posted as reinforcements, as he addressed parents of a Jewish school to the south of Paris. 
    Today, the leaders of Europe have a hard task – to translate the public opinion and solidarity into practical measures; to review their open borders and immigration policies; to take positive action to curb radical Islam from "conquering" Europe. The rest of the world have received a harsh warning and must also take action. 
    Yesterday like our tears - it still rained in Israel. Today it is dry with hints of the sun , reminding us that we must be ever vigilant, never complacent – we are in the Middle East and we know only to well what the world has to face and what has to be done. We pray for better days. 
     
    Yours sincerely,

    Tova Ben-Dov,

    President

    World WIZO