01/11 Links: Millions rally for unity in France; Hollande honors victims at synagogue

From Ian:

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Times of Israel Live Blog: Millions rally for unity in France; Hollande honors victims at synagogue

Some 1.5 million people, including over 50 world leaders, thronged central Paris Sunday afternoon in a massive and historic show of support against terrorism and to honor 17 victims of a series of attacks that rocked France last week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attending the rally, announced that the four Jewish victims of an attack on a kosher market Friday would be buried in Israel. Stay tuned to The Times of Israel liveblog for breaking developments.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: France ‘will not be weak anymore’
French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy tells CNN that today’s outpouring of people onto the streets is France’s way of saying that it has failed to stand sufficiently firm in the face of Islamic extremism, and that this is now going to change.
The message of the rally, he says, is that “we will not be weak anymore in the face of this jihadism.”

Douglas Murray and Maajid Nawaz [Big Questions] (best part 16:15)


Paris: Grand Mosque Open, Grand Synagogue Closed

It seems the drawings in Charlie Hebdo offended some true believers of Islam, but the mere existence of Jews also offends them. So, apparently, does the existence of Christians, Yazidis, Hindus, Ahmadiyyas; anyone considered a "disbeliever," "infidel" or "not Muslim enough;" other Muslims, such as those blown up on the streets of Asia each week or the unfortunate Muslim policeman, Ahmed Merabet, wounded, then slaughtered at point blank range, on the sidewalk for not being "part of the plan."
In reaction to the murders in Paris, the French capital's Grand Synagogue was closed for the first time since World War II. In fact, synagogues all over Paris were closed. There were no Shabbat services this Saturday, the Jewish day of rest. The stores in the Marais, the Jewish section of Paris, were also shuttered. In light of all the expressed concern about possible anti-Muslim incidents, claims on television, such as on CNN, that "Muslims are the most persecuted people," seemed jarring and wrong.
The Grand Mosque in Paris, like mosques all over the capital, was open for business on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer. Moreover, there was little discernible increased security around the Grand Mosque. It seems French security authorities were less worried about attacks directed at Muslim institutions than were America's media commentators. Perhaps they should have spent just a little time reporting on the anti-Jewish rioting that took place in the heavily Muslim neighborhood of Trappes, a suburb of Paris?

‘I AM NOT CHARLIE’: Leaked Newsroom E-mails Reveal Al Jazeera Fury over Global Support for Charlie Hebdo

Below was a list of “suggestions” for how anchors and correspondents at the Qatar-based news outlet should cover Wednesday’s slaughter at the Charlie Hebdo office (the full e-mails can be found below).
Khadr urged his employees to ask if this was “really an attack on ‘free speech,’” discuss whether “I Am Charlie” is an “alienating slogan,” caution viewers against “making this a free speech aka ‘European Values’ under attack binary [sic],” and portray the attack as “a clash of extremist fringes.”
“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,” Khadr wrote. “Baiting extremists isn’t bravely defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate people as well. And within a climate where violent response — however illegitimate — is a real risk, taking a goading stand on a principle virtually no one contests is worse than pointless: it’s pointlessly all about you.”
His denunciation of Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed didn’t sit well with some Al Jazeera English employees.
Hours later, U.S.-based correspondent Tom Ackerman sent an email quoting a paragraph from a January 7 blog post by Ross Douthat. The New York Times’ Douthat (film critic for National Review) argued that cartoons like the ones that drove the radical Islamists to murder must be published “because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.”
That precipitated an angry backlash from the network’s Qatar-based correspondents, revealing in the process a deep cultural rift at a network at times accused of overt anti-Western bias.

Glenn Greenwald: Pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S. is at least as bad for freedom of speech as Islamist terrorists murdering cartoonists

Apparently, the real lesson we should be learning from the murder of “blasphemous” French cartoonists is that American pro-Israel activists are at least as repressive as Islamist terrorists. That’s because the former have purportedly created a “taboo” against criticizing Israel–a purported taboo, I should note, that Greenwald himself and many other bloggers, along with every major American newspaper and left-of-center journal, violate regularly, and one that somehow doesn’t stop professors hostile to Israel from dominating Middle East Studies Departments in universities across the United States, such that the actual taboo in such departments is to express sympathy for Israel. Here’s the money quote, which comes at the end of Greenwald’s post:
"That [criticizing Israel] is a real taboo – a repressed idea – as powerful and absolute as any in the United States, so much so that Brooks won’t even acknowledge its existence. It’s certainly more of a taboo in the U.S. than criticizing Muslims and Islams, which is in mainstream circles including the U.S. Congress – that one barely notices it any more. This underscores the key point: there are all sorts of ways ideas and viewpoints are suppressed in the west. When those demanding publication of these anti-Islam cartoons start demanding the affirmative publication of those ideas as well, I’ll believe the sincerity of their very selective application of free speech principles. One can defend free speech without having to publish, let alone embrace, the offensive ideas being targeted. But if that’s not the case, let’s have equal application of this new principle."
The article is full of logical fallacies, and suggests that Greenwald doesn’t understand why Charlie Hebdo was targeted (hint: it wasn’t because of an allegedly offensive reference to Boko Haram’s sex slaves), apparently doesn’t understand what “blasphemy” means and certainly appears to believe that Der Sturmer-like anti-Semitic cartoons are the moral and logical equivalent of making fun of Moses or Muhammed.

Wall Street Journal No Longer Politically Correct on Islam

In other words, Islam is at war with us, and the war is a long way from being over.
So the question naturally becomes, how do we respond? And here the Journal shows some testosterone. After arguing that we should “accelerate and intensify the campaign against Islamic State,” the editors go on:
The West also needs to cease its political campaign against the most effective antiterror tools. This means surveillance in particular. The same left-libertarian media who have canonized Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald now claim solidarity with Charlie Hebdo.
Sorry. You cannot favor antiterror disarmament and then claim shock at terror successes.
“My sharpest concern as director general of MI5 is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it,” Mr. Parker, the British security chief, also said this week. “The dark places from where those who wish us harm can plot and plan are increasing” and “we need to be able to access communications and obtain relevant data on those people when we have good reason.”
Surveillance by itself isn’t enough, given the many reports that French security had tracked this week’s killers. We’ll learn in the coming days if the French missed clues that the Kouachi brothers were ready to strike, but other countries have had similar oversights. The FBI was tipped off that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had visited the North Caucusus terrorist hotbed of Dagestan in 2012 but failed to act.
The West will have to consider more aggressive interventions, including arrest or exile, for citizens who visit terror regions and show signs of embracing jihad. Tracking Muslim student groups and clerics is also essential to preventing future attacks. The Associated Press campaign three years ago against the New York police for legal monitoring of Muslim groups looks more morally obtuse with each homegrown attack.

Claire Berlinski: An Update From Paris: This Jew is Still Here, and She is Not Leaving

So no, Mr. Drudge, you got this one wrong. I am a Jew. I am in France. I am not leaving. Neither are many terrified Jews in France. Neither are many terrified Muslims. Nor are we even that terrified, to be honest. In fact, I think I’d enjoy killing these kinds of people every bit as much as my grandfather did, and rather relish the thought.
I will stay here with my Jewish friends; I will stay here with my Muslim friends, and I will stay here for all the journalists at Charlie Hebdo–who were what the West is supposed to be and what I hope it will be again. I will stay here for Charb. I will stay here for all of his colleagues. I will stay here for my Grandfather. And I will stay here because too many Jews have been driven out of Europe–and I will not be one of them.
Never again has many meanings: One of them is that.
I will not be driven out. Not even if I have to personally teach the entire French police force which end of the gun to shoot from. If they’d like some advice about that, I’m happy to offer it; if not, I will confine myself to the obvious and say: Get your act together, and quick, because you need to up your game. But I’m sure you will–practice makes perfect–and Vive La France.

Charlie, Muhammad, and the Saudi 1000 Lashes of Raif Badawi

Shortly after his move from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, for instance, when he became the effective ruler of the town, opponents emerged in the Jewish and wider communities. Poets wrote lampoons and disrespectful verses. Muhammad had them killed. Not just poets, but almost anyone who disagreed with him and his "revelations."
In 624, for example, a Jewish poet named Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf wrote verses condemning the killing of notables from Mecca. He later became a one-man Charlie Hebdo, writing obscene and erotic verses about the Muslim women. Muhammad took offense and instructed one of his companions, Muhammad ibn Maslama, to assassinate Ka'b. When Ibn Maslama expressed doubts about having to lie to Ka'b in order to trick him into going with him, Muhammad told him lying was permissible for such purposes. Ibn Maslama and some other Muslims went out with Ka'b under false pretenses and murdered him.
Ka'b ibn al-Ahraf was not Muhammad's only victim. The poets Asma' bint Marwan (a woman), Abu Afak, and Al-Nadir ibn al-Harith, and Abu Rafi' ibn Abi Al-Huqaiq were all assassinated in the same year for the same offence of mockery. In the next few years, several other poets were killed, such as Abdullah ibn Zib'ari, Al-Harith bin al-Talatil, Hubayra, Ka'b ibn Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulama, and Huwayrith ibn Nafidh. Abdullah bin Khatal and two of his slave girls were murdered for having recited poems insulting the Prophet. There is a list in WikiIslam of 43 people -- as well as all the men from the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza -- who were killed on Muhammad's orders or whose murders were sanctioned by him.
Today the lashes of Raif Badawi stand with the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo as further symbols of the determination of many extremists to reject the norms of reason, tolerance, pluralism, equality, the Universal Declaration human rights and the value that begins every chapter but one of the Qur'an: mercy.
Some people ask what inspires those who kill authors, cartoonists and journalists, while others insist that it has nothing to do with Islam. If we do not learn, if our leaders do not learn, what hope is there for us?
Today, we are all Charlie. And we are all Raif.

The long, bloody trail that led to the Charlie Hebdo massacre

It took five years for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights to formulate a working definition of anti-Semitism because of sustained opposition from the same circles to linking the rising anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism. Under sustained assault, the EU eventually withdrew the working definition in 2013.
It is time to stop feeling and start thinking what it means that today, in January 2015, police authorities in Paris have ordered all Jewish shops shut early. It's time to consider the significance of the fact that today Paris's central synagogue will be closed on the Sabbath for the first time since World War II.
This week’s tragedies are only the latest acts in a terrible drama. Europe's liberal culture has for too long sought to downplay anti-Semitism as legitimate grievance that only occasionally goes too far, and to excuse radical Islam on grounds of socio-economic disadvantage and post-colonial guilt. Those columnists, intellectuals, academics, and leaders who changed the subject and spoke of Islamophobia so as to appease the intolerant have now reaped the whirlwind of their moral and political cowardice.
Europe has tolerated anti-Semitism in its midst for too long. It's long past due for Europeans to begin showing zero tolerance to intolerance.

Andrew Bolt: Are we really all Charlie? No, no and shamefully no

PROTESTERS around the West, horrified by the massacre in Paris, have held up pens and chanted “Je suis Charlie” — I am Charlie.
They lie. The Islamist terrorists are winning, and the coordinated attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and kosher shop will be just one more success. One more step to our gutless surrender.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen didn’t attack Charlie Hebdo because we are all Charlie Hebdo.
The opposite. It sent in the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi because Charlie Hebdo was almost alone.
Unlike most politicians, journalists, lawyers and other members of our ruling classes, this fearless magazine dared to mock Islam in the way the Left routinely mocks Christianity. Unlike much of our ruling class, it refused to sell out our freedom to speak.
Its greatest sin — to the Islamists — was to republish the infamous cartoons of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten which mocked Mohammed, and then to publish even more of its own, including one showing the Muslim prophet naked.
Are we really all Charlie? No, no and shamefully no.

Chief rabbi's son, shop worker saving for marriage, teacher and pensioner: Faces of kosher deli hostages killed by Jew-hating jihadist - one of whom was executed when he grabbed one of terrorist's guns and it JAMMED

The son of a chief Rabbi, a teacher, a pensioner and a shop worker saving for his marriage have been revealed as the kosher deli hostages killed by Jew-hating jihadist - one of whom was executed when he grabbed one of terrorist's guns.
Yohan Cohen, 22, Yoav Hattab, 21 and Philippe Braham, in his forties, have been pictured 24 hours after the siege came to a climax as armed police raided the Jewish grocery in Paris.
Another hostage, François-Michel Saada, thought to be in his sixties, was also murdered in the attack by Islamic terrorist Amedy Coulibaly, French Jewish organisation Crif confirmed.
It has emerged that Mr Cohen, 22, from Sarcelles in the northern suburbs of Paris, had been working at Hyper Cacher for a year to pay for his future wedding to girlfriend Sharon Seb.
She posted on Facebook saying: 'Je suis Yohan.' And later, in an emotional tribute to her boyfriend, she wrote: 'What am I going to do without you? How am I going to live without you? Why you?
'My life is ruined without you. I will never achieve anything now. I need you in my life. We had so many plans.

Victims of kosher market attack to be buried in Israel

The four Jewish men killed in a Friday terrorist attack at the HyperCacher kosher supermarket in Paris will be laid to rest in Israel.
The decision came after the Foreign Ministry reached out to the families with an offer to bury the victims in Israel, despite the fact that they were not Israeli citizens, and the families accepted.
The funerals are set to take place on Tuesday and the four will officially be recognized as terror victims.
The victims, who were killed shortly before the start of Shabbat on Friday afternoon, were named Saturday as Yohan Cohen, 22, an employee of the HyperCacher store; Yoav Hattab, 21, a student of Tunisian origin and the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis; Phillipe Barham, 45, an executive at an IT company, a father and the brother of a rabbi; and François-Michel Saada, 64, a retired father of two.

Survivor 'Befriended' Paris Kosher Market Terrorist

Eli Vaknin, a survivor of the terror attack at the kosher supermarket in Paris, spoke with IDF Radio Sunday morning about his ordeal.
Vaknin was doing his Shabbat shopping when he saw a car stop and a man get out with two Kalashnikov rifles. “He was very muscular, with two guns, a commando knife and a bulletproof vest. He got out of a car driven by a woman, entered the supermarket and shot four men, first of all.”
After murdering the four men, the terrorist began to check that all entrances were blocked.
"He started to give us a speech on how he would kill all of the Jews, Christians and unbelievers, and said he was from ISIS. I let him scream like a dog as I calmed everyone down,” Vaknin related.
"I told him I was from Morocco and he asked me if I was a Muslim. I told him that I was a Mussawi – the son of Moses and Amram, and he thought that this was a faction within Islam.”
"At a certain point we became friends. He asked in Arabic where there was an internet connection. Then he connected and relayed his demands to the TV station. Meanwhile, I began relaying messages through my mobile phone, and the police told me to leave it open so they could hear what was going on inside.”

Survivors of kosher market attack recount hostage crisis

Nine p.m., the day before yesterday. A couple leaves Hotel-Dieu de Paris -- a few yards from the entrance to Notre Dame -- in an embrace. They are shaking. They look to the sides, still not realizing what they went through. They don't realize they are alive.
The younger one isn't interested in being interviewed and asks that his full name not be used. So we'll just call him S. Cohen. His girlfriend, on the other hand, wants to talk. Her name is Marie. "Leave it, it's dangerous," S. warns her. "What, do you want the jihadists to show up on our doorstep?"
The couple who just left the hospital had spent the day at the Jewish supermarket Hyper Cacher in Port de Vincennes. Cohen is wearing a gold pendant bearing the logo of the IDF's Paratroopers Brigade, and another one with a Torah scroll. "Today, I was given the gift of life," he says. "Don't take my picture. I don't when them to come to my house and kill me. There are lots more jihadists in Paris. I don't want them to recognize my face."
Suddenly, he unbuttons his shirt. Underneath it we discover a black T-shirt imprinted with the words "Israeli Navy" in Hebrew and English. "Imagine if he had seen this," he explains. "He would have killed me immediately. I was really lucky. My cohen [the Jewish priestly class] ancestors protected me."

Revealed: How hero Muslim shop assistant hid customers in freezer of Jewish deli after Islamic gunman raided supermarket

This is the Muslim man who has been hailed a hero after he hid shoppers in the freezer of the Jewish grocery store after an Islamic gunman raided the deli where he worked.
Lassana Bathily, 24, originally from Mali in west Africa, guided terrified customers to safety in a supermarket chiller at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, Paris, yesterday.
He has since been praised for his quick-thinking and bravery after 15 hostages, which reportedly included two children, escaped the ordeal, in which gunman Amedy Coulibaly was killed as he attempted to flee.

Two Muslim Heroes of Paris Terror Attacks (#CharlieHebdo #HyperCasher)

As the world mourns the victims of the Paris attack, we should also recognize two acts of bravery by Muslims in the course of the week’s events at the Charlie Hebdo offices and Hyper Casher Kosher supermarket.
The first is Ahmed Merabet, a French policeman who was killed at Charlie Hebdo.
The second is a 24 year old shop assistant named Lassana Bathily. As horrific events unfolded at the Super Cacher kosher supermarket, Bathily saved the lives of French Jews by hiding them in the walk-in refrigerator of the store.

Paris attacker pledged allegiance to Islamic State in video

A man resembling Amedy Coulibaly, who shot a policewoman and took hostages at a Jewish supermarket in the Paris attacks, claimed to be a member of the Islamic State group in a posthumous video released online on Sunday.
Speaking into the camera, the man says he coordinated with the two gunmen who attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday, killing 12.
“I am addressing myself first of all to the Caliph of Muslims Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” he says, referring to the leader of IS.
“I have declared allegiance to the Caliph,” he says in broken, stuttering Arabic, wearing Islamic white dress and headgear.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen member: We directed Paris attack

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula directed the attack against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris “as revenge for the honor” of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, a member of the group told The Associated Press on Friday.
At least one of the two brothers involved in the attack travelled to Yemen in 2011 and either received training from or fought alongside the group, according to US and Yemeni officials. A US intelligence assessment described to the AP shows that Said Kouachi was trained in preparation to return home and carry out an attack.
If confirmed, the attack would be the first time al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has successfully carried out an operation in the West after at least two earlier attempts.
Soon after, the branch’s senior cleric Sheikh Harith al-Nadhari issued a recording on the group’s Twitter feed commenting on the “blessed raid on Paris.” He denounced the “filthy” French and called them “the heads of infidelity who insult the prophets.” He praised the “hero mujahedeen” who he said “taught them a lesson and the limits of freedom of speech.”

Algerian sources warned against attack on Charlie Hebdo offices

A failure in French intelligence services surfaced over the weekend, when news broke that Algerian intelligence sources warned their French counterparts on January 6th of the expected attack on the Charlie Hedbo offices that took place the next day.
Furthermore, the terrorists responsible both for Wednesday's Charlie Hebdo attack and for Friday's attack on a Kosher supermarket were familiar to French and international security forces.
Cherif and Said Kouachi, the brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack, had been arrested a decade ago for their ties to a Middle Eastern based terrorist organization. The two were on a no-fly list in both the US and Britain due to their terror-related activity.

Support for Paris gunmen takes form on Twitter

A new hashtag has emerged on Twitter in support of gunmen who carried out deadly attacks in France that killed 17 people.
#JeSuisKouachi, or "I am Kouachi" is named after two brothers, Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, who carried out Wednesday’s attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, including leading French cartoonists and police officers.
According to trends determined at the Hashtags.org, the #JeSuisKouachi tag appeared to become hugely popular in the last 24 hours, especially Friday after three gunmen were killed at the end of two hostage situations in France. According to statistics determined by the social media analytics site, the tag was shared at one point by more than 5,000 people per hour.
"All support to our brothers Kouachi, Bon courage and Allah protects you against the disbelievers," a Twitter user using the handle Khaireddine tweeted using the hashtag, which many people online found offensive.
The hashtag is now also being used to express outrage against supporters of the attackers among Internet users around the world.

Real Time with Bill Maher: Je Suis Charlie -­ January 9, 2015 (NSFW)


Dr Qanta Ahmed ‘Need to acknowledge ties to Islam’


French PM: France without Jews would be a failure

A France bereft of 100,000 Jews would be deemed a failure, the country’s prime minister said last week, before a terror attack on a kosher market left four Jewish men dead and spurred renewed calls for immigration to Israel.
Manuel Valls told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that “France would no longer be France,” if Jews fled the country en masse, in an interview published early Sunday.
“100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure,” he said.
Valls echoed the statement on Saturday outside Paris’s HyperCacher market, calling for a millions-strong march against terror a day after an Islamist gunman killed four men and held several more people hostage before being killed by police.
“France without Jews is not France,” he said.

Netanyahu to French Jews: Israel is your home

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Paris on Sunday morning to join other world leaders at a mass rally against terrorism, following the Islamic terrorist attacks at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and a kosher supermarket in Paris last week that shook France.
In a statement on Saturday night, Netanyahu called on French Jews to move to Israel. "The State of Israel is not just the place to which you turn in prayer," Netanyahu said to French Jews. "The State of Israel is also your home. This week, a special team of ministers will convene to advance steps to increase immigration from France and other countries in Europe that are suffering from terrible anti-Semitism. All Jews who want to immigrate to Israel will be welcomed here warmly and with open arms. We will help you in your absorption here in our state that is also your state."

US joins France in calling supermarket assault 'anti-Semitic'

The United States has joined France in characterizing Friday's assault on a kosher supermarket in Paris as "anti-Semitic," after four shoppers became the first casualties in a spike of violent attacks on the Jewish community in recent months.
The attack was the culmination of a violent week for the people of France, which began with a slaughter of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and editors at the hands of trained Islamic extremists.
"We condemn in the strongest terms ‎yesterday's cowardly anti-Semitic assault against the innocent people in the kosher supermarket," Chanan Weissman, a spokesman for the State Department, told The Jerusalem Post.

US officials had warned France over security for its Jews

As fury gripped Europe over Israel's operation in Gaza last summer, US officials expressed concern over inadequate security for its Jewish populations— particularly in France, where synagogues were firebombed, Jewish-owned shops were vandalized, and Jews themselves were targeted over the actions of the Jewish state.
"The security need is very clear— Jewish communities need, desperately, security," Ira Forman, the Obama administration's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in November. "In terms of stability, we're talking about the viability of Jewish communities."
The position of the United States was clear: The targeting of a Jewish minority for the actions of a specific foreign government— any government— was anti-Semitic, the crossing of a line that democratic governments cannot tolerate.

French army may protect Jewish sites, community leader says

Jewish schools and synagogues will be protected “if necessary” by the French army, a leading figure in the country’s Jewish community said after meeting with President Francois Hollande on Sunday.
“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.
Hollande said he would visit the Grand Synagogue of Paris after a march to commemorate the 17 victims of a string of jihadist attacks in the capital last week, the last of which killed four Jews at a kosher supermarket on Friday.

'Policemen, Guns Drawn, at Every French Synagogue'

Policemen "with guns drawn" have been stationed at all synagogues in France since the terror attacks last week, according to Rabbi Moshe Levin of the Conference of European Rabbis. “Usually, police only patrol next to synagogues, but immediately after the attack, an armed guard made up of two policemen has been stationed in front of every synagogue in France,” he said.
The Director of Europe's Federation of Jewish Organizations, Rabbi Menahem Margolin, instructed all of the Federation's subsidiary organizations, 700 synagogues and schools to greatly increase security at the institutions, and to demand that the local authority and security forces at their locations immediately provide armed guards to protect Jewish communities.
"We partake, of course, in the French public's sorrow, and express condolences to the families of victims, whoever they may be,” he added. “The Jews of Europe have been warning all of the governments of the EU – and publicly – for some time, that forgiveness and understanding to any motives of terror toward a minority, will wind up increasing the terror and augmenting its lethal effect against the European fabric of life.
"There is no doubt in anyone's mind anymore that we are in the midst of a terror wave – and this is happening even before many European youths who have enlisted in the forces of radical Islam, return to Europe brainwashed, trained in warfare and well equipped,” observed Rabbi Margolin.

Egyptian cleric rejoices in Charlie Hebdo shooting attack

With most of the world united against a plague of violence that has shocked and rattled Parisians in recent days, claiming the lives of 17 people, one person seems particularly "happy" in light of the spate of attacks.
An Egyptian cleric, speaking to supporters in a video translated by MEMRI on Saturday, said the shooting attack on the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine was a punishment by Allah against those poking fun at the Prophet Muhammad – an attack equated with "an act of war."
The Paris-based publication, founded in 1992, is known for its cartoon covers lampooning the prophet and for its controversial depictions of radical Islam.
"People mocked the prophets of Allah," Mostafa Al-Adwy, a frequent guest on Islamic programs on Egyptian television, said in a video posted to his website, "but the mockers were punished by Allah for their mockery."

Egyptian Cleric Mostafa Al-Adwy on Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack: By God, We Are Happy


Egyptian TV Host Mahmoud Saad: We All Share Responsibility for Paris Attacks


Tunisian Cleric Bechir Ben Hassen: Anyone Cursing the Prophet Muhammad Should Be Executed


ISIS Supporter Hacks Websites of Towns Near Paris

While officials have not demonstrably linked the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) to the Charlie Hebdo massacre, websites of a number of towns in France fell victims to a cyber-attack replacing the content of their sties with Islamic State flag in apparent celebration of the mass shooting.
“The Islamic State Stay Inchallah [God Willing], Free Palestine, Death To France, Death To Charlie” appears at the top in bright red against the black backdrop. The group L’Apoca-DZ took credit for the hack. The Daily Mirror reported the hackers provided a link to a Facebook page. However, a search for L’Apoca-Dz yields no results.
The towns hacked include Jouy-le-Moutier, Piscop, Goussainville, Val D’Oise, and Ezanville. The pages were disabled when the hack was discovered. They eventually returned to their original state.

Afghanistan rally hails Charlie Hebdo attackers as 'heroes'

Hundreds in southern Afghanistan rallied to praise the killing of 12 people at the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, calling the two gunmen "heroes" who meted out punishment for cartoons disrespectful to Islam's prophet, officials said Saturday.
The demonstrators also protested President Ashraf Ghani's swift condemnation of the bloody attack on the satirical newspaper, according to the officials in Uruzgan province.
The rally came after worshippers left Friday prayers at a local mosque in Chora district and swelled to several hundred people, said Chora police chief Abdul Qawi.
"The protesters were calling the attackers heroes and were shouting that those who had mocked the Prophet Mohammad were punished," Qawi said.

'What do you expect if you insult Islam?' British hate preacher BACKS the Paris massacres and tells his followers 'Britain is the enemy of Islam'

A British hate preacher backed the Paris massacres just hours after the bloody events unfolded and told his followers ‘Britain is the enemy of Islam’.
Cleric Mizanur Rahman, of Palmers Green, north London, defended the brutal murder of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices, saying ‘insulting Islam…they can’t expect a different result.’
Experts have warned the sermon, which backed the jihadists who killed 17 people over three days in the French capital, could incite further killings.
Speaking to an audience in London which was streamed online to thousands of his followers, Rahman praised Al Qaeda and said ‘Britain is the enemy of Islam.’
Sam Westrop, director of counter-extremism group Stand for Peace told the Sunday Mirror: ‘His kind of rhetoric is not an echo of Islamist terror and extremism – it is a driving force behind it.

Netanyahu, Lieberman, Bennett all headed to Paris for solidarity rally

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett will all leave for France on Sunday morning to attend a "silent march" against terrorism, in memory of the 17 victims of several terror attacks in the French capital over the past few days.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also expected to attend the Paris rally.
Following the attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday, which claimed the lives of four people, Netanyahu called French President Francois Hollande, telling him: "The entire people of Israel are with you. Our hearts are with the families of the victims. Israel offers any assistance that France needs."

Hamas-Linked Publication Praises 'Heroic' Paris Terrorists

A Hamas-linked publication has praised the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, and hailed those responsible as "martyrs".
An image posted on Friday evening to the Facebook page of the Al-Rasalah publication featured the faces of the three Islamist terrorists eliminated by French security forces Friday, with a caption reading: "The shahidim [martyrs] who were dispatched by God, the heroes of the raid in Paris." (h/t Yenta Press)

‘Palestinians’ and Turks go to France — to honor terrorists?

The hypocrisy, cynicism and sheer reality inversion that the ‘Palestinian’ leader is capable of is beyond belief, not to mention inducing nausea at a time like this.
To whom will Abbas pay tribute? Certainly not the Charlie Hebdo victims, since there is no press freedom in the Palestinian Authority, where one can be jailed for ‘liking’ a Facebook post or insulting the President.
And it’s unlikely that he wishes to honor the Jewish victims of the attack on the kosher market, because he regularly treats the terrorist murderers of Jews in Israel as heroes of the Palestinian movement and pays them generously.
So he must be going to honor the dead terrorists. There’s simply no other possibility, unless of course he wants an opportunity to thank Hollande for his vote at the UN Security Council to trash previous UNSC (242, etc.) resolutions and international treaties (Oslo). That favor certainly improved Franco-Islamic relations, didn’t it, M. Hollande?
It is also absurd that Turkey, which supports Hamas, provides sanctuary for its terrorist operatives (including the planner of the kidnap/murder of three Jewish teens in July), and may soon become the headquarters of its leader Khaled Meshaal, should pretend to show solidarity with terror victims.

Jewish Settlements Are The REAL Story In The Paris Attacks By Saeb Erekat (satire)

The mainstream media are missing the point of the recent shooting attacks in France. It isn’t about rising Islamism, or the failure to integrate hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants. It isn’t about the availability of guns, or even about the apparent incompatibility of liberal values with Islam. It’s really about Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. It’s so plain as to be obvious, and it troubles me that I need to point that out.
Jewish settlements are the real story in other developing situations, as well, but the Zionist-controlled media will never tell you that. I’m not even talking about wacky conspiracy theories regarding the Mossad being behind the Charlie Hebdo shootings – that’s just too unbelievable. I’m talking about the basics, such as looking at who stands to gain from all this tragedy: Israeli settlements. All this violence will move more French Jews to emigrate, and some will inevitably end up where Israel encourages people to live: in settlements built on land stolen from Palestinians, who have always been here no matter what the archaeologists and so-called family trees say.
In fact Jewish settlements are always the bottom line. Any events that divert international attention from the worst crime against humanity imaginable – Jews living where they want – must perforce be approached with the question of why anyone would seek to divert the world’s attention from that. This holds true regardless of whether the event in question is the work of humans or Nature. Since, as we Palestinians have always maintained, the rape of Palestinian land by Zionists is a crime against the natural order, it stands to reason that Nature would show her displeasure with humanity every now and then for not doing more to combat this scourge.

Terrorist Sympathizers Speak Out Against (Some Of) Terrorism In France

A number of high profile people known for siding with terrorists in their war against Israel, are speaking out against the terrorism in France.
There’s Roger Waters,
Then there’s Russell Brand (who has spoken out in support of Hamas terrorism) penning this blog post today.
But do you notice the common thread with both posts (besides the obvious hypocrisy with them supporting terrorism against Israel)?
Despite being posted after the kosher supermarket atrocity, both mention only the earlier Charlie Hebdo attack. And in Brand’s case, he does not mention “Jews”.
This moral perversity mirrors that of Hamas itself, which also condemned the Charlie Hebdo attack – which they distinguished from their brand of terrorism – while not condemning the Jewish supermarket attack:

Stop The Genocide In Paristine! (satire)

The needless bloodshed of last week’s events in Paris was deeply disturbing. A small group of 3 to 4 devout Muslims defending the honor of their peaceful faith, were brutally murdered at the hands French storm-troopers.
Hundreds of heavily armed gendarmerie commandeered the streets of Paris in a foreboding display of disproportionate force harking back to Europe’s darkest days 70 years ago.
As peace-loving Israelis we robustly protest this senseless violence which is a threat to world-order. We call for restraint on both sides. It is high-time that all Parisians learn to live peacefully with each other. Get on with it!
There is only one solution. Divide Paris into separate, mutually-recognized cantons. Two cantons for two peoples living side by side in mutual respect and peace – Apartheid.
Stop the genocide in Paristine!

Edgar Davidson: Israeli PM: "France has right to exist - but response is disproportionate" (satire)

In the light of the tit-for-tat war between Muslim freedom fighters and French police - which has claimed the lives of 3 Muslims in the last few days - The Prime Minister of Israel reaffirmed his strong commitment to the French State by asserting "I believe that France has a right to exist". He warned, however, that Israeli support for France's right to exist was no longer guaranteed if the French continued with their disproportionate response against Muslims. PM Benjamin Netanyahu said:
We cannot sit idly by and witness the French launch these horrific bombings and shootings against outnumbered Muslim fighters as we witnessed in Paris and Northern France yesterday. The brutal killing of 3 Muslims in these attacks is inflaming Muslim feelings around the world, especially as only one French police officer was killed. In Israel 300,000 of our peaceful Muslims citizens marched through Jerusalem today to protest the French actions and we have to consider their feelings. The French government has to understand that there is no military solution to this conflict. They should immediately abide by the UN resolution we proposed last week to evacuate all non-Muslim French from occupied Paris, handing it over to the elected representatives of the moderate wing of ISIS. After all, the Government of Israel officially removed ISIS from the list of designated terrorist organisations last month, so the French no longer have any legal basis for not negotiating their evacuation from Paris.
Also Israel approved the ISIS proposal for membership of the International Criminal Court and, if the French do not withdraw from Paris, Israel will not stand in the way of ISIS prosecuting the French Government. Israel will also reconsider its decision not to impose sanctions against the French if the French Government fails to release all convicted Muslim criminals from their jails as an immediate gesture for peace (as agreed in the recent joint Israel-US-ISIS memorandum).

Arson attack against German paper that reprints Charlie Hebdo cartoons

A German newspaper in the city of Hamburg – the Hamburger Morgenpost – that printed Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad was the target of an arson attack, the local paper reported on Sunday.
After the deadly attack at the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday, the Hamburger Morgenpost, like many other German papers, printed cartoons of the satire magazine.
No one was hurt in the incident, the paper said on its website. Two unknown gunmen threw burning objects from the backyard of the building into the archives of the publication. The building was unmanned at the time and no one was injured. However, some files were damaged and burned in the incident. (h/t Gastwirt)

Did a Time Article Justify Terror Attack in France?

Charlie Hebdo is the French magazine which was the target of last week’s horrific terror attack in which twelve people were murdered. But this was not the first time that the journal has been attacked. Just 4 years ago, the office was firebombed by Muslim extremists, enraged at the satirical magazine’s depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. At the time, the Paris Bureau Chief for Time Magazine, Bruce Crumley, published a surprising column.
Here is what he said about the French magazine’s cartoons critical of Islam in an article entitled “Firebombed French Paper is No Free Speech Martyr:”
Not only are Islamophobic antics (his description of Charlie Hebdo’s political cartoons) futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?
For most of the world, the “common good” of free expression is well understood. But Crumley, speaking for Time, felt that the French Magazine should have refrained from publishing materials that might offend people. It’s a shocking perspective from a journalist. Does he believe that the media should only publish ideas that everyone agrees with? Or is it just Islam that he thinks must be protected from critical speech?

CNN's Chris Cuomo Describes French Islamist as 'African American'

In today’s edition of Political Correctness Makes You Stupid, while referring to Amedy Coulibaly, one of the Islamic terrorists killed by French police in a hostage standoff Friday, instead of describing him as black (which he was), CNN’s Chris Cuomo described the man as “African-American.”
Thankfully, Anderson Cooper was on the scene to immediately correct Cuomo, “Not American – the man of African descent.”

CNN Offers $10K Reward For Positive Stories Of Islamists (satire)

In the interest of journalistic balance, the international news giant Cable News Network announced today it would pay $10,000 to individuals who submitted stories, or leads that produced stories, that cast Islamists in a positive light. The offer is intended to counteract the impression that viewers might otherwise form of violent Islamic terrorists.
A notice on the CNN website Saturday asked visitors to submit such stories or leads to its Middle East editor Deborah Rayner via e-mail or Twitter (@cnni), with relevant contact information and, if possible, links to multiple sources regarding the stories. The notice, which was up for only half an hour, explained that if a given story were eventually published on the site or aired on the cable network, the user who submitted the initial lead would receive a $10,000 prize.
CNN decided to issue the offer in keeping with its longstanding policy of offsetting every negative report about Islamists with a kinder, gentler image of the movement and its adherents. In recent months, however, such stories have proved hard to come by, especially this week with a series of bloody attacks in France.
The policy is an extension of a standing offer of a $25,000 reward for the submission of stories involving brutal Jewish settlers in the West Bank. That policy itself grew out of an earlier program that began in the late 1980’s, under which each news item involving negative behavior by Muslims required regional editors to produce at least 3 negative stories about Jews.

Islamists won’t kill free speech—we will

Terror can backfire in the sense that some people finally dislike being scared and react by doing whatever terror is discouraging. This is generally a temporary response. As George Jonas pointed out in a 2013 column, human beings find a way of rationalizing their behaviour so that they can claim they are refraining from publishing or saying something not out of fear but because they don’t wish to offend. They convert the base notion of being scared into a noble weapon of seeing someone else’s point of view. In fact, this is one of the most insidious aspects of terrorism: we wash our brains and convert our fear into understanding. Example: the awful spot CBC put news host Evan Solomon in when reporting the Paris murders. He was given the job of reading CBC’s rationalization to explain why, although the motive for the Paris murders were Charlie’s cartoons of Muhammad and Islamists, the CBC would not show the cartoons in reporting the story. I didn’t tape his explanation, fascinated as I was by its maze of clauses, but the phrase “not to offend” made a cameo appearance.
The West has been ready to give up on itself for some time now. We have no idea of what we stand for and seem to have no faith other than lip-service in the superiority of our institutions. If 9/11 can somehow be made to feel like partly the fault of America, then change foreign policy or administrations and the problem will go away. If young Islamic terrorists are created by feelings of “alienation” then the problem will be solved by getting them to like us. It’s so comforting. Fundamentalist Islam is on the march and all we can do is worry about giving offence. When the blood of journalists can only be expunged by denying other journalists the right to say or show what they died for, we are hemorrhaging freedom. I have no children but some coming generation will pay the price for their parents’ cowardice.

US: It seems there was a statue of Mohammed in New York for fifty years

For the first half of the 20th century, an eight-foot-tall marble statue of the Prophet Muhammad overlooked Madison Square Park from the rooftop of the Appellate Division Courthouse at Madison Avenue and 25th Street.
Sixty years ago, the statue was quietly removed, in an episode that now looks, in light of recent events in Paris, like the model of tact, restraint and diplomacy.
What had spared the sensibilities of Muslim passers-by from 1902 to 1955 was that “Muhammad,” by the Mexican sculptor Charles Albert Lopez, was among nine other lawgivers, including Confucius and Moses.

Modern Language Assoc postpones anti-Israel boycott vote until 2017

At the 2014 annual meeting a resolution critical of Israel’s alleged breach of Palestinian academic freedom barely passed the House of Delegates, but then failed when the resolution was sent to the full membership.
There was no boycott resolution to be voted on this year. Given that even a condemnation of Israel failed last year, hopes to advance the anti-Israel, anti-academic freedom agenda will have to wait for two years. The vote to confirm this delayed timetable was not a surprise.
According to one person in the room during discussion of the delay, the boycotters came “off as silly. Especially after events like this weekend.” [referring to attacks on Jews in Paris by Islamic terrorists]
But pro-boycott faculty formed a working group, led by Stanford Professor David Palumbo-Liu (recently elected to the MLA Executive Board), David Lloyd of UC-Riverside (one of the co-founders of the U.S. boycott movement) and Rebecca Comay of the University of Toronto, who will be organizing for the next two years to push the boycott resolution in 2017.
This marks a second setback for the anti-Israel academic boycott movement this year, after the American Historical Association rejected an attempt even to debate a resolution condemning Israel.

Qanta Ahmed: A Muslim’s ambush: how I was stitched up by Australian breakfast TV

On a recent trip to Australia I was booked by Ch7′s Weekend Sunrise to discuss Project Rozana, an Israeli-Palestinian initiative to train West Bank physicians (predominantly Palestinian Muslims)in Israel’s Hadassah hospital. As an ambassador for the Project, I was lock step with my ideals both as a physician and as an observing Muslim opposed to virulently anti-Semitic Islamism.
A veteran media commentator, my suspicions should have been raised when the producers didn’t indicate the nature of my interview, nor even confirm that I would be discussing Project Rozana. Minutes before live broadcast, the young segment producer Maddy still ‘didn’t know’ what the anchors would be asking.
The cameras began rolling and I described my experiences at The Technion, The RamBam Medical Center and at Hadassah Hospital, responding to the anchors’ evident curiosity. The close knit and fully integrated coexistence with which Israeli and Arab Palestinian scientists and physicians interact with their equally diverse Israeli and Arab Palestinian patients surprised my interviewers.
Hours later, I received the link of the broadcast (you can watch it here). The shock was physical as I witnessed my exploitation. At each description of the pluralism and egalitarianism I had witnessed in Israeli medicine, the screen split to show the rubble of decimated North Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, or the launching of an Iron Dome interception missile. Then the screen split to the Security Wall, shown from the Palestinian, not Israeli side.
Mortally wounded Palestinian children, injured in conflict were broadcast liberally.
The war footage had clearly been assembled in advance of my live interview without prior knowledge of what I would say. In an unseen control room, to the producers’ signal, as I responded with words like ‘coexistence’, ‘integration’ or ‘pluralism’, a technician pulled the trigger and rolled the stock ‘Israel as a terrorist state’ footage; detonating my truthful and universal message.
I had been reduced to an instrument of rank media opportunism. Worse, it was possible the tearful Iman had been the architect of my on-air vivisection. Self-described as the senior producer and ‘very close to the Palestinians of Gaza’, Iman had withheld remarking on this footage during our 30 minute coffee.

For Anett Haskia, there’s no place like the Jewish Home

Haskia is a 45-year-old Muslim Israeli Arab hairdresser and divorced mother of three grown children, all who have volunteered to serve in the IDF. Her eldest son served in the Kfir infantry brigade, her daughter was the first Muslim Arab Israeli woman to enlist, and her youngest son, 22, is currently serving in the Golani brigade.
Growing up in Acre in a family of six children and a home that was welcoming and open to people of all religions and ethnicities, Haskia, who now lives on a kibbutz in northern Israel, never envisioned the divides that exist between Jews and Arabs in Israeli society today.
Haskia has been working for the past four years through her The True Voice organization to help Arab Israeli youth better integrate into Israeli society, guiding them toward military or national service. She believes their future depends on their becoming proud and responsible Israeli citizens, rather than waiting for the establishment of a Palestinian state — something she not only predicts won’t happen, but which she is deliberately working against by joining Jewish Home.
In a recent phone conversation in Hebrew with The Times of Israel ahead of the January 14 Jewish Home primary election, Haskia shared her perspective, expounded on her positions and explained why she refuses to be called “Palestinian.”