Netanyahu: Israel is standing by Europe, Europe must stand by Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende on Thursday, saying that the same forces that are attacking Europe are attacking Israel.David Horovitz: The first step toward defeating Islamist terrorism
Speaking a day after gunmen killed 12 people in a terror attack in Paris, Netanyahu said, "Israel is standing by Europe. Europe must stand by Israel." The comment also came on the backdrop of a number of European parliaments voting on resolutions in support of recognizing a Palestinian state in recent months.
Netanyahu said that while Israel and the West cherish freedom and tolerance, radical Islam worships tyranny and terror. "They seek to impose a new dark age on humanity."
The prime minister condemned the "butchery" of the Paris attack and expressed sympathy with the government and people of France.
Speaking to Israeli television from Paris on Wednesday night, hours after gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” had shot dead 12 people at the offices of the “Charlie Hebdo” satirical magazine, the French-Jewish parliamentarian Meyer Habib called the massacre France’s 9/11.Douglas Murray: Charlie Hebdo stood alone. What does that say about our ‘free’ press?
When Islamist killers targeted Jews in Toulouse in 2012 and Brussels last year, Habib recalled, “we warned that this would come to all of France. And to our sorrow it came…. We are in a fight,” he elaborated, “against jihadism, against this darkness.”
After four British-raised Muslims killed 52 civilians and injured 700 in coordinated bombings in London on July 7, 2005, numerous commentators and analysts likened that assault, too, to the Al-Qaeda attacks on America in 2001. But if that was Britain’s 9/11, it didn’t bring sufficient clarity of thought to the struggle against Islamist terrorism. It didn’t open enough eyes. Too many Britons, including too many leaders and policymakers, preferred a mixture of stoicism and denial to the imperative of rigorously confronting Islamic extremism. Too many preferred to blame prime minister Tony Blair for ostensibly inviting that day’s murders, including through his purportedly over-cozy relationship with the reviled George W. Bush and his backing of Israel. That was all far more convenient than acknowledging that Britain had a colossal problem with homegrown Islamic extremism, whipped up by British-based Islamic spiritual (mis)leaders. Almost a decade later, Britain has still failed to adequately tackle the rise of Islamist extremism at home, with a consequent stream of plots and attacks, and a flow of misguided young Muslims joining the ranks of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The question is whether France, Britain and the rest of Europe, in the aftermath of Wednesday’s assault — a more calculated and specific attack than the indiscriminate murders in London — will now muster a more energetic, coordinated and effective response.
And the left-wing Charlie Hebdo will be abandoned now even more than the right-wing Jyllands Posten was back then. People will come up with various excuses, but in truth they won’t publish because they are afraid. The remaining staff of Charlie Hebdo could hardly be more alone.Douglas Murray - Charlie Hebdo Attack [BBC London]
There is only one way in which this couldn’t remain the case: if tomorrow, or some day this week every newspaper and magazine in Europe, the front-page of the BBC and Channel 4 News websites and every other major news site simultaneously published a set of Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of Mohammed among others. I put this suggestion to the BBC today during an interview and was told by the presenter that ‘in fairness’ to the BBC they had earlier retweeted Charlie Hebdo’s recent cartoon of ISIS’s leader al-Baghdadi. Which, of course, isn’t quite the same thing. Some readers may recall that during the Danish cartoon affair Channel 4 ran a live programme on freedom of speech which included a live vote as to whether or not Channel 4 should show the cartoons. The public voted that they should. And then Channel 4 unilaterally decided to ignore the public’s wishes and would not show the cartoons.
It was around the same time that Ayaan Hirsi Ali put it best. She suggested in the wake of the Danish cartoons affair that ‘we have to spread the risk.’ But the free press didn’t spread it around then. And I very much doubt that they will now. I know all the arguments. I know the fears – that someone from the typing pool or on the front desk will be the target. I’ve heard every possible argument over the years.
And that is why I can safely say that the free press will fail this latest test too. For all its historic traditions, its self back-slapping for its alleged ‘bravery’ and so on, there are only a couple of tiny outcrops of freedom. The rest of the vast, powerful, fearless, outspoken tradition that is the Western press is too intimidated to publish a single cartoon that might conveivably provoke a Muslim.
This is what it looks like to lose a freedom. Not many people will care today. But they will tomorrow, or another day in the future.