Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 30, 2016

EoZ speaking in Jerusalem July 10

I'm going to be speaking on July 10 in Jerusalem:

You can sign up for it with Facebook (just so I have an idea of how many are coming, a few people told me they would come but didn't sign up...)

Hope to see many of you there!

In case you are wondering, the venue is outside the Green Line. So Amnesty, HRW, the UN and the EU may consider this speech a "settlement activity" and a violation of international law - because I happen to be Jewish.

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EoZTV in Israel: Interview with Nobel Prize winner Yisrael Aumann (part 1)

Ever since Yisrael (Robert) Aumann won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work in game theory, I've wanted to ask him whether game theory can accommodate irrational actors such as Israel's enemies.

I got my chance as I met him in his office at Hebrew University on Tuesday.

His answer to me was that the question itself was wrong - Israel's enemies, and even suicide bombers, are rational, and the goals that they are pursuing are important to understand if we are going to come up with a good strategy against them.

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Haaretz repeats lie that Israel pressured Ethiopian women to take Depo-Provera

From an op-ed in Haaretz:

Israel commits racist crimes. A prominent example is the police’s violence during the demonstrations by young Ethiopian men and women a year ago. (Police violence, incidentally, isn’t limited to young Ethiopians; many young Arabs encounter it as well.) Another example is the investigation that revealed the pressure on Ethiopian women to receive shots of the birth control hormone Depo-Provera before immigrating.

There was no pressure whatsoever to tell Ethiopian women that they must receive Depo-Provera before immigrating. The only organization that provides contraceptive counseling to Ethiopian women before coming to Israel was the American Joint Distribution Committee, and they emphatically and specifically denied any such practice. My own investigation showed that many Ethiopian women were volunteering to take the contraceptive because it could more easily be kept secret from their husbands, but Haaretz' libel (then and now) that the State of Israel pressured the women to take Depo-Provera before immigrating is 100% false.

An multi-year investigation by the state comptroller also showed that there was no evidence of requiring Ethiopian women to take Depo-Provera before coming to Israel.

No one is denying that racism exists in Israel, but this article in Haaretz is attempting to prove that there is institutional racism, and that is simply a lie. I spoke with MK Avraham Neguise, the only Ethiopian member of Knesset, yesterday, and he was emphatic about that point. (Full video coming soon.)

If I would have known that Haaretz would be resurrecting the libel, I would have asked him about this specifically.

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EU-funded Ma'an calls murderer of 13-year old girl a "shahid"

Times of Israel reports:

A teenage girl who sustained critical injuries on Thursday morning in a stabbing attack in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba died of her wounds. Another man was seriously wounded in the incident.

The victim, Hallel Yaffe Ariel, 13, was repeatedly stabbed in the upper body and was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem unconscious, not breathing and in critical condition, where she later died.

She was stabbed in her own bedroom.

So how do Western-funded media cover this story?

Ma'an News Agency gets lots of money from the EU to promulgate quality journalism. It started off its coverage of this event by writing "a 17-year old boy was martyred" in the process of killing the female "settler" whose age is not mentioned.

This sort of glorification of terrorists and dehumanization of Jews that one can see every day in even the most liberal Palestinian publications.

It is bad enough that Palestinian newspapers are so sickening. But why does the EU have to fund them? It is not as if there is any notable influence towards making these news outlets more liberal or moderate towards the Arabic-reading audience.

Ma'an English is far more careful about its language. It pretty much exists to keep the funding coming, and the funders are too blind and wedded to their cause to even want to know the truth about how their money indirectly causes attacks like this.

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Fatah celebrates the release of a terrorist

Fatah's Facebook page is celebrating Fawaz Fayez being released from Israeli prison after a fifteen year prison sentence.

Which photo did they choose to emphasize the essence of Mr. Fayez?

This one, of course:

I don't know what he was convicted. But I do see from this photo that the gun is the focal point of the announcement celebrating his release.

NGOs like Amnesty and DCI-P like to tell the West that Israel does not follow due process, that Israel is wantonly imprisoning innocent people.

But from the Palestinian perspective, the prisoners who are heroes are not famous because of their innocence but because of their guilt. The fame of the prisoner is directly proportional to the number of Jews he killed or injured.

Now, consider that releasing prisoners is one of the "red lines" that Abbas insists on in any peace deal. He is not demanding their release because they were unjustly imprisoned. He wants their release because the murderers and wannabe murderers are the rock stars of the Palestinian universe and are wanted as the builders of their desired state.

In a society where warlords are the heroes and murderers are celebrated, expecting a lasting peace is a pipe-dream.

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06/29 Links Pt2: Political NGOs in the World Health Assembly's Condemnation of Israel

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: The Role of Political NGOs in the World Health Assembly's Condemnation of Israel

On May 25, 2016, the delegates of the 69th World Health Assembly (held under the auspices of the World Health Organization) in Geneva adopted a decision condemning Israel. Out of 24 items on the meeting’s agenda, only Item 19 focused on political issues – specifically on “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan”.
Representatives of one-hundred and seven countries voted in favor of the resolution, with eight voting against, while others either abstained or did not take part in the vote. Commenting on this activity, Hillel Neuer, of Geneva-based UN Watch declared, “Shame on Britain, France and Germany for encouraging this hijacking of the annual world health assembly, and diverting precious time, money, and resources from global health priorities, in order to wage a political prosecution of Israel, especially when, in reality, anyone who has ever walked into an Israeli hospital or clinic knows that they are providing world-class health care to thousands of Palestinian Arabs, as well as to Syrians fleeing Assad.”
The documents accompanying the resolution include blatant propaganda from the Syrian and Palestinian health ministries. (The Syrian “report” is absurdly entitled Health Conditions of Syrian Citizens in the Occupied Syrian Golan.) The report of the Palestinian Ministry of Health to the World Health Organization, dated May 20, 2016, is based on numerous wild accusations with minimal citations. For example, the text (p. 29) asserts that “In April 2013 the Russian newspaper Pravda accused Israel of injecting a number of Palestinian prisoners who were approaching their release date with cancer-causing viruses. Despite Israel’s rejection of the accusations made by the newspaper, the question remains: is it true that Israel is injecting prisoners with viruses?”
Many similar allegations have no citations or sources – instead, the text includes “references” to political bodies and NGOs with no medical credentials. For example, Euro- Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor is a strictly political group whose Chairman of the Board of Trustees, former UN Rapporteur Richard Falk, has been widely denounced for his extreme anti-Israel and antisemitic agenda.
In addition, the Palestinian document includes a number of graphic images, designed to reinforce the narrative of Palestinian victimization and Israeli responsibility. A detailed analysis by the CAMERA media watchdog demonstrated that the imaged claiming to show Israelis “attacking a Palestinian child while being observed by Israeli occupation forces” in fact was a conflict between Israelis and included no Palestinians. Similarly, a “photograph taken during the Israeli war on Gaza, 2014” was shown to be an artificial image that was created digitally.

Digital Activist Creates ‘Nazi Detector’ Using Logic, Database of Neo-Nazi (((Echo))) Plug-In

A digital activist has turned the tables on neo-Nazi and white supremacist trolls by using their own tool to track and identify their antisemitic activity online, news and culture site Fusion reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, using the same technology behind the now-banned “Coincidence Detector,” Daniel Sieradski has found a way to out antisemites who launch attacks on Jews and their allies with his “Nazi Detector.”
As reported by The Algemeiner earlier in June, Google Chrome pulled the innocuous-sounding neo-Nazi plug-in after it was revealed that it was being used to track Jews online. Using a special web construction called an “(((echo)))” — three parentheses around the names of targets — white supremacists were able to encase the names of Jews that appeared on a webpage and attack them online. Each new Jewish or anti-white personality identified by the extension was then added to a database of names which was updated regularly.
The extension was uploaded by “altrightmedia,” a nod to the emerging far-Right movement made up of young, tech-savvy white supremacists. Since the use of the (((echo))) became public knowledge, both Jews and non-Jews alike have encased their names in an (((echo))) as an act of defiance.
Using this same logic, Sieradski created a Chrome browser extension that pulls from a database of names and bookends a user’s name in swastikas. After asking a journalist for the original Coincidence Detector database, Sieradski told Fusion he “just hacked away at it for a few minutes” and the Nazi Detector was born.
“I just whipped it together the other day when the idea popped into my head,” he said.

StandWithUs+: LGBTQ Rights

What began with the persecution of LGBTQ, Jews, and other minorities in the Middle East, has now spread throughout the world because of extremist religious ideology.

If you look at the BDS "Victories" page, you will see this:

Note how they phrase this: they aren't saying that the artists agree with BDS, only that they have either "refused" or cancelled performances after BDS threats.

Anyway, when Carlos Santana canceled a concert in 2010, the BDSers counted this as a victory.

This year, Santana is coming to Israel. His manager said, “Carlos Santana is a citizen of the World and he plays his music and spreads his message of Love, Light & Peace wherever he goes. Carlos believes the World should have no borders so he is not detoured or discouraged to play anywhere on this planet. We look forward to performing in Israel this summer.

The BDSers are muy upset and they are trying to bully him into changing his mind.

His people are completely ignoring the ratcheted pressure, which is driving the haters crazy. They are trying to pressure him through a children's charity foundation he started.

From a BDS newsletter:

Yesterday US Campaign member groups Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) attempted to deliver a petition signed by 25,000 people urging musician Carlos Santana to respect the call for a cultural boycott of Israel in support of Palestinian human rights and cancel his upcoming concert in Tel Aviv, scheduled for July 30.

The delegation, including local Palestinian families with children, visited the offices of Santana’s Milagro Foundation, which he founded in 1998 and is devoted to helping "underserved and vulnerable children around the world." Staff at the office had not responded to several requests for an appointment, refused to open the door when the delegation arrived, and closed the blinds.

Santana's charitable foundation is treating BDSholes like the harassers they are.

I hope they call the police next.

Santana's Milagro Foundation has given grants to Israeli organizations that help both Jewish and Arab kids, like SHAI and Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel. BDSers are against such grants because they violate their boycott of Israel!

Clearly, Santana and his foundation care far more about Arab kids in the region than all the BDSers combined.

The Milagro Foundation is more than justified to tell the BDS haters to drop dead.

UPDATE: Check out Santana's own message to Israel.

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NJ Lawmakers To Take Turns Giving Wedgies To BDS Advocates (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Trenton, June 29 - As part of a legislative package passed on Monday that barred the state pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel, New Jersey General Assembly and Senate members also initiated a mandated weekly activity in which one lawmaker will seize the underwear band of a BDS activist from the back and pull it upwards with enough force to jam the fabric of the garment into the wearer's intergluteal cleft and, if possible, ripping the waistband itself from the remainder of the garment.

A provision of the measure divesting from the Israel-divestment advocates calls for a literal divestment of said advocates in the form of a wedgie, a classic prank associated with the debasement of the person receiving the wedgie. Legislators from both major parties spoke out in favor of both the overall anti-BDS bill and the specific wedgie provision of it, and called on Governor Chris Christie to sign the bill into law. The governor is expected to do so.

"This is an important statement that we will not accept the nonsense that the BDS movement peddles, and that their bullying tactics will only backfire," said State Senator Minerva Melvin, a Democrat of District 18 in the central part of the state. "It is high time these thugs receive a taste of their own medicine, and I, for one, look forward to administering an atomic wedgie or two, and cheering on my colleagues to do the same." An Atomic Wedgie, she explained, involves pulling the back of the underwear over the target's head.

Republican Frank Brastrap of neighboring District 17 noted the rare bipartisanship that characterized both the deliberations and voting on the measure. "Some issues are too important to be subjected to partisan politics, and hoisting BDS with its own petard is one of the issues firmly in bipartisan consensus in this state and in the country at large," he gushed. "And speaking of hoisting, I intend to find a good hook or door handle or something from which to hang any activists with the misfortune to have me as their wedgie provider."

BDS advocates admit they feel squeezed by the law. "But I'm not going to let the threat of wedgies intimidate me into silence," vowed activist Paur Aziz, a student at Rutgers University. "All these Zionist-owned legislators should know that intimidation is OUR strategy, and we do not stand idly by when others turn around and use it against us."

Aziz declined to comment on reports that an amendment to the bill has already been proposed, under which swirlies would be added to the treatment meted out against BDS advocates.

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06/29 Links Pt1: Why Palestinians Throw Rocks; 10 Britons planned riots at Temple Mount during Ramadan

From Ian:

Why Palestinians Throw Rocks

In part it is a reaction to the canards being circulated by the Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas that allege Israel intends to harm the mosques on the Temple Mount. That there are no such plans and that, in fact, the Israelis are enforcing a discriminatory rule intended to placate Muslims, has had no impact on the spread of these myths. Just as Arab leaders used similar stories about Jewish plots to incite pogroms against Jews in the 1920s and 30s, so, too, has Abbas helped to incite the current “stabbing intifada” in order to compete with his Hamas rivals for the support of the Palestinian public.
But the agenda behind the lies about Israeli plots goes deeper than the Fatah-Hamas rivalry. As Abbas and Hamas leaders have often made clear, neither group recognizes the legitimacy of Jewish historical claims in Jerusalem. Abbas helped engineer a UNESCO ruling that treated the Temple Mount and even the Western Wall as sites that were solely Muslim. Their ultimate goal isn’t so much to enforce the current discriminatory status quo that exists in Jerusalem as it is to go back to the pre-June 1967 situation where Jews were altogether banned from visiting the Temple Mount and the Wall.
Surely such an outcome is unthinkable and peace deals that speak of freedom of worship would never countenance a return to that sort of blind prejudice. But if Muslim violence can effectively create a ban on non-Muslims entering the Temple Mount, a place to sacred to all the monotheistic religions, while the city is under Israeli rule, why would anyone think Jewish rights or those of Christians would be protected were the city to be re-divided?
As we have seen with Abbas’s anti-Semitic statements about Jews poisoning Palestinian water and his praise of terrorists who wish to prevent holy sites being profaned by “stinking Jewish feet,” the notion that the dispute is primarily one about territory or settlements has been proven false. The century-old war on Zionism has always had at its core a degree of intolerance for the Jewish presence and a desire on the part of Arabs to erase Jewish history. The rocks being thrown on the Temple Mount are a product of hate, not a misunderstanding about where the borders between two states should be drawn. They are a symbol of a conflict that can only be resolved when the Palestinians give up their dreams about a return to an era of discrimination against Jews.

StandWithUs+: Palestinian Rock throwing - Tool of Resistance or Violence?

PreOccupiedTerritory: Isaiah Unsure What Part Of ‘House Of Prayer For All Nations’ People Don’t Get (satire)

The Hebrew prophet Isaiah voiced exasperation today following the Israel Police’s decision to bar all non-Muslims from the Temple Mount for the remainder of the month of Ramadan in an effort to prevent further unrest, saying that excluding the members of any faith from praying on, let alone merely entering, the sacred plateau accomplishes the exact opposite of the inclusive divine vision for the site.
Isaiah the son of Amotz, who prophesied for several Jewish kings in the ninth and eight centuries BCE, told reporters that he did not know what he had to do to get it into humanity’s thick skulls that the Temple Mount cannot be characterized by Apartheid, under which only people of a certain faith may visit or commune with the Creator. He lambasted the police for the decision, which he said reinforces a discriminatory regime that undermines everything he and the other prophets worked for.
“In one fell swoop, the police caved to threats of violence from thugs who want to negate anyone else’s right to engage with God from the location where humanity was created,” charged the prophet, referring to the teaching that the clod of Earth from which humanity was fashioned was taken from the spot where the Temple’s external altar would later stand. “Whereas the Creator shared with us a picture of all people having a common origin and a path to relationship with Him, the police send a message that anyone who gets violent, possessive, and forceful enough can obstruct or negate that path for others.”
The police ban was imposed this week after violent episodes in which worshipers at the Al Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount attacked non-Muslims, especially Jews, with rocks and fireworks they had stockpiled in the mosque itself. Isaiah called the violence a manifestation of everything wrong with the world.

Times of Israel reported:

A school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday covered up a map of “historic Palestine” — which is today the modern State of Israel — ahead of a visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The map at an UNRWA institution in the Hamas-run enclave where Ban gave a press conference was seen in photos concealed by a white sheet.

Pierre Krähenbühl, the UN agency chief who was accompanying Ban on Tuesday, did not immediately comment.

Palestinians were upset, as news sites quoted outraged Gazans. But an UNRWA spokesperson denied that UNRWA was behind this.

I don't know what was behind the decision. It would be very hard to cover up UNRWA's official stance about the two state solution. After all, they certainly don't teach it in their schools, and as I have noted in the past, many of the UNRWA school logos themselves include maps of the entire British Mandate Palestine.

These are official UNRWA school logos that include the UN logos along with the Israel being erased.

Is anyone so naive as to think that Ban Ki Moon is unaware of this?

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Syrians accuse Russians of helping Israel find or fake Jewish antiquities in Palmyra

The paranoia of Arabs about ancient Jewish presence in the Middle East has reached a new level of absurdity. From Syria's Zaman al-Wasl:

Well-informed sources revealed to Zaman al-Wasl that secret excavation operations in the historic city of Palmyra are underway, aiming to find claimed Jewish antiquities backed by Russia which has the upper hand in the city.

The sources said controversy over the nature of some activities in Palmyra following arrival of 3 unknown experts in Palmyra. They move in Palmyra in great reservation protected by Russian soldiers. They do not communicate with Syrian employees, but only communicate with Russians via an interpreter.

The doubts have deepened after knowing the points on which the experts have been focusing in their tours of excavations. The excavated sites are brought up often by Israelis referring to it in their talks claiming it includes Hebrew engravings and antiquities. They could use to prove their historical presence in the region according to their common tactic in dealing with different cities.

The sources start in their talk to Zaman al-Wasl from the minute the Russians came into Palmyra after they expelled ISIS. Russians hastened to spread and create a base in Palmyra’s historical sites until they established a camp and military base inside the archeological area.

In Palmyra, according to the sources, the Russian soldiers and intelligence worked for a duration with Syrian regime mercenaries and soldiers. During that period, they were partners in robbing and selling archeological artifacts according to their power and military presence; however, this partnership did not last long as Russians revealed their intentions fast. They excluded the regime and singled out power for themselves in the heart of the historical city which is considered a museum full of treasures and antiquities rare to find in the world.

The sources said the experts are communicating with Russian exclusively via an interpreter. Their work is limited to mostly searching for Jewish engravings that might be a document to place Palmyra on the lıst of Jewısh cities according to what they are seeking.

The experts focus their activities, according to our sources, on the following areas: al-Naser Arch, Bel Temple, Baalshamin Temple, Diocletian camp. They performed big excavations in some of these areas aiming to reach deeper layers that have not been reached before by previous excavation missions.

Some excavations resulted in discovering a mummy and an amount of gold in the area next to al-Naser Arch according to the sources who confirmed that experts continue excavations under al-Naser Arch and in the street extending to the theater and Bel Temple. They are tirelessly searching for stone tombs that might carry Hebrew engravings.

The sources strongly indicated the deliberate destruction which al-Naser Arch, Bel Temple, and Baalshamin Temple were exposed to might have been planned to pave the way for the excavations of the unknown experts. The reason is that digging on deep layers before destruction might have damaged these sites and no party would have dared to do so before, whereas they can do that now under pretext of restoring the sites.

In fact, Palmyra had a significant Jewish population in ancient times and up through the 12th century at least when Benjamin of Tudela visited. One house famously has verses of the Shema in Hebrew on its doorpost, in an apparent method to build a mezuzah directly into it.

But as we've seen with Jordan, the Arabs are so paranoid about "Greater Israel" that they believe that Jews are constantly trying to take over their lands by pretending that they are in fact historically Jewish areas.

Apparently the Russians are just as much pawns of this evil Jewish game as the Americans are.

And so, of course, is ISIS. Last year when ISIS controlled the city and was assumed to be destroying all ancient artifacts, Syrian and Iraqi scholars said that this was all part of an "international Jewish mafia" plot to erase all traces of Arab culture from the city and replace it with Jewish antiquities.

(h/t Yoel)

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06/28 Links Pt2: US Govt Funds Anti-Israel Groups; Sharansky: There is no future for Jews in France

From Ian:

Notes on a Gazan’s Visit to Israel

After the last war, Israel eased some of their restrictions, and hundreds of Gazans crossed every day. Most of the people who obtained permits were either businessmen or local staff members of international organizations.
Fewer than 10 people were sitting on the chairs waiting for the soldier in the glass enclosure to call each name. Many of them were mothers with their children. Most, I assumed, were patients in need of medical treatment.
They called me a few minutes after I arrived. An Israeli soldier, sitting on a tall chair behind the glass, gave me my permit and my I.D.
It is rare that I see an Israeli in person; Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and I was too young then to remember their presence. However, I witnessed three wars in less than six years. The last one was devastating. I remember the warplanes and F-16s and artillery shells.
At Erez, I saw members of the Israeli defense forces, but not the same ones who fought in wars that left people dead and homes destroyed. I saw Israeli soldiers working administrative jobs, soldiers who help people wanting to leave. I used English with them because I felt they wouldn’t understand me otherwise — though they speak Arabic very well. (h/t Zvi)

Report: U.S. Government Cash Funds Anti-Israel Groups

The U.S. government funnels millions of taxpayer dollars into groups that promote anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views, according to a forthcoming report from a watchdog for non-governmental organizations.
Determining the exact dollar amount is impossible to total due to a lack of transparency and widespread discrepancies in federal spending databases, the group NGO Monitor found in a new study that will be published later this month.
U.S. grants have gone to organizations that have called for the international community to divest from Israel, rationalized terrorist attacks against the Jewish state, and compared Israelis to Nazis.
Naftali Balanson, the chief of staff at NGO Monitor, said groups that promote policies that directly contradict U.S. government support for peace efforts should be disqualified from receiving funding.
“We encourage the end of all funding, both directly and indirectly, for NGOs that participate in the demonization and delegitimization campaigns,” Balanson said during a meeting last week on Capitol Hill.
“When you have organizations that are receiving money ostensibly for peace, human rights, and democracy but they refuse to work with Israeli partners, they refuse to meet with Israelis, and push for boycotts, those are in direct contradiction and seems to be a complete waste of taxpayer money,” he added.
The NGO Monitor report cited Jewish Voice for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, and the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund as groups that engage in anti-Israel rhetoric.

Knesset panel approves defanged NGO bill for final votes

The Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee on Monday approved a softened version of the controversial NGO transparency bill for a second and third reading.
According to the final draft of the bill, representatives of organizations that receive the majority of their funding from foreign states will not be forced to wear special tags in the Knesset, as was originally stipulated, and the law will only apply to donations received from January 2017. Earlier drafts had suggested the law be applied retroactively.
The proposed legislation stipulates that the organizations will need to note their funding sources on letters to public officials and in advertisements, but omits the requirement to list their funding in appeals to Israeli courts. The organizations, before they appear in Knesset hearings, will also have to update the lawmakers on their foreign funding, but won’t need to testify to that effect during the meetings. The groups, primarily left-wing human rights groups, must report their funding sources to the national NGO registry, which, in turn, is required to make that information public.

Natan Sharansky: There is no future for Jews in France

Arab immigration to France and deep-seated anti-Semitism in that country mean French Jews have no future there, the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel said.
Natan Sharansky made this declaration on Monday in the French capital, where he was attending a Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting, held in the city for the first time as a sign of solidarity with French Jews.
“We came here because there are historical processes here,” Sharansky said of France, which for the past two years has been Israel’s largest source of immigrants thanks to a record-setting 15,000 Jews who settled in Israel in that time.
“There is no future for the Jews in France because of the Arabs, and because of a very anti-Israel position in society, where new anti-Semitism and ancient anti-Semitism converge,” Sharansky told JTA.
Since 2012, Islamists have killed eight Jews in two shooting attacks that came amid hundreds of nonlethal violent assaults. A French citizen with alleged ties to Islamist groups is standing trial in France for a third shooting in 2014 at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in which four people died.