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DR.MANFRED GERSTENFELD: THE LETTER ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU ”DID NOT WRITE” TO FRENCH PRESIDENT HOLLANDE…….

Dr.Gerstenfeld’s latest article on: The Letter to President Hollande Netanyahu Did NOT Write. It was originally published by INN and reposted here with the author’s consent.

The Letter to President Hollande Netanyahu Did NOT Write

Manfred Gerstenfeld

After the Nice terror attack by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who identified with ISIS and murdered 85 people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement saying, “Israel strongly condemns the terrible terror attack. Israelis stand united with the French people. Israel is willing to help the French government fight this evil until it is defeated.”1 2 He did not say that Israel stands united with the French President and the government.

Had Netanyahu not followed diplomatic niceties, he might have written the French president the following text:

President Hollande,

I would like to extend my condolences to the wounded and the families of the murdered in the Nice terror attack perpetrated by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, for which ISIS claimed responsibility.3  

In writing to you, however, I am not expressing my solidarity with France or its government. Several countries, including France, directly support organizations that engage in anti-Israel incitement, calls to boycott Israel and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. It is my intention to have this investigated.4

French ministers, and in particular Prime Minister Manuel Valls, have done their best to say the right words to the local Jewish community regarding the fight against anti-Semitism. Responding to the increasing anti-Semitic environment in France, Mr. Valls has stated, ‘I said with my words, with my heart, and I will continue to repeat it because it is a profound conviction: without the Jews of France, France would not be France.’5

Sympathy for terrorism is, however, expressed at lower levels of French government. In Aubervilliers, Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti has been awarded honorary citizenship.6 In Valenton, both a street and square have been named after him.7 By glorifying Barghouti, the municipalities of these towns are legitimizers of Palestinian murderous terrorism against Israeli citizens. Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences for the planning of three shooting attacks that killed five people. After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected as a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament. In addition, the Palestinian Authority and the PLO have recently launched a campaign to nominate Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize.8

Mr. Valls seems very concerned about terrorists who murder people in France. In November 2015, he warned that France is at risk of chemical and biological attacks from terrorists.9 He stated that he is open to the idea of imposing a temporary ban on foreign financing of the construction of mosques in France.10 Yet he recently praised Yasser Arafat and placed a wreath on his grave even though it is known that Arafat signed checks for payments to Palestinian terrorist murderers even after receiving the Nobel peace prize.11 12

A report published by the Quartet, — the Russian Federation, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations — says specifically: “In the recent wave of violence that began in October 2015, there have been over 250 attacks and attempted attacks by Palestinians against Israelis. At least 30 Israelis have been killed in stabbings, shootings, vehicular attacks, and a bombing. In the most intense period, there were three to four attacks per day across Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank… Palestinian leaders have not consistently and clearly condemned specific terrorist attacks.13 Streets, squares and schools have been named after Palestinians who have committed acts of terrorism.”14  Yet in 2015 your party colleague Anne Hidalgo Mayor of Paris decorated PA President Mahmoud Abbas in recognition of his contributions to peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.15 16 17

In 2016, at least $300 million, between 7% and 10% of the Palestinian Authority budget was allocated to prisoners, their families, and to terrorists’ families, who they refer to as “martyrs’ families.18 PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is recorded issuing praise as “greetings of honor and esteem” for mass murderers whom he publicly names, one by one.19 In response to Palestinian Authority activities that encourage terrorism in Israel while condemning terrorism abroad, I have said, ‘Here [in Israel], not only do they [Palestinian Authority] fail to condemn car ramming attacks, they encourage them. [The PA] aggrandizes murderers and car-ramming terrorists, pays them and, if they are killed, pays their families.20

If there were a Nobel Prize for terrorism, the Palestinian people would have long ago received it. The list of terror attacks by Palestinians is so extensive that I can only mention a few in this letter. They were responsible for the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and officials, and the fatal shooting of a West German policeman, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. They also placed a refrigerator bomb at a central square in Jerusalem, which killed 15 people in 1975.21 Palestinians were the hijackers of the Achille Lauro in 1985, where they threw an American Jew overboard. The recent stabbings have already been mentioned.

Your government knowingly voted for a UNESCO resolution which denied the relationship of the Jews to the Jerusalem Temple Mount.22 This resolution referred to Judaism’s holiest site as a Muslim entity. Now France says that the statement was an error. Trying to fix the lie your government has supported is at best secondary to the damage you have done by voting for the resolution in the first place.

The UN Human Rights Council recently voted in favor of a resolution backing the Gaza Conflict Commission of Inquiry, which issued a report charging that Israel and the Islamo-Nazi terrorist organization, Hamas, may have committed war crimes during Operation Protective Edge last summer. France supported this resolution which puts Israel and Hamas on the same level.23

The time has come to focus on preventing further terrorist attacks in France and to show that you are able to do that, instead of planning initiatives concerning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,24 establishing illegal housing in areas where we govern,25 or expressing judgments about how we should behave toward the Palestinians. You have asked in the past for our help in fighting terrorism. We will of course support you, but give us due public credit for it and stop indirectly helping our lethal enemies.”

I promise you, Mr. President, that no Israeli town will name a street after Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the murderers of the Charlie Hebdo staff members. I also promise you that no Israeli town will name a street after Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the Paris November 2015 massacres, or Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, or any other terrorist murderer in France.

I promise you also that despite the fact that foreigners were among those killed, I am not going to call an international meeting on terrorism in France about the failure of your government to prevent such attacks. In view of all the above, I express my solidarity only to the wounded and the families of the victims of the Nice attack, but not to France and its government.” 

Footnotes:

2 Prime Ministers Office (July 15, 2016). PM Netanyahu Condemns Terror Attack in Nice http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Spokesman/Pages/spokeNice150716.aspx

6 “Marwan Barghouti nommé Citoyen d’honneur de la ville d’Aubervilliers,” l’Humanité, 22 December 2014. [French]

7 “Valenton Inauguration d’une rue Marwan-Barghouti, une première dans le monde,” l’Humanité, 18 September 2014. [French]

11 www.facebook.com/manuelvalls, 24 May 2016. Valls wrote: “Tribute to Yasser Arafat, leader of an entire people, brace actor of history.”

14 Report of the Middle East Quartet (01/07/2016). Brussels. http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2016/160701_03_en.htm

16 www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2015/09/21/97001-20150921FILWWW00336-mahmoud-abbas-decore-par-la-ville-de-paris.php

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