French Lawmaker: Israel's On the Front Line!
Thursday, September 04, 2014 | Yossi Aloni ISRAEL TODAY
In a sharply-worded letter sent late last month, French parliamentarian Meyer Habib (pictured) slammed French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, even as his boss, President Francois Hollande, struck a far different tone.
Habib noted in his letter that early in the Gaza war the French government “fully identified with Israel and its right to defend its citizens. …We prevented a number of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations…in order to change France’s position in regards to Israel.”
But, it seemed Fabius was not happy with this new direction. “You speak of a massacre in Gaza. You speak of a lack of vision,” Habib accused the foreign minister. “Instead of helping to calm the situation, you pour oil on the fire.”
Habib noted that such anti-Israel incitement lead to the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France by a Muslim gunman, Mohammed Merah, who later acknowledged that his motivation was revenge for “the Jews killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine [sic].”
Habib also took issue with Western criticism of Israel’s “lack of proportionality,” which Fabius happily parroted.
“You forget that without the Iron Dome, the thousands of rockets fired at Israel would have resulted in hundreds of deaths. Would that have made Israel’s response more balanced?” Habib wondered.
“Who is truly responsible for this tragedy [in Gaza]?” Habib asked his foreign minister. “Is it the one who attacks civilians while hiding in schools, or is it the one that does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties?”
Habib stressed that the threat Israelis face in the form of Hamas is also bearing down on France and the West.
“The jihadists that attack Israel today are the same as those that abducted Christian girls in Nigeria, slaughtered Alawites in Syria and executed homosexuals in Somalia,” wrote Habib. “They are the same extremists that oppress women in Iraq, behead Western journalist and threaten Christians and Yazidis.”
Habib concluded by calling on Fabius and the West to “open your eyes! This wave [of terror] will reach the heart of Europe… In the battle against these forces of evil, Israel is on the front line.”
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