As this article demonstrates, French (and European) Jewish leaders are powerless. Nothing new about it...
The Jerusalem Post reports:
The French-Jewish community is “very shocked and angry” at their
government’s response to the terrorism engulfing Israel, even as they
fear local copycats will attempt to import the violence, a senior
communal figure told The Jerusalem Post Sunday.
Speaking
by phone from Paris, Robert Ejnes, executive director of the
Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), said he
and his colleagues have repeatedly lobbied against French proposals to
solve the conflict, often made without consultation with Jerusalem.
Referring
both to the recent French proposals to push a timeline for two-state
negotiations through the UN Security Council and this week’s call for
the placement of international observers on the Temple Mount, Ejnes
said he believes Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius believes he “should
make peace by himself.”
“We as French Jews are very angry that he is taking this position and we have expressed it to him several times,” he said.
Ejnes
described a perceived dichotomy between how European leaders approach
local anti-Semitism, which is roundly condemned, and attacks against
Jews in Israel, asserting that continental governments “do not at all
understand the situation in Israel.”
“They think for some reason
that we cannot understand that the terrorists who attacked [Paris
kosher supermarket] Hyper Cacher are not the same as those in Israel
and not motivated by the same motives,” he said.
“We can’t
explain and we can’t understand this position,” he said. “It seems like
they are transforming everything to be the fault of Israel.
They don’t want to consider the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority.
“They have no idea and do not believe that Israel is the only country that can protect the holy sites of all religions.”
Strong economic ties between France and Muslim states could account for such views, he said.
France
last year experienced a 101 percent increase in anti-Semitic acts over
2013, including “numerous cases of physical violence against the
Jewish community where individuals were targeted and beaten, and
synagogues were firebombed,” according to a recent State Department
report. This led to an upswing in emigration, with 7,231 Jews making aliya – up from 3,293 in 2013. [...]
And
while the community’s official position remains that immigration to
Israel should be motivated by love of the land and not by fear, “lots
of people are considering aliya or departure from France because of the
current situation; because of fear to take children to Jewish schools
behind high walls and with [security] forces in front.” Read more.
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