Paris? It's what Israel faces all the time
Armed police prepare to enter the Bataclan concert venue, Friday 13th November, 2015. So far, 129 young people have died. Photo by EPA.
PLO denounces Netanyahu for ‘exploiting’ Paris attacks
By Ma’an news
November 17, 2015
BETHLEHEM — Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi on Monday condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “cynically exploiting” last week’s deadly attacks in Paris by comparing them to Palestinian acts of violence.
“Netanyahu is cynically exploiting the pain of the innocent victims of Daesh (Islamic State) terrorism in Paris in order to create a misleading linkage and to justify Israeli state terror against the Palestinian people, while presenting Israel as the victim,” Ashrawi said in a statement.
“In fact, Israel is an occupying power,” she said, noting that Israel’s occupation “has habitually terrorized Palestinian civilians, stolen their land and resources, and demolished their homes.”
At Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu likened Palestinian attacks on Israelis to the deadly attacks in Paris that claimed the lives of 129 civilians. The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility.
“In Israel, as in France, terrorism is terrorism and standing behind it is radical Islam and its desire to destroy its victims,” Netanyahu said.
Ashrawi slammed the Israeli prime minister for “disingenuously claim(ing) self-defence while labeling any form of Palestinian reaction as ‘terrorism.’ … Nowhere else is a ruthless occupier presenting itself as the victim and justifying its atrocities as self-defence.”
She accused Netanyahu of “attempting to exploit the cruel and inhuman terrorism of Daesh in order to score cheap political points at the expense of the Palestinian people. His statements are not only fraudulent and politically coercive, they are symptomatic of political and moral bankruptcy.”
After comparing the Paris attacks to the killing of two Israeli settlers in Hebron last week, Netanyahy said: “The time has come for countries to condemn terrorism against us to the same degree that they condemn terrorism everywhere else in the world.”
He called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbad — who along with other Palestinian leaders, including those in Hamas, extended his sympathy and solidarity to France following the attacks — to “condemn the ruthless terrorism against innocent people in Israel.”
He said: “We are not to blame for the terrorism directed against us, just as the French are not to blame for the terrorism directed against them. It is the terrorists who are to blame for terrorism, not the territories, not the settlements and not any other thing.
“It is the desire to destroy us that perpetuates this conflict and drives the murderous aggression against us.”
He added that it was “thanks to our aggressive policy” — including raids into Palestinian villages, and the demolition of alleged attackers’ homes — that meant “more serious disasters” had been avoided.
Since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory at the beginning of October, more than 80 Palestinians and 15 Israelis have been killed.
Israel says that more than half the Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces were attempting to carry out knife attacks, although Palestinians and rights groups have disputed many of these cases.
Israel has sought to blame the unrest on religious incitement through social media, whereas Palestinians have pointed to Israel’s nearly 50-year military occupation of the Palestinian territory, no prospect of a political solution, and a deep sense of frustration and despair.
The infamous photo in which Netanyahu pushes himself into the front row – and waves at people holding Israeli flags – in the Rally of National Unity after the Islamist attacks on Charlie Hebdo offices and a Kosher grocery store, January 11, 2015. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters
Netanyahu: In wake of Paris attacks, world should condemn attacks against Israel
By Allison Deger, Mondoweiss
November 16, 2015
After the tragic events in Paris on Friday where gunmen affiliated with the Islamic State or ISIS killed 129 people in separate and coordinated attacks, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on world leaders to condemn acts of “terrorism” and “radical Islam” perpetrated by Palestinians, claiming “the terrorists who attack us have the same murderous intent as those in Paris.”
“The time has come for the world to wake up and unite in order to defeat terrorism. The time has come for countries to condemn terrorism against us to the same degree that they condemn terrorism everywhere else in the world,” Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, further adding Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should renounce attacks on Israelis over recent weeks.
Since October 1st, Palestinians have killed 15 Israelis in the West Bank and Israel, and Israeli forces have killed more than 110 Palestinians including alleged attackers and protesters in near-daily demonstrations that have spread across the West Bank under the banner of a “knife Intifada” or uprising.
“It would be proper for Abu Mazen, who condemned the attack in France yesterday, to condemn ruthless terrorism against innocent people in Israel and fight the incitement that motivates it,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu underscored that neither the Israeli occupation, nor the settlements are a driving force behind the last six-weeks of violence.
“We should remember – we are not to blame for the terrorism directed against us, just as the French are not to blame for the terrorism directed against them. It is the terrorists who are to blame for terrorism, not the territories, not the settlements and not any other thing. It is the desire to destroy us that perpetuates this conflict and drives the murderous aggression against us,” he said.
Despite on-going turmoil that has had less steam that the previous two Intifadas, both governments held commemorations honoring the victims of the Paris attacks. Israeli leaders lighted the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Knesset in the colors of the French flag, and Palestinian officials held a memorial in Bethlehem.
In response a senior Palestinian official today decried Netanyahu’s public charge of linking Palestinian attacks against Israelis to the actions of ISIS in France.
“Netanyahu is attempting to exploit the cruel and inhuman terrorism of Daesh in order to score cheap political points at the expense of the Palestinian people,” said Palestinian Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi, referring to ISIS by its Arabic abbreviation. “His statements are not only fraudulent and politically coercive, they are symptomatic of political and moral bankruptcy.”
ISIS militants have issued warnings of conquest to both Israeli and Palestinians leaders during the past year. In a video address to the “tyrants of Hamas,” last June ISIS warned of their intentions to turn Israel, Hamas-controlled Gaza, and Fatah-run West Bank into districts of the Islamic caliphate by the same brute force used to expand their reign in parts of Syria and Iraq.
“We will uproot the state of the Jews [Israel] and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be overrun by our creeping multitudes,” Reuters reported the video statement said, “The rule of sharia [Islamic law] will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza,” the alert continued, making reference to the Damascus-area Palestinian refugee camp now overrun by ISIS fighters.
In October, in a rare move ISIS released a video threat directed towards Israel.
To all the Jews who conquered our country, the Muslims. The real war has not started yet, and everything you had before is simply called a child’s play compared to that which is going to happen to you in the near future,” said a fluent Hebrew-speaking gunman.
“Do whatever you feel like in the meantime, until we get to you, and then we’ll destroy everything ten times over for the crimes your committed. And we promise you that soon there will not be a single Jew in Jerusalem and throughout the country. And we’ll continue on until we eradicate this disease worldwide.