Israel & Paris

Israel Is Europe's Outpost - Moshe Arens

The entire Muslim world is not on the offensive against the West. But as you connect the dots of the increasingly frequent terrorist acts committed against Western targets, it is clear that radical Islam is on the warpath against the West.

The Arab terrorists in Paris shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they mowed down the cartoonists in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The Islamic terrorists who murdered four worshippers in the Jerusalem Har Nof synagogue also cried out "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire and swinging their hatchets.     

Radical Islamists vent their anger against Israel because they see Israel as an outpost of Western civilization that has the temerity to be located in their midst. It is part of their war against the West. 
The writer served as Israel's Minister of Defense three times and once as Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
(Ha'aretz)


Fear Radical Islam - and Fight Back - Ezra Levant

Jihad means holy war against infidels. Infidels are all non-Muslims, or even Muslims who aren't radical enough. Those at Charlie Hebdo magazine were attacked because they would not submit to the edict that no one may draw an image of Mohammed, let alone insult him. They would not submit, so they were murdered.

You have to work very hard to pretend radical Islam is not at war with the West and our secular, liberal democracies.
     
Israel is besieged, it's surrounded. But it has one advantage over the West: it is not in denial. No one in Israel pretends that there is no jihad; no one in Israel talks about terrorists being just "lone wolves"; no one in Israel denies that terrorism was really terrorism. They don't blame the victim. Jihad cannot be appeased.
    
Everyone is scared of radical Islam. But you can meet fear with resolve and the decision to fight back. That's what Israel has; that's what the West used to have, back when the Nazis stormed across Europe. 
(Toronto Sun-Canada)


The Paris Terror Attacks and Israel

• After a solidarity rally on Sunday brought an estimated 1.5 million people into the streets to declare their support for free speech and their opposition to Islamist terrorism, French President Francois Hollande entered the Grand Synagogue of Paris, followed 40 seconds or so later by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who unlike Hollande was greeted by loud and spontaneous cheering.
  
• The fact that the crowd cheers when Netanyahu enters the synagogue has nothing to do with whether the people gathered inside are socialist or conservative. As in every Jewish crowd, there are no doubt people in all camps. The reason they are cheering is far more basic, and it has to do with the harsh lesson that history has engraved into the souls of every conscious and self-aware Jew in the world today.
  
• We know, whether overtly or in a dark half-acknowledged corner of our minds, that there is one state in the world - however imperfect it is in some of its particulars - where we and our children will be welcome, and whose government will do its best to protect us, with all the force at its disposal.
• One of the great lessons of the Holocaust for the Jewish people, and for all other peoples who have since been threatened with genocide by fanatics, is that the world will always talk a good game but will do precious little to save you. The fact that the State of Israel exists means that the Jewish people will never be radically alone. That's why the people in the Grand Synagogue of Paris are cheering.

 (Tablet)
*

UPDATE:

Israeli embassy in Ireland posted a picture of Mona Lisa in Islamic headdress holding a rocket.
The post seems to reflect a common sentiment among Israelis who are angry over criticism of its response to Palestinian terrorism.
(photo credit:TWITTER)