PM offers assistance to France, calls for West to unite against radical Islam
Netanyahu addresses spate of attacks in Paris, sends condolonces; likens terror in France to Gaza, Iran
January 9, 2015, 5:15 pm
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the weekly cabinet meeting in
Jerusalem, January 4, 2015. (photo credit: Marc Israel
Sellem/POOL/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu implored the West to stand firm and fight back against radical
Islam, amid a series of terrorist attacks in France.
Netanyahu convened an emergency consultation with top officials, and offered intelligence and other assistance to France.
“This is the essence of the battle that we’re
fighting. The terrorists have shown that they have the will to crush us,
but they don’t have the capacity,” Netanyahu tweeted on the Prime
Minister of Israel’s Twitter account on Friday.
“Now we must show that we have the will to
defeat them and crush them. It must be followed by a broad-based assault
on the forces of radical Islam throughout the world. This is
everybody’s battle,” he said.
The prime minister asserted that the attack on
the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday and the Friday attack on a
kosher supermarket in Paris were a microcosm of a greater battle against
jihadists.
“This is a global struggle. Bringing to
justice the Paris murderers is just the beginning,” he wrote. “And all
of them seek to destroy our freedoms and to impose on all of us a
violent, medieval tyranny. They might have different names, but all of
them are driven by the same hatred and blood-thirsty fanaticism.”
“They bomb churches in Iraq; they slaughter
tourists in Bali; they rocket civilians from Gaza; and strive to build
nuclear weapons in Iran…we have to fight these enemies of our common
civilization,” the prime minister added.
Netanyahu, invoking the jihadist terrorism
Israel has grappled with, said that he sympathized with France and once
again sent his condolences to President Francois Hollande and the French
people.
“We grieve with our French brothers &
sisters. We reaffirm our commitment to work together to defeat the
enemies of the democratic values,” concluded Netanyahu .
The prime minister sent a condolence letter to
French President Francois Hollande Thursday, expressing empathy over a
deadly terror attack at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo.
“This attack on France is an attack on us all.
Free peoples everywhere must unite to confront radical Islamist
terrorism and to protect ourselves against this threat to our common
civilization,” Netanyahu wrote to his French counterpart.
On Wednesday, gunmen stormed the Paris office
of the magazine, claiming a dozen lives, including prominent
Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s condolence letter to French President
Francois Hollande following a deadly terror attack at a satirical
newspaper January 7, 2015 that left 12 dead. (Photo credit: courtesy)
The gunmen cried out “Allahu akbar” and said
that their attack was to “avenge the prophet,” the French daily Le Monde
reported. They fled in a hijacked car, running over a pedestrian and
shooting at officers.
Charlie Hebdo, which regularly runs articles
and caricatures critical of religion, has published a series of
satirical cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
On Friday a gunman men stormed a Kosher
supermarket in eastern Paris, taking at least six hostages. Conflicting
reports indicated two people may have been killed.
On Friday Netanyahu held emergency
consultations with a delegation of policymakers and security officials
to discuss the Paris attacks.
The panel, which included Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman and Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, among others, was
advised to continue providing the French authorities with as much
intelligence as possible and to refresh safety guidelines at the Israeli
embassy in Paris and Jewish institutions throughout the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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