At the same time, as a free democracy, France recognizes that free speech, even in the form of cartoons some find insulting, is one of the most valuable rights that a free society has.
Then comes the terror attack in Paris. This is my latest column. It can be viewed on-line here.
Paris attack shows France’s appeasement of Palestinians and
Islamists failed
By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org
Less than three months ago, U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that there was a link between Islamist
terrorism and frustration over the Palestinian issue. Yet despite vigorous
recent attempts by the French to champion the Palestinian cause, Islamist
terrorists have just struck in Paris, killing 12 people at the offices of the
satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Where did Kerry’s theory go wrong?
At an Oct. 18, 2014 State Department
event celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry presented his
linkage theory. Discussing the phenomenon of young Muslims flocking to the
ranks of Islamist terror groups such as the Islamic State, Kerry said that the
issue of “Israel
and the Palestinians” is “a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation” among Muslims worldwide.
If Kerry were correct, then one would expect the Islamist extremist groups to refrain from harming those who embrace the Palestinian cause. And France certainly has been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian activism, especially in recent weeks.
On Dec. 2, the French parliament
voted overwhelmingly to demand that the French government immediately recognize
the “State
of Palestine.” Not
after negotiations. Not with Israel’s agreement. Just do it right away, whether the Israelis
like it or not. And the vote wasn’t even close—339 in favor, 151 against.
Four weeks later, the Palestinian
Authority presented a resolution to the United Nations Security Council,
setting a timetable for Israel to unilaterally withdraw from all of Judea,
Samaria, and most of Jerusalem. That is, back to the pre-1967 armistice lines
that Abba Eban said would make Israel so vulnerable that it would set the stage
for another Holocaust.
That position is so extreme that even
the Obama administration, which has not exactly been Israel’s warmest friend, opposed the
resolution. Yet France joined with those stalwarts of reason and democracy,
China and Russia, to support the resolution. France’s ambassador to the United Nations, explaining his country’s vote in favor of the resolution,
said there was “an
urgent need to act.”
One would think—if one subscribed to the Kerry
Linkage Theory—that
Islamist extremists would have appreciated France’s sense of “urgency” regarding the Palestinian issue. But evidently not.
In the meantime, there was more
pro-Palestinian news from France. The city council of Aubervilliers, which is a suburb of
Paris, voted to grant honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian
terrorist leader who is currently service five consecutive sentences of life
imprisonment for carrying out a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.
Not many Americans have heard of
Aubervilliers, but those who are familiar with the history of World War II may
know the name of the city's most famous and longest-serving mayor: Pierre
Laval. His
19 years as the leader of Aubervilliers was interrupted when he was called to
national service—as
the head of Vichy France and chief collaborator with Adolf Hitler. It was under
Laval that more than 77,000 Jews were deported from France to Auschwitz and
other death camps.
But why dredge up old history, when
there are fresh victims to memorialize? One of the attacks that Barghouti
masterminded consisted of gunning down a Greek Orthodox monk. Another was a
shooting and stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant, in which three Israelis
were murdered and 31 wounded.
France’s national government was not responsible for the decision
of Aubervilliers to honor a mass murderer. But when combined with the French
parliament’s
vote on Palestinian statehood, and the French government’s vote at the U.N., one would think
that this French bear-hug of the Palestinians would impress the Islamists. The
massacre of journalists in Paris by killers shouting the jihadist call of “Allahu Akhbar” indicates that perhaps the linkage
that Kerry imagines is nothing more than that—imaginary.
Appeasement of terrorists never
works. Endorsing terrorists’ political demands—such as Palestinian statehood—never satisfies them. And blaming Israel for the rise of
terrorist groups is an outrageous theory that has been repeatedly discredited
by real-world events.
Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New
Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in a Palestinian
terrorist attack in 1995. He is a candidate on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.
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