Dear Family & Friends,

Three days & nights since I wrote. Shabbat, Sunday & Monday. In the country of Judea & Samaria we played, and sang, and ate lots of yummy food. Today we had a full Tu B’Shvat Seder, blessing, honoring & eating of at least 32 varieties of the Land of Israel’s fruits & nuts. Dee-licious! Amazing!! Bountiful – as it should be. Tu B’Shvat is considered the Birthday of the Trees – not because the fruits & nuts are ready for eating in January (this year) or February (most years) but, because it marks the time when the sap in the trees starts to flow to begin a New Year for the Trees.

After a full year & more when Israel’s fields are left to lie fallow on the Seventh Year called “Schmitta” to re-generate the soil in which our food grows, we only eat food grown outside of Israel. So, on Tu B’Shvat we really appreciate today’s many fruits & nuts to which we may not fully pay attention during the year.

Tomorrow I’ll begin to catch up on the weekend’s news & commentary.

Enjoy the full moon as the promised snow finally begins tonight. Have a great day.

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

Our Website is full of good info: WinstonIsraelInsight.com

1.Time To Be Sovereign Again By Varda Epstein

2.Netanyahu talks up Israeli economy in Davos

3.US-Israel>High return on US investment in Israel by Yoram Ettinger

4.Palestinians want UN to declare settlements illegal

5.369 US House members urge PA president Abbas to quit incitement

6.Palestinian ‘recognition’ is a bloody lie by Ruthie Blum

7.Michael Douglas to advocate for Israel on campus tour

8.Obama in concert with Islam by David M. Weinberg

9.Obama ignores Israel and Jews by Sarah N. Stern

10.Fig leaves don’t hide France’s failure by Judith Bergman

11.It’s not about the kippah by Marc Eisenberg

There is something I want to say to my government and it is this: you cannot blame the world for labeling products from Judea and Samaria with the equivalent of a big yellow star, if you will not exercise sovereignty over the territories.

How could you possibly expect Europe or America to think of Judea and Samaria as part of Israel, if you yourself do not declare them so, loudly and proudly? How can we blame John Kirby for calling Tekoa, in “the West Bank,” as though it were in Jordan?

The Likud is supposed to stand for Greater Israel and for building homes for our people in our nation, wherever they live. Yet, the Israeli government, headed by a prime minister associated with the ideals of Likud and Jabotinsky, will not implement the steps suggested by the Edmond Levy Report, a report the Prime Minister himself, commissioned. Instead, he accuses the EU of double standards in discriminating “only against Israel.”

But actually, the double standard is Bibi’s own, for omitting to exercise sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, which effectively tells the world a lie: that Judea and Samaria are not part of Israel. It is the Israeli government that persists in perpetuating this mythical concept of Judea and Samaria as somehow separate from, and outside of the State of Israel. It is the Israeli government that refuses to end the state of martial law in Judea and Samaria. It is the Israeli government that refuses to make the declaration that must be made: Judea & Samaria are as much a part of Israel as Jerusalem & Tel Aviv.

Now we do know why Bibi won’t implement the findings of the Levy Commission. We know he’s afraid to poke a hornet’s nest and further isolate Israel from the international community. But Dafna Meir’s murder teaches all of us that we must put the truth above our fear. At Dafna’s funeral, her husband Natan said,

“Dafna had a large crown: the crown of truth. She was very honest, as accurate as a razor. Not everyone liked that but everyone was able to appreciate it, and this truth has now been thrown to the ground, it has burst into smithereens.

“I request that everyone who came out here, pick up something from the light that was spilled on the ground, so that truth may spring from the earth.”

Here, therefore, is my smithereen of light, the one I pick up from the ground that covers Dafna’s still cold body: Dear Mr. Prime Minister, fear no one but God and proudly proclaim us the sole owner of the title to all our land: the land He gave us. Show the world you are not afraid. Show the world might and do not hesitate to take ownership of Judea and Samaria.

Tell the world there can be no negotiations over the gift G-d gave us, the gift of the land. For we are not only the owners of the land, but the stewards of it, too. We hold the land safely close to us and protect it for our descendants, too. It is not ours alone, and therefore, we cannot possibly give it away, now or ever, for any reason at all.

The world must accept this truth, and we must not have it any other way, but that they will accept this truth.

It is on our shoulders to say this out loud and proud. All the land is ours. And we can only say this by declaring an end to martial law in Judea and Samaria.

It is by showing our might, and by speaking our truth, that we will win this war, and put an end to this situation in which mothers of children can be murdered in their homes. This is the mantle you wear, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the one you’ve assumed in order to protect us, the people who voted you into office. The time to apply sovereignty is now. Because more of us are dying every day.

And the clock is ticking loudly.

Time To Be Sovereign Again By Varda Epstein

Varda Epstein A third-generation-born Pittsburgher on her mother’s mother’s side, Varda moved to Israel 36 years ago and is a crazy political animal who spams people with right wing political articles on Facebook in between raising her 12 children and writing about education as the communications writer at Kars for Kids a Guidestar silver medal charity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife Sara, flew to Switzerland on Wednesday to attend the World Economic Forum in snowy Davos.

After arriving in Davos, Netanyahu held meetings with Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick and Hewlett Packard Enterprise President and CEO Meg Whitman.

In addition to Netanyahu and his wife, the Israeli delegation in Davos includes Prime Minister’s Office Director General Eli Groner and National Economic Council Chairman Professor Avi Simhon and National Cyber Bureau head Dr. Eviatar Matania.

The purpose of Netanyahu’s trip is to present to Israeli economy to the world, focusing on Israel’s leadership in technology and cyber.

On Thursday, the prime minister was set to hold a meeting with global cyber industry senior figures and managing directors on the issue of cyber defense. Netanyahu was also scheduled to meet with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The prime minister was also hold to a public dialogue with CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria.

Netanyahu will return to Israel on Friday.

Netanyahu talks up Israeli economy in Davos by Hezi Sternlicht

3.US-Israel>High return on US investment in Israel

By Yoram Ettinger “Israel Hayom”, http://bit.ly/1KhbrbB , 1/15/16

The annual US investment in Israel – erroneously defined as “foreign aid” – has yielded one of the highest rates of return on US investments overseas. Israel is no longer a supplicant, transforming itself from a national security & economic consumer to a national security & economic producer, generating substantial dividends, which exceed the annual investment by its lead investor, the US.

US national and homeland security and commercial interests have derived significant benefits from the special US-Israel cooperative alliance, which has evolved into a unique, mutually-beneficial, two-way-street, win-win relationship, transcending the tension between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, rising above 68-year-old US-Israel disagreements over the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue.

A case in point is the intensified cooperation between the air forces of both countries, as institutionalized by an unprecedented June 2015 strategic agreement, which established twelve teams of officers, codifying a widening range of joint annual agenda: operations, battle tactics, training, maintenance, repairs, airborne medicine, flight safety, etc., in the face of mutual threats, joint interests and constrained budgets.

For example, in 2016, US combat pilots benefit uniquely during joint drills with their Israeli colleagues. The latter always fly in a “do-or-die” state of mind – a result of Israel’s narrow geographic waistline in a violently unpredictable neighborhood – which generates more daring and innovative maneuvers, shared with their US colleagues.

Recently, Israel’s air force developed a ground-breaking method of identifying, repairing and preempting cracks in old combat planes, such as the F-16, promptly shared with the US Air Force and manufacturer. Instead of grounding the planes for six months and preoccupying hundreds of mechanics, the Israeli-developed system – based on a baby-viewing ultrasound device – requires two weeks and only a few mechanics, yielding significant economic and national security benefits.

In 1989, 1969 and 1966, Israel snatched a Soviet Mig-23, a most advanced P-12 Soviet early warning radar and ELINT (electronic signals intelligence) system and a Soviet Mig-21 from Syria, Egypt and Iraq respectively. All were transferred to the US, which evaluated the aircrafts, integrating the lessons into the US battle tactics, counter-measures and defense industries, which tilted the global balance of power in favor of the US, providing the US defense industries with a substantial competitive edge.

In 1982, Israel devised innovative technologies and battle tactics, setting groundbreaking standards for orchestrated air operations, proving – for the first time ever – that the most advanced mobile Soviet SAMs (surface-to-air missile) could be jammed, penetrated and destroyed. 20 SAM batteries, deployed by Syria, were dismembered and 89 Soviet Mig-21s, Mig-23s and Su-20s were downed in the process.

The Israeli lessons were shared with the US, dramatically enhancing US military, technological and industrial capabilities, causing another setback to the USSR.

The 1967 and 1973 wars highlighted Israel as a critical outpost, advancing US interests regionally and globally: crushing the military forces of anti-US, pro-Soviet Arab regimes (Egypt and Syria) and snatching pro-US Arab regimes (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States) from the jaws of defeat.

In addition, Israel Defense Forces served as a laboratory testing the performance of US-made weaponry against Soviet-made weaponry.

Thus, in 1974, some 50 US military experts, headed by General Donn Starry, spent six months, studying Israel’s battle tactics and the captured Soviet military systems, producing eight thick volumes, which enhanced the US defense of Europe during the Cold War and US air and land battle doctrines during the 1991 Gulf War.

For instance, General (ret.) Chuck Krulak, former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, conducted his 1991 battles against Saddam Hussein’s Russian tanks, in accordance with the 1973 Israeli tank battles against Soviet tanks in Sinai. In 2014, General Krulak stated: “The US battle tactic formulation, at Fort Leavenworth, KS, the intellectual Mecca of the US Army, is based on the Israeli book.”

According to General George Keegan, a former US Air Force Intelligence Chief, the value of intelligence shared by Israel with the US – exposing adversaries’ Air Force capabilities, new military systems, electronics and jamming devices – “could not be procured with five CIAs…. The ability of the US Air Force in particular, and the Army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO, owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any other single source of intelligence, be it satellite reconnaissance, be it technology intercept, or what have you.”

A similar assessment was made by the late Senator Daniel Inouye, who was the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the Appropriations Committee and its Defense Subcommittee: “Israel provides the US with more intelligence than all NATO countries combined, especially on adversarial Muslim countries and terrorists targeting Americans abroad and on the mainland.”

In 2016, Israel’s Air Force, which flies US-made aircraft, is the most cost-effective, battle-tested laboratory of the US Air Force and defense industries. It shares with them – real time online – operational, maintenance and repair lessons, which enhance US battle performance and upgrade research and development, global competitiveness, exports and employment base of the US defense industries (e.g., Lockheed-Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Bell Helicopter, Boeing Defense, Northrop Grumman, etc.).

Similar lessons – experienced by Israel’s Defense Forces – have been shared with the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps and all related-industries, valued at mega billion dollars, yielding a game-changing contributions to US national and homeland security.

In 2016, against the backdrop of mounting conventional and terrorist threats, the collapse of Europe’s military power projection, the erosion of the Western posture of deterrence, and the growing instability, fragmentation, unpredictability and doubtful reliability of pro-US Arab regimes, Israel stands out as the most stable, predictable, reliable, capable and productive (militarily and commercially), democratic, unconditional ally/beachhead in a critical region, extending the strategic arm of the US military, which has been burdened by draconian cuts.

US-Israel>High return on US investment in Israel

By Yoram Ettinger

The Palestinian Authority is seeking to promote a U.N. Security Council resolution that would condemn Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and declare them illegal under international law, Haaretz reported on Thursday

According to the Haaretz report, the PA has been in contact with France, Spain and Egypt as part of its effort to advance such a resolution.

Meanwhile, Army Radio reported on Wednesday that Israel plans to appropriate a 380-acre tract of agricultural land near the Palestinian city of Jericho in the Jordan Valley.

The report said the appropriation would be announced shortly, but this was not immediately confirmed by the Defense Ministry.

According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon have already signed off on the appropriation and that technical details were being finalized ahead of a declaration expected soon.

The land is located in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control.

Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat called on the international community to support the Palestinians in their plans to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

“We are contacting the international community, the Americans, the Europeans, others in the international community,” Erekat said. “We are consulting with them because I think we should go to the Security Council with a resolution only and solely for the colonial settlement enterprise. That’s what we need to do.”

Palestinians want UN to declare settlements illegal

Palestinian ‘recognition’ is a bloody lie by Ruthie Blum

7.Michael Douglas to advocate for Israel on campus tour

Actor Michael Douglas and Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky to visit three U.S. college campuses to talk to students about Israel and modern anti-Semitism • Douglas: We must all be more inclusive in order that the Jewish faith and culture thrive. Israel Hayom Staff

American actor Michael Douglas and Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky are set to visit three college campuses in the U.S. to talk to students about Israel and modern anti-Semitism.

Douglas and Sharansky will visit Brown University on Jan. 28, Stanford University on Feb. 2 and the University of California at Santa Barbara on Feb. 3. The program, titled “Jewish Journeys: A Conversation with Michael Douglas and Natan Sharansky,” is being co-hosted by the Genesis Prize Foundation, Hillel International, and the Jewish Agency for Israel, in addition to the local Hillels on each campus.

Genesis Prize Foundation co-founder and Chairman Stan Polovets said: “This is the first time, in this current period of heightened anti-Israel activity on campus, that a Hollywood celebrity has offered to join with a world Jewish leader to visit U.S. college campuses and speak with students about Israel and the Jewish people. At a time when certain individuals and groups in the academic community as well as other forces are making sustained efforts to delegitimize Israel, these visits are particularly important and timely.”

Douglas said: “I was honored to receive the Genesis Prize last year, and it has encouraged me to deepen my commitment and belief that we must all be more inclusive in order that the Jewish faith and culture thrive. These visits provide an opportunity for Natan and me to speak directly with young people about the challenges they encounter, and share insight about how we have dealt with these situations throughout our life.”

Sharansky said: “At a time when the new and old forms of anti-Semitism are coming together to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and drive Jews apart from their Jewish identities and from one another, it is crucial that we emphasize the connection between our devotion to human rights, our commitment to peace, and our dedication to strengthening the unity of the Jewish people. Having had many opportunities to speak to students and young people about these fundamental issues, I am pleased to be sharing the stage with such an outstanding individual as Michael Douglas, and I look forward to our conversations with young people on campuses across America.”

Michael Douglas to advocate for Israel on campus tour

8.Obama in concert with Islam  by David M. Weinberg

Many times in these pages we have sought to plumb the depth of U.S. President Barack Obama’s mind. Is he plain timid or utterly calculating in global affairs?

What explains his passion to embrace the radical mullahs of Tehran with a softy nuclear deal, despite the fact that all America’s traditional allies in the region are calling for him to check Iran’s advances? Does he not understand that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is making mincemeat and a mockery of the U.S.-inspired postwar stability? Why his dispassionate, almost uncaring, attitude to the savagery and threat of the Islamic State group?

Many American analysts have concluded that the roots of Obama’s approach rest in the fairly widespread, quintessentially liberal convictions that America has been sinful and diplomatically domineering for decades, and must atone for its arrogance through retrenchment and accommodation.

Obama, they say, shares the progressive aversion to the use of American power.

Thus, U.S. Cold War culpability — in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, South America and Cuba — is a burden on America that must be addressed by shrinking America’s global footprint, and allowing indigenous, revolutionary movements to legitimately emerge and stabilize; and that includes Iran and Russia. In short, Obama believes that he will be leaving the world a better place by cutting America down to size.

Yet none of this explains the depth of commitment to a deal with Iran that Obama evinced since his first day in office, nor does it explain his complete insouciance in the face of the escalating Islamic terrorist threat.

Entering this debate with a new and provocative theory is the incisive Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute.

Doran argues (in a comprehensive essay published this month in Mosaic Magazine) that Obama’s deferential approach to Iran and Russia stems not from absentmindedness or weakness, but from a cohesive (albeit concealed) vision of global order. Obama intends to bring about a new world concert of powers; a coalition that will replace the old balance of power that rested on American military might.

Doran says that Obama seeks a club of nations that, united in their enmity to Sunni Islamic radicalism (but not so much to Shiite radicalism), would work together to stabilize the region by self-consciously maintaining a balance of power among themselves.

The Russian reset and the Iranian nuclear negotiations, he says, were Obama’s way of taking a step back and inviting the Russians and Iranians to buy into the envisioned concert system. The situation in Syria, in particular, has offered an opportunity to showcase Obama’s respect for Russian and Iranian interests.

Why hasn’t Obama ever described his vision openly? Well, Americans and America’s traditional allies in the Middle East deeply distrust both Russia and Iran. So best to proceed step by step, justifying each new step as an ad hoc response to immediate developments, while keeping his eye (Obama’s) firmly fixed on the goal.

In the meantime, Obama is exercising “strategic patience” (the president’s term). So there’s no need to get overly worked-up about a bombing or two in Paris or San Bernardino. There is no need to go beyond America’s Potemkin train-and-equip initiative in Syria (which was meant only to create the illusion that Washington was acting to force out Assad).

After all, Obama seeks not to counter the Russians and Iranians, but to accommodate them. He very consciously designs to make Russia and Iran arbiters in the region.

To my mind, it’s hard to credit Obama with this level of strategic planning, or debit him with this level of folly.

I doubt that even Obama truly believes that by giving Ayatollah Ali Khamenei comprehensive sanctions relief and renewed international legitimacy the Islamic republic will stop being the expansionist and aggressive Islamic republic. Or that by coordinating on Iran, the Islamic State and Syria with Russia, Putin will become an apostle of quietist cooperation with the West.

How can anybody think that substantial moderation of Iranian and Russian diplomatic and military behavior can be bought with American pottage?

The opposite dynamic is readily apparent: Putin’s play in Syria has only harmed American interests. Iran’s release from sanction shackles (expected next week) is only emboldening the mullahs to act against American global interests globally (or what used to be considered, pre-Obama, core American interests).

In a response to Doran, also published in Mosaic, former Mideast peace negotiator Dennis Ross rejects the conspiratorial tone of Doran’s essay. Instead of there being a grand strategic plan that Obama has hid from the American public, Ross would have us believe that Obama is just being really cautious.

Obama just doesn’t want to repeat America’s mistakes in Iraq, Ross says. He doesn’t want to get sucked into the Syrian quagmire or into a shooting war with Iran over nuclear weapons. Obama actually believes that the P5+1 agreement with Iran will contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions for a decade or longer.

Ross’ gloss on Obama is equally unsatisfying, in my view. It doesn’t elucidate his zeal for a deal with Iran going back to his pre-presidency days, nor his bland response to Russian aggression. It doesn’t explain Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the Manichean and irreconcilable nature of the challenge posed to the West by radical Islam. It doesn’t account for the fact that Obama seems more riled by Islamophobia than Islamofascism.

This leads me to suspect that, deep down, ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership is what fuels Obama’s approach. Excuse me if this seems conspiratorial, but I sense that Barack Hussein Obama holds a deep-seated ideological belief that Islam has a rightful leadership place in the world, and he is acting to ensure that Islam regains such standing.

It’s not (merely) a fear of Mideast quicksand, nor a distaste for American overreach, nor the search for some new grand Kissingerian geopolitical architecture that animates the president. It’s a devotion to the honor of Islamic civilization.

Consider the fact that Obama’s inaugural address abroad was “A New Beginning,” delivered in Cairo in 2009 — a contrite appeal to the Muslim world for forgiveness and for partnership. Go back and listen as Obama waxes eloquent about “hearing the call of the azaan” as a youth in Indonesia, and about the historical achievements of Islamic civilization in algebra and architecture. This is Obama speaking from the recesses of his soul.

Consider Obama’s refusal to even mutter the words “Islamic extremism” or “Jihadism,” and to connect terrorism to Islam. I think that this is because Obama doesn’t believe that Western (or Judeo-Christian) civilization is any better than Islamic civilization, and thus he refuses to tar Islam with terrorism.

Speaking to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on February 5, Obama said: “Before we get on our high horse and think this [Islamic State’s beheadings, sex slavery, crucifixion, roasting of humans, etc.] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

This is tantamount to saying that the West is rooted in immorality, and that it is time for other, no less moral and possibly more moral, powers to emerge — specifically, Islamic powers. It is equivalent to saying that the denouement of America and rise of an Islamic superpower will elevate world politics to a better sphere.

It is like saying that America sanctions a seismic shift in the global balance of power in favor of Islam.

Obama in concert with Islam by David M. Weinberg

10.Fig leaves don’t hide France’s failure  by Judith Bergman

When a teenager claiming to act for Islamic State attacked a Jewish teacher with a machete in Marseille ?on January 11, Zvi Ammar, president of the Consistoire religious association in Marseilles, advised the ?city’s Jews to stop wearing kippot in public in order to avoid similar attacks in the future. “Given the ?gravity of the events, we must take exceptional decisions, and for me, life is more sacred than any other ?criteria,” Ammar said.?

This advice sparked a furious debate. French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia said that calling on Jews ?to remove their kippot was “not very dignified” and “tantamount to admitting that wearing a kippah is a ?provocation,” and such thinking will “require rabbis to shave off their beards tomorrow.”?

Official France also came out against the advice. President Francois Hollande called the idea that ?Jewish people should need to hide their identity “intolerable.” Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, ?Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Marseilles Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin and Xavier Bertrand, ?regional president of the center-right Les Republicains party, all spoke out against it.?

? “It is surely not the advice that I personally would have given [not to wear kippot],” Vallaud-Belkacem ?said, adding that although Ammar obviously “intended to protect his people,” “this is not the message ?that should be expressed.”?

Bertrand said, “Everybody understands why the president of the Jewish community in Marseilles made ?that decision; he is afraid, he fears for the Jews, he fears an attack. … But if we bow our heads, if the Jews ?of Marseilles give up on wearing the kippah, then France will not be France any more. … Tomorrow we will ?have the same question facing Muslims, facing Catholics.” ?

A social media campaign was also launched on Twitter, posting photoshopped pictures of celebrities — ?and cats — wearing kippot. The campaign was started by two French women, Sophie Taieb, who is Jewish, ?and Kerima Mendes, who is not. “There was black everywhere, so we wanted to do something funny,” ?Taieb told the BBC. “The idea is that everybody — Jewish or not — should wear a kippah, because if ?everybody wears one, nobody is a target anymore.”?

The debate is a curious one, particularly because its ferocity and its extreme belatedness reflect a denial ?of an already long existing reality on the part of those who claim outrage in the face of Ammar’s well-?meant advice; French Jews and European Jews have been hiding their Jewish identity not for days, weeks ?or years but for decades. Anyone pretending that Ammar’s advice represented a new and radical ?departure from what most Jews already do is simply denying the reality as it has been unfolding for ?European Jews for decades. ?

In Europe, it is practically the norm for Jews to either remove their kippot as soon as they leave ?synagogue or to wear a cap on their heads to hide them from view. According to The Jerusalem Post, in a ??2013 study by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights, a third of Jews polled said they ?refrained from wearing religious garb or Jewish symbols out of fear, and 23% avoided attending ?Jewish events or going to Jewish venues.?

There is something rather tasteless in the way that official France has now come out against the ?advice of this Jewish communal leader, who was simply acting out of concern for his fellow Jews and as a ?response to the reality he lives every day in Marseilles. Not only because official France is light years away ?from that reality and has no concept of what it means to be a Jew in Europe today, but because ?it is official France that is responsible for the predicament that France’s Jews find themselves in. They fail, ?repeatedly, to protect the Jews, as is their state duty. No other group in France experiences the troubles ?that the Jews do. France’s Jews represent less than 1% of the country’s population. Yet in ??2014, according to the French Interior Ministry, 51% of all racist attacks targeted Jews. The statistics ?are similar in other European countries.?

It is hypocritical for official France to blame a man for voicing his concern in the form of this advice when ?in fact French authorities have looked the other way, belittled and avoided taking responsibility for the Jews’ ?plight, as previously described in this column.?

One particularly nasty example: In 2006, a young French Jew, Ilan Halimi, was held prisoner and ?tortured for 24 days by a gang of Muslims, then dumped, naked and handcuffed, in a field to die, French ?police were not even treating the incident as an anti-Semitic crime and surely no French people thought of ?donning a kippah in solidarity. In Europe this story was barely even reported and indeed the BBC still ?reports anti-Semitism in France as something that is only just now “rising.”

When in the summer of 2014 Jews had to barricade themselves in a Parisian synagogue because ?an anti-Semitic mob wanted to descend upon them as part of their “march for Gaza,” official France was ?silent. When another mob marched through the streets of France, yelling for Jews to get out, official ?France was silent. But when all these events finally accumulate and make a Jewish communal leader ?voice his most natural fear in public — then official France finds it opportune to chime in and voice how it finds the reality, which its actions and inactions helped create, to be “intolerable.”

According to a poll from the European Jewish Congress, a third of all European Jews — that is, 700,000 Jews — are considering ?leaving Europe. In France, 75% of Jews are considering leaving and 15,000 ?French Jews have already left in the past two years alone. Official France should have voiced its concerns ?about the ability of its citizens to be Jewish in public two decades ago.

Today, in the face of this ?mass emigration and the nearly constant verbal and physical attacks on its Jewish citizens, such ?statements are utterly meaningless and serve only as fig leaves for the French ?establishment’s failure to protect the Jews of France.

Judith Bergman is a writer and political analyst living in Israel.

Fig leaves don’t hide France’s failure by Judith Bergman

11.It’s not about the kippah by Marc Eisenberg

It’s not about the kippah by Marc Eisenberg