Israel’s enemies and friends unite

Netanyahu has denounced Abbas as an inciter of terrorism and Abbas has claimed that Israel is guilty of state sponsored terror, yet there they both were, marching together in a demonstration against terrorism. The leader of Israel and of Palestine. The enemies marching together against terrorism.

One of the most shocking acts of anti-Semitism to have emerged from France during the Summer conflict with Hamas was the attack on a synagogue by thugs ostensibly participating in an anti-Israel march. Supporters of Palestine attacking Jews at prayer. This latest atrocity is the latest in a long line of anti-Semitic attacks in France. Jews are being hit over and over again by people invoking a range of ideologies that would disagree on everything save for the fact that the injustices of the world are the Jews’ fault. Anti-Israel movements and terrorists haven’t been slow to take advantage of this.

Currently terrorist organisations are condemning terror attacks against France while planning more of the same against Israel. Hamas condemned the terror attack against Charlie Hebdo and remained silent about the other half of the operation that targeted Jews. Hezbollah has condemned the Charlie Hebdo attacks. The Lebanese Daily Star quotes Hezbollah’s supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah as saying;

“The behavior of the takfiri groups that claim to follow Islam have distorted Islam, the Quran and the Muslim nation more than Islam’s enemies … who insulted the prophet in films… or drew cartoons of the prophet,”

This is hardly surprising bearing in mind Hezbollah is fighting against the Islamic State, the enablers of the kind of terror that inspired both the Paris atrocity and the Boko Haram whose massacre of as many as 2,000 Nigerians in the past days was almost totally eclipsed. Meanwhile no one expects their attitude to Israel to soften. Indeed their very raison d’etre is the destruction of Israel.

When Netanyahu condemned the Paris attack, he added the following sentence;

I stood at the UN podium a few months ago, and I said that if the terrorist fanatics of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic State and al-Qaeda will not be stopped here, [the attacks] will spread all over the world, and if we do not fight it consistently, determinedly and unitedly, these horrible acts that we have seen today in Paris, will not be the last, and they will be horrible and difficult.”

Israel is fighting against Sunnis in the form of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and elements of the Islamic State as well as the Shi’ite Hezbollah. The West is fighting against only the Islamic State and Boko Haram.

The only thing all of the groups mentioned by Netanyahu can agree on is that they hate Israel. Among them sits Hezbollah who are currently fighting the Islamic State, the force regarded as responsible for the Paris attacks. The United States and France are also engaged in the battle against the Islamic State. The old adage my enemy’s enemy is my friend comes to mind.

While Netanyahu has placed all of these terror groups, both Shi’ite and Sunni in the same box no other country has. No other country is threatened by all those groups at once. No other country needs to view all of these groups as a threat.

In France President Hollande found time to meet with Abbas, I have heard no reports that he is meeting with Netanyahu. With all of these forces lined up against us and at a time when our friends are fighting alongside our enemies, Israel needs to be very careful indeed about building and maintaining both regional and international alliances, there could well be Middle Eastern countries and forces that the West needs more than us.