126 thoughts on “Charlie Hebdo Massacre: a Tragic, Universal Failure – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. The Kouachi brothers are the ‘alleged’ shooters in the attack because in changing clothes and get-away cars an ID card was found!

    The Islamic teaching were talks with a janitor-turned-emir Farid Benyettou in the streets of Paris shortly after the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Iraq, think Abu Ghraib.

  2. The third person named … also an ID card (?) was Mourad Hamyd (19), but he turned himself in accompanied by his parents (wise decision, bullets can fly spontaneously). It appears his whereabouts at the time of the shooting has been accounted for. Nevertheless, by French terror law he was arrested and held for interrogation to a maximum of 96 hours with no rights to see a lawyer.

    Twitter account #MouradHamydInnocent

    Mourad Hamyd is said to be the brother-in-law of the elder brother Said Kouachi. He recently graduated high school at Charleville-Mezieres, outside the city of Reims north-eastern France at the border with Belgium.

  3. A recent issue of “Inspire” – the propaganda magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – named Stéphane Charbonnier, the Charlie Hebdo editor, on its suggested hit list of Westerners who have insulted the Muslim religion.

    One witness to the attack in Paris on Wednesday, Cédric Le Béchec, 33, a real estate agent, told a French publication that the gunmen had yelled, “Tell the media that we are Al Qaeda in Yemen.”

    Sounds to me like this was more a well planned Al Qaeda attack then it was a French failure.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/experts-assessing-parisian-assault-see-footprints-of-al-qaeda-in-video-clips.html

    1. Yeah sure. They’re al Qaeda in Yemen like I’m the Sultan’s caliph. How did they join? When were they in Yemen?

      I want to urge commenters not to offer unfounded opinions about what may’ve happened or how, but rather to base comments on facts, evidence & sources.

      I’m much less interested in spinning theories than hearing facts & evidence.

      UPDATE: I just read an article saying at least one of the Kouachis may’ve actually trained in Yemen. If true, this raises the question of why French national security forces didn’t elevate the threat potential he represented and place him under constant surveillance or even preventive detention.

      1. @Richard -“I’m much less interested in spinning theories than hearing facts & evidence.” – this must be a joke!

        1. @ Ariel: The hasbara brigade is now on a very short leash. Since this comment is snark and not substantive & because you’ve been warned previously, you have been moderated. Would you be sure to remain long enough to offer landing instructions for the next hasbara op intending to land here…

    2. What surprises me (if this was well-planned), is that they apparently mistook some other door for the entrance to the offices of Charlie Hebdo at first, and then had to be redirected.

      And then, just by coincidence, they happened to bump into one of the cartoonists at the door, who was carrying a baby and forced her to open the door for them. If that had not happened, all might have been different. (To my chagrin, history does not offer any support for the idea of divine intervention.)

  4. Richard, do you really think that Israel still “needed” these 12 murdered French journalists to make its case against Islamism? After what has been happening for a decade and a half now in the US, London, Paris an d the Netherlands or Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria – against the backdrop of the continual scenes of Iran, Iraq, Libya Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen…
    I hate to put salt on open wounds but your case here has been dead long time already and no amount of verbal acrobatics can change that

    1. The problem with the case Israel tries to brew out of this, is that it tries to portray Palestinian violence as a product of Islamism, as if the situation in Israel has nothing to do with it.

        1. @Qui
          You are wrong and that`s because you are fixated on the wrong ideas. I am not at all a supporter or promoter of Islamophobia – Jews suffered ages from discrimination in Europe so I understand their problems there. What happened though is that the Arab world and the Islamic one made Israel a main target, which was misguided in more than one way, and consequently spent a great deal of energy on fighting a wrong target, whereas their real problems had nothing to do with Israel (or the Jews, which were added later as an “complementary target”). In fact there is a large scope of cooperation between Israel and the Arab world and, indeed, it now seems that some important Arab countries came to realize that (while on the other hand the historically stubborn anti-Israeli ones, as Iraq and Syria, are coming apart).

          1. @Rambo: I haven’t deleted this comment though it’s pure hasbara with almost no basis in reality. Yes of course Israel gas good pals in the Arab world: the generals and butchers who’ve mown down their people like stocks of cordwood. Your sort of comment not only bores me, but angers me because it reveals just how deluded Israel’s hasbara brigade is. It also turns my comment thread into a hasbara platform to which I object. If your goal here is to mount a hasbara campaign I will moderate you.

      1. @Elizabeth
        All cases listed are different and have their own background and concrete issues but there are still some commonalities, which is in fact inevitable given how all have become globalized in our era. In particular they emulate each other and there are other links. Also in some cases they express mutual support and for instance Jews in France have been immigrating recently to Israel in droves with the explicitly stated reason that they fear physical violence from Muslims there (in their reaction to the Israel-Palestine conflict), e.g. the Toulouse massacre. Indeed, the French believed for some time that this violence will be reserved for Jews – paying for Israel “sins” – while they are immune, so cared less. I think that perception has now changed for good.

        1. “Indeed, the French believed for some time that this violence will be reserved for Jews – paying for Israel “sins” – while they are immune, so cared less.”
          This is pure bullshit ! Three soldiers were killed (they were all of North-African origin, two Muslims and a Christian Berber) before the killing in the Jewish school.
          You simply don’t know what you’re talking about ! I live in France, and this is simply not the way France funtions: no matter who’s killed it’s the French Republic that is attacked. And maybe you didn’t hear about it but the bombing in the RER Saint Michel in 1995 had nothing to do with Jews.
          You’re probably an Israeli who think other countries are organized as yours.

          1. You sound in panic. I am afraid that you realize that while until now you were able to denounce Israel (falsely) from safe France – the Israeli scene has now moved closer to home. It was bound to happen by the logic of things and likewise in the rest of Europe – matters never remain one-way for long

          2. “You sound in panic”
            Yeah, pointing out that your spin about Frenchmen not caring too much about the Jews killed in Toulouse because it was ‘just’ linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in pure bullshit is being in ‘panic’.
            And your BS comparing Israel who paying for the occupation with these lunatics has already been used by Hasbaristas here in France.
            Habib Meyer elected to the French Parliament by the 8th circonscription (including Israel) former Likud spokesperson in France had the chutzpah to publish a communiqué saying that France paid the price for the Parliament voting symbolically for a Palestinian State. This kind of people (maybe you too ?) have no shame.

          3. BS. I commented on your statement that French didn’t care too much about Jews being killed in Toulouse because they put it on the account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I pointed out that you apparently have NO clue what you’re talking about.

    2. @Rambo: whether Bibi needs Islamist terror or not he exploits it cynically every chance he gets.

      I’m making a decision now for you, Figg, Ariel & a few others. I will no longer accept claims about Islamism or anti-Semitism ruling Europe. No more than I accept vague theories of Israel engaging in false flag operations & being responsible for these attacks.

      So if your goal is to score hasbara pts in the war on Islam you’ll do it elsewhere. Anyone who ignores this warning may lose all or partial comment privileges. Take this very seriously.

  5. They are the ALLEGED perpetrators, Richard, ALLEGED. Reminds me of the instantaneous finger pointing at bin Laden for 9/11.

    When someone explains to me how there came to be 2 versions of the note that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly scrawled inside the boat (Boston bombings), maybe I will begin to believe what I’m told about terror attacks. But, right now, it seems there’s a huge push happening to add “Lone Wolf” to the terror tales.

  6. Your claim that one ought to blame partly the French security services for not foiling the act is disingenuous.
    If they were to have done their job properly they would have been accused by you and some commentors of racial profiling and/or islamophobia for hacking their computers of tapping their phones, etc.
    lose-lose for the French security forces.

    1. @Shmuel: Dead wtong. The problem with racial profiling isn’t profiling the right suspects, but the wrong ones. So someone who’s spent 3 yrs in prison is certainly warranted for close monitoring. The fact that you could make such baseless claims shows you don’t understand my views at all.

      1. @ Richard,
        You are wrong about the numbers of french people coming to Israel. Read the last paragraph.
        http://www.jewishagency.org/he/blog/7606/article/18976

        You always glorify that Israelis are leaving Israel because of whatever reason suits you. Truth of the matter is that about 15000 Israelis left Israel to other countries in 2011 (see link below) so that’s about 0.2 percent of the population (7 million). If 2000 french jews leave each year (in reality it’s twice as much) that makes it 0.4 percent. So the lowest percentage – represents an ill society but the highest is not a trend and is meaningless?
        “http://www.themarker.com/news/1.2130172”
        On a personal note, in the next year 75% of my family which were all in france 12 years ago (apart from my father) will be leaving in Israel.

        1. @ Shay: I said the number of emigrants was 2,000 & it was 3,200. Your claim that it’s 4,000 is false. JA predicts it will be 5,000 this coming yr & it may very well be. But again there are 500,000 French Jews and the overwhelming number aren’t going anywhere. They’re never going to emigrate.

          Not only that, I’d like to see the numbers of French olim who return to France along with the number of Israelis who emigrate to France. That would be an interesting figure as well.

          As for emigrating from France, the hasbara brigade loves to use substitute personal anecdote for scientific statistics and trends. The fact that your family was Zionist and left France indicates nothing other than the level of your indoctrination. I just hope that none of your children end up serving and dying in defense of Israel’s pathological policies.

          BTW, far more Jews die each year in Israel from terrorism than in France. Did you ever think of that?

          As for Israeli yordim, the reasons they leave aren’t ones that “suit me.” They’re reasons inherent in Israeli society. As usual, you blame the messenger instead of the original causes.

          1. @ shay: At that rate, it will take only another 85 years before all French Jews will leave France for Israel! Did you miss the numerous articles in today’s Haaretz in which the leader of the French expat community rejects the idea of mass emigration from France to Israel? I guess you did…

  7. “it represents a failure of the French Muslim community from which the killers sprang.”
    The two Kouachi brothers were orphans (just like Nemmouche, the killer from the Jewish Museum in Bruxelles), they grew up in an orphanage, they drank, smoked a lot of shit, were making rap music before being ‘indoctrinated’ by a radical salafist preacher who was jailed back in 2005.
    Merah, the killed from Toulouse, had more or less the same profile (though he grew up with a single mother).
    The organized French Muslim community has no link with these ‘cave preachers’ nor any influence on the youngsters who mostly have no Muslim upbringing before turning radical. Most don’t read or write any Arabic, and have absolutely no knowledge of theological questions.
    To people who read French, a long article from 2005 on the sociological profile of the “Buttes Chaumont connection”, named after the parc close to where they lived.
    http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2005/02/21/un-ticket-pour-le-jihad_510275

    1. Deïr Yassin – can you provide explanation for each of the 100s or even 1000s westerners who joined ISIS?
      I’m not blaming Muslims or Islam but such explanation for the killer of Abu-Khdeir (mental illness) wouldn’t not be accepted by you or you would at least point at his environment Sometimes one should lower the head and do soul search. Just condemn. Leave the ‘but…’ for later.

      1. I guess that “Westerners” join ISIS for similar reasons as they join IDF. (a) following a cause larger than yourself (b) gain justified grandeur (as opposed to to delusions of thereof), be one of the meanest, baddest, ass-kicking bastards there are (c) it works with chicks! not all, but enough of them to make it worthwhile. Joining Buddhist extremist rampaging through Muslim villages just does not have the same zazz. If you are chronically unemployed, dissed by the chicks, and having no hope for much fun in your remaining years, ISIS may be the best choice. If you had good grades in highschool, good prospects for a college and a job, but still deficient in “greatest cause”, “justified grandeur” and the chicks, I would recommend IDF. The downside is that the service may happen to be utterly boring, but in a good year, you can participate in some bad-ass massacres, or humiliate enough civilians to last you a lifetime, stories to tell your grandkids.

      2. Listen, Ariel, I wrote about Saïd and Sherif Kouachi, and not about the 1000 or whatever others. I live in France, and so I’ve followed French ‘Jihadists’, particularly Cherif Kouachi because I live in the neighbourhood where the Iraqi Connection aka Buttes Chaumont Connection operated.
        ****
        One of the police officers killed on Wednesday was a Muslim, Ahmed Merabet, 42 years. He was the first to get out of the police car, the one who was killed with a bullet in the head while lying wounded on the pavement (filmed images on the net). He’s got a hashtag too. #JeSuisAhmed
        I really like this message: http://blog.mondediplo.net/local/cache-vignettes/L450xH335/B625814CUAE000f6-304ee.jpg

        1. @DeirYassin

          The cohesion of a nation is best illustrated by a calamity. Watching some reports from the capital Paris, I sense people coming together. There was a joined ceremony at a central mosque where leaders from all religions were united and showed solidarity: Jewish rabbi, Catholic priest, Protestant preacher and a leading Imam.

          What I also sense from interviews, most Muslim joined in the memorial of protests because they are French first and Muslim second. Is this special to French culture of its patriotism?

          I also saw an interview with a cartoonist from Canberra, Australia. Not only his drawing caught my attention, but his wise words which reflected in the Aussies after the Sydney attack.A strong force of social solidarity illustrated in the message #IllRideWithYou. So much different than the narcissist remarks coming from The Hague, Dresden, London, Washington and Jerusalem.

          David Pope’s Charlie Hebdo cartoon goes viral on social media

          1. “The cohesion of a nation is best illustrated by a calamity. Watching some reports from the capital Paris, I sense people coming together. ”
            Well, I live in Paris, close to where the two brothers car-jacked another car on Wedneday, and I wish I could join your optimism. The streets in my neighbourhood are empty, I spoke with my local baker around noon, usually the shop is full, today it was empty. Sales started on Wedneday, the shops are empty…..
            Mosques (at least three) have been vandalisez since Wednesday, people “d’apparance musulmane” (an expression by former president Sarkozy …) have been agressed, among them a youngster who participated with school mates in a sit-in with a signboard “Je Suis Charlie”

            If French Muslims feel French first and Muslims second, it’s a result of the way France is organized, very differently from the Anglo-Saxon model. France do not encourage ethnic-religious communities, again Jewish communitarianism is never criticized, it’s always Muslims. When a Muslim high school opened a couple of years ago (there is only this one in all France, last year it was ranked top three), there was a huge uproar, it was considered the end of the Republic, never heard anything about the various Jewish high-schools in my neighbourhood, and Jewish kindergarten, pre-schools, and even a Jewish university. So officially France is based on universal Republican values …. officially.

            BREAKING NEWS: yesterday, there was a minor car accident in the south of Paris, the police arrived, and one of the drivers pulled an automatic weapon, and killed a young female cop. We were told there was apparently no direct link beteen the two killings, but a couple of hours ago, a man, Ahmadi Coulibaly (probably originating from Mali or Guinee according to the name) who has been identified as the cop-killer yesterday has taken at least 5-6 hostages (including women and children) in a magazine with cacher product at Porte de Vincennes. The media say that the Kouachi brothers and the new hostage-taker know each other. But it’s all very caotic right now
            This is going to be very tough times for ordinary Muslims in France.

          2. Separate comment on this: your link to European Jewish Congress is simply NOT trustworthy.
            They write “the Chief Imam of Paris, Hassan Chalghoumi”. This is simply pure invention.
            Hassan Chalghoumi ia a Muslim Uncle Tom, coopted by the CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives), a combination of AIPAC and ADL.
            Chalghoumi used to be an Imam in a small mosque in a surburbian town, Drancy (known to be from where the trains deported Jews to the death camps), he has no theological diploma, speaks French like shit (grew up in Tunisia, used to be a radical who turned ‘moderate’). He is “representing” the Muslim community in almost all radio and television programs where the Establisment need someone to say what they want to hear, particularty on Israel. He has absolutely NO credibility as a representative of the Muslim community, but Zionists just love him. He’s been to Israel many times on propaganda tours (also during the war on Gaza in November 2012, never heard anything about that from his mouth) visiting Yad Vashem, meeting Israeli imams selected by the Hasbara promoters.
            It’s simply revolting to see a website representing him as ‘the Chief Imam of Paris’, a title that doesn’t even exist. The Mufti of the Great Mosque is Dalil Boubaker.

          3. [comment deleted: no one here needs you to tell them what they should do or say to be a good Frenchwoman or Muslim. Be who or what you want to be and keep the rest to yourself. No one asked you.]

          4. @ Rambo
            I never said anything about me being a “French Muslim”. I said I live in France. Do you get the difference ? In fact my grand-parents were exiled from the Galilee to create your “Jewish State” !
            And please don’t patronize and tell me what I should rather concentrate on.

          5. @Dir Yassin
            But don`t you understand that such acts, as now in Paris, will repeat the biographical picture you describe – then as now it is the refusal to accept other`s norms and counter them with brutal violence that brings demise. Wasn`t the onslaught on the Jews hat lived in Palestine the reason for the war then? The fact the assaulters lost then, as will be also the case in France where from now on “radical” Muslims will be pursued there relentlessly, is a different matter and not a justification.

        2. I’ve already read Tariq Ramadan’s reaction to the killing on his Facebook (his English translation sucks by the way, ‘attentat’ is translated by ‘bombing’). I don’t see any link whatsoever to my first comments on the Kouachi brothers and their sociological profile. Maybe you should actually read my comment instead of projecting.

          1. “Wasn`t the onslaught on the Jews hat lived in Palestine the reason for the war then?”
            No, the onslaught on the Palestinians that lived in Palestine was what started the war; it was what the war consisted of mostly.

            Btw are you tying to tell “Dir” Yassin that the act of the Kouachi brothers will ‘repeat her biographical picture’ in that it justifies her being thrown out of France? Just as you try to justify her grandparents being thrown out of Palestine?
            You have got a nerve!

  8. @ Richard,
    How can you say “Yes of course Israel gas good pals in the Arab world: the generals and butchers who’ve mom down their people like stocks of cordwood”?!!?
    Because the ones that we are not pals with are mother Teresa?
    You can’t handle the truth that in these states theres no “perfect” leader. It doesn’t really matter who Israel talked to really. There’s a problem in these countries and you are trying to sugarcoat it!

    Would you have written that Baruch Goldstein’s murdering spree was a “universal failure”? That the palestinians are to blame? NEVER! And rightly so. So why do you do that when it’s a muslim?

    By the way, this newspapers published cartoons of Marie Le Pen (as a reference to Hitler – see link below), Jews and christians. But only ridiculing Islam will get you killed.
    http://www.lheninois.com/article-marine-le-pen-pas-d-extreme-droite-120624897.html

    1. @ shay: I detest when you make cracks like snarkily calling Arabs “mother [sic] Teresa.” It’s racist & offensive. But now that you’ve mentioned it yes, there are Arab leaders whose societies are democratic and populist & whose views of Israel are deeply hostile. These leaders truly reflect the views of their people, while the dictators represent the elite & moneyed interests, including those of Israel.

      I never said there were “perfect leaders.” But there are surely far better leaders in the world than Mubarak, al Sisi, & the Saudi royals–all pals with Israel. And better leaders than Bibi for that matter.

      There’s a problem in these countries and you are trying to sugarcoat it!

      The “problems” are at least as severe in Israel as in any Arab country. Yet you deny it, blind man that you are.

      That the palestinians are to blame?

      Not only would I not say the “palestinians” [sic] were not to blame for Goldstein’s mass murder, I never said French Muslims were “to blame” for the French terror attack. I only said that they should examine themselves, just as I said all others in French society need to examine what led to this tragedy. “Blame” is something rightists enjoy flinging about, like you.

      Charlie Hebdo satirized other religions but the vast majority of its cartoons derided Islam. The VAST majority. And it never depicted Jews in nearly as derogatory way as Muslims. In fact, a Hebdo caroonist was actually fired for precisely this sort of cartoon depicting Sarkozy’s son as converting to Judaism for the money offered by his fiance’s Jewish family.

  9. It is interesting to note that Charlie Hebdo actually served the interests of Al Qaeda which is after polarisation. Juan Cole, in one of his blog posts that have been taken over by The Nation, provides some enlightenment here:

    “The problem for a terrorist group like Al Qaeda is that its recruIt is interesting to note that Charlie Hebdo “objectively” served the interests of Al Qaeda which is after polarisation. Juan Cole, in one of his blog posts that have been taken over by The Nation, provides some enlightenment here:

    “The problem for a terrorist group like Al Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion. French Muslims may be the most secular Muslim-heritage population in the world (ex-Soviet ethnic Muslims often also have low rates of belief and observance). Many Muslim immigrants in the postwar period to France came as laborers and were not literate people, and their grandchildren are rather distant from Middle Eastern fundamentalism, pursuing urban cosmopolitan culture such as rap and rai. In Paris, where Muslims tend to be better educated and more religious, the vast majority reject violence and say they are loyal to France.”

    So Al Qaeda is after polarisation and Charlie Hebdo served that aim admirably well. The Journal’s claim that it doesn’t show respect for anybody or anything obviously has to be taken with a grain of salt.:

    The Telegraph reported on 27 Jan 2009:

    “Maurice Sinet, 80, who works under the pen name Sine, faces charges of “inciting racial hatred” for a column he wrote last July in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The piece sparked a summer slanging match among the Parisian intelligentsia and ended in his dismissal from the magazine.
    “L’affaire Sine” followed the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 22, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain. Commenting on an unfounded rumour that the president’s son planned to convert to Judaism, Sine quipped: “He’ll go a long way in life, that little lad.”
    A high-profile political commentator slammed the column as linking prejudice about Jews and social success. Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Philippe Val, asked Sinet to apologise but he refused, exclaiming: “I’d rather cut my balls off.”
    Mr Val’s decision to fire Sine was backed by a group of eminent intellectuals, including the philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy, but parts of the libertarian Left defended him, citing the right to free speech.”

    Diane Johnstone reports in Counterpunch that the same editor, Philippe Val,
    once “denounced Noam Chomsky for anti-Americanism and excessive criticism of Israel and of mainstream media.”

    1. Denouncing and firing is not the same as murdering.

      Charlie Hebro was also particularly tough on the Catholic Church — one cartoon showed a priest telling another priest how to get away with pedophilia. Another (addressing an issue Richard mentioned) attacked the idea of a virgin birth for Jesus.

      Why blame the victims or the French government or Muslims in general? Blame the shooters and their funders and the people who planted the idea that violence solves problems.

      1. @ editorsteve

        “Denouncing and firing is not the same as murdering.”

        I am not aware that I was equating these things. My point was that the freedom of speech they were defending obviously had its limits.

      2. Their treatment of the Catholic Church is nothing compared to their treatment of Islam AND Muslims. I know many people who grew up with Charlie Hebdo but who didn’t read it for many years because it had become too Islamophobic.

  10. I cannot help wondering about a few things:

    1. Dutch television reported originally that people in the neighbourhood, who had been asked for directions by the attackers, declared that these spoke “fractured French”. Later we heard that, on the contrary, they spoke fluent French (which fits the profile of the brothers who were, apparently, both born in Paris). The contradiction with the earlier report was not explained.

    2. Then the matter of the identity card. Most people carry a thing like that, if they take it at all, in their wallet. If they lose it they lose it together with that. But no, here was a helpful loose identity card staring the police in the face. Had the attacker been playing with it while fleeing from the scene?

    3. The identity card only referred to one person but the police apparently knew right away the identity of three of them including that of an eighteen year old lad who has meanwhile gone to a police office 200 km from Paris, together with his parents, to declare that at the time of the attack he was at school. Apparently this has been confirmed by some of his class mates on Facebook.

    1. The Kouachi brothers are the ‘alleged’ shooters in the attack because in changing clothes and get-away cars an ID card was found!

      The Islamic teaching were talks with a janitor-turned-emir Farid Benyettou in the streets of Paris shortly after the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Iraq, think Abu Ghraib.

      From US intelligence, both brothers were on the no-fly list! The oldest brother had no criminal activities, was marrried, no steady job. From same source, Said was stated to have traveled to Yemen for training with AQAP, the link to the Al Awlaki clan the US tried to destroy with cruise missiles in 2009 and later with drone strikes killing Anwar Al Awlaki and later his teenage son, both US citizens. More than 100 members of the Al Awlaki clan have been killed. Recently the Iranian backed Houthi tribe have taken over part of Sana and the government.

      How can there be this discrepancy between US and French intelligence (if true). Which intelligence agency offered the NSA this piece of information with the link to Yemen? More questions than answers. Oh, AG Holder is coming himself to offer the information gaps for the DGSE? US refused to comply with requests from Annecy prosecutor, hiding behind red tape, after four people were killed execution style on Sept. 5, 2012. Persons were linked with Areva, the UK (Iraq by birth) and UAE. Murders are unsolved with no leads whatsoever. A US citizen in Tennessee (an ex-partner) succumbed of a heart attack the same afternoon.

    2. The third person named … also an ID card (?) was Mourad Hamyd (19), but he turned himself in accompanied by his parents (wise decision, bullets can fly spontaneously). It appears his whereabouts at the time of the shooting has been accounted for. Nevertheless, by French terror law he was arrested and held for interrogation to a maximum of 96 hours with no rights to see a lawyer.

      Twitter account #MouradHamydInnocent

      Mourad Hamyd is said to be the brother-in-law of the elder brother Said Kouachi. He recently graduated high school at Charleville-Mezieres, outside the city of Reims in north-eastern France at the border with Belgium.

  11. Re: Falkov tweet by RS

    Some ID cards are … indestructable and survive burnt corpses.

    “During the battle for Pervomaisk, Ukrainian battalion ‘Donbass’ found the charred corpse which had an Israeli passport №10933029 with the name of Falkov Michael, born in 1977.”

  12. Info can be read here. It was not a cartoon but remarks by Maurice Siné in his column on July 2, 2008.

    A lawsuit had been filed by Licra on two occasions, in 1982 and in 2008 against Maurice Sinet:

    Sine is subpoenaed September 9, 2008 before the 6th Criminal Chamber (press) the High Court of Lyon by the Licra for “inciting racial hatred”. The hearing on the merits has been scheduled for January 29, 2009. She finally held on 27 and 28 January 2009.

    On February 24, 2009, he was acquitted in Lyon, judges considering that Sine had used his right to satire . In March, Sine is however dismissed a libel suit brought against Claude Paris Askolovitch .

    On 30 November 2010, the High Court of Paris condemned Charlie Hebdo for moral and financial prejudice against Sine. The judgment states in fact that “it can not be claimed that the terms of the chronic Sine … are anti-Semitic or that it has made a mistake by writing. “Rotary Publishing, publisher of the weekly, will have to pay 40,000 euros in damages to Maurice Sinet for breach of contract. Charlie Hebdo appealed, and in December 2012, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction and increases the amount of damages to 90,000 . [Source: Wikipedia]

  13. You have updated your article and added some bitterness, I too feel the anger how the media and politicians exploit this horrible event. Not to unite, but to divide and play into the hands of extremists from all sides. No, I’m not Charlie.

    The world community reacts with emotions to this single event, where is the outrage of what is happening on a daily basis elsewhere? On the same day in Nigeria – 100 deaths by a terror organization funded and armed after the downfall of Gaddafi in Libya. Remember the social media act #BringBackOurGirls? Forgotten today, what hypocrisy. Arms and jihadists swarming across North Africa and crossing into Syria via Turkey. ISIL was initiated in March 2003 in Anbar province of Iraq. Look at the hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimed and millions driven from their homes in the US War of Terror in the aftermath of 9/11. That’s where my compassion lies, I have no more tears to shed. Free Palestine now!

  14. @QUI
    I’m totally agree with you!
    May I cite your post next time, when world community will react that way to another “single event” where Palestinians will be killed by Israelis?

  15. France24 – reports the Kouachi brothers were in Yemen and had met AQ operatives. Source from a group of 4/5 journalists who had met AQ leadership recently in Yemen.

    French police have cornered the two suspects in the village of Dammartin-en-Goële, 40 km north from Paris, in a printshop in an industrial zone in a hostage situation. Journalists are nearby after they were escorted by police to the village.

        1. How can that be? Does the Mossad share the no-fly list of the DHS? At least the US knew the Kouchai brothers traveled to Yemen, likely for a AQAP meeting/training. The French DGSE said they didn’t know. Did the Nigerian kid travel to Yemen before the Christmas bomber traveled from Lagos, Nigeria to Detroit through Amsterdam Schiphol airport with Israel security ICTS running business there.

          Memory: ICTS International guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was controlled and managed by Menachem Atzmon, who was also convicted of money laundering for his and Netanyahu’s and Ehud Olmert’s Likud Party.

          No, just as RS stated in his article, a global security and intelligence failure. It just happens.

          1. @Oui

            “Memory: ICTS International guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was controlled and managed by Menachem Atzmon, who was also convicted of money laundering for his and Netanyahu’s and Ehud Olmert’s Likud Party.”

            What a repellant insinuation.

            An ICTA subsidiary, Huntleigh, did the security screening for United Airlines at Logan Airport on 9/11, and yes, United Airlines Flight #175 was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center.

            ICTA did not do the screening for the other three flights that were hijacked on that day.

            Oui.
            With every new day, I get a better understanding of your motivations, which I feel come from a bad place.

          2. A fluid terror and hostage situation with tiny bits of info to be analysed. My comment was 2 days ago! Israel is part of the 5-Eyes intelligence network and shares all top priority terror alerts. There were numerous lapses and we learn more every day. What Algeria shares with France is instantaneously forwarded to NSA, GCHQ, Unit 8200, etc.

            These three French men stayed under the radar of the intelligence service as they prepared the deadly attacks that shook Paris and France. The two brothers had received training in Yemen with AQAP, collected heavy arms never seen before in a similar attack in Paris and the third hostage taker, without a mobile phone for years, managed to videotape his suicide message and linked his sympathy for the emir Al Baghdadi of the IS caliphate. Hayat Boumeddiene, the woman accused of being an accomplice in the killing of a police woman in Paris-South, had already left France and had triggered an ‘alarm’ when she entered Turkey on January 2 this year. Yes, the intelligence community is really adept in linking data!! Previously there was a miscommunication between Turkey and France when Syria jihadists returned to France arriving at a different airport and wondering where the DSGE intelligence welcoming party was.

          3. Everyone is aware who the original “5-Eyes” were, these have been extended with bilateral agreements with the US. The agreements with other nations have been published, also with Israel. The NSA raw data is exchanged with Israel because of tied relationship: read the Snowden files, RS has covered the theme [Unit 8200] and I have published about the intelligence “leaks” from the Dutch to GCHQ and NSA. Look at the nodes of Internet cables, Amsterdam is an important exchange. In a documentaru about the attempted assassination of Khaled Meshaal in Jordan, Danny Yatom is quoted: the Mossad HQ in Amsterdam. Israel is especially valued for analysis of raw intelligence.

            Check out who is supplying the software and supporting the NSA in its top secret plant in Idaho. Leaves little for the imagination. Israel and the US have the same “values”, just look at the warfare, torture and imprisonment by US troops in Iraq. Where did the US special forces train for the Fallajah “urban warfare” and subsequent massacre?

    1. How come Oui’s Juan Cole quote is printed, but my Greta Berlin and Mary Hughes-Thompson quotes get deleted? Both quotes went to the Hebdo Massacre.

    1. Maybe posting unverified Tweets isn’t a good idea. I’ve been following French national radio with journalists on spot and they haven’t mentioned “two persons killed” neither have neighbours to the shop.

        1. I can’t find anything about “two persons killed” on France24. Do you have a link ?
          The national radio has stated many times that rumours about two people killed is circulating on the net , but that this was pure speculation.
          LATEST NEWS:
          The Kouachi brothers have been killed, the hostage saved. The hostages have been liberated in the Kosher magazine too, still no mention about people killed, thanks God, except the terrorist.

      1. @AC: Exactly!

        Jerusalem: religious centrum and Holy City for 1.5bn Muslims, 1.2bn Catholics, 900m Protestants. Jewish religion represents 0.4% of the three western great faiths, can Israel carry the burden and responsibility? IMO not during the last three decades, it lost my support.

      2. [Comment deleted. Comments must be directly related to the topic of the post. Comments that complain about editorial decisions are off topic. You are on notice. Further violations will result in curtailing your comment privileges.]

  16. There are always these watershed events – after which the future don`t look as the past. I believe this is one of those. The reaction will not be immediate but it will be profound. In Europe as in Israel- Sep 11 like. Europe is not the US, so there will be no subsequent grand operations – after Sep 11 Muslim countries began rolling one after the other – but a groundswell shift will begin in regard to how Muslim minorities are viewed. After Van-Goch assassination in the Netherlands the general atmosphere changed (and Wielder became a real political forces) but that was just one person – here you had the gunning down of the entire staff of a journal. And that`s when Le-Penn is already on the rise. And things just moved in Sweden. Something meaningful will develop here a backlash of an avalanche magnitude.

    1. @ CASSANDRA: Horse manure. This is no more a watershed event than any other terrorist attack has been–either ones directed by Muslims against westerners; or westerners against Muslims.

      Please, I can’t stand your sort of baseless opinion-spewing.

      The “entire staff” of Charlie Hebdo was NOT “gunned down.” The magazine had its first editorial meeting since the massacre today.

      Something meaningful will develop here a backlash of an avalanche magnitude.

      Yeah, yeah, yeah…

      1. I don`t think so Richard. I have been enough to France to understand that this will not be treated as yet another terror attack and can`t be dismissed as a reaction to what France did or Israel is doing, etc. It touched, I should say burned, the most sensitive nerves in the French psyche – their sense of control over own culture, ability to continue their accustomed way of life, even retaining a real sense of sovereignty in their own land, and that is why I believe that this event will prove to be the Sep 11 equivalent after which the US has been transformed profoundly in its attitudes as well as actions both inside the country and outside it – in particular, Arab countries began rolling as domino pieces one after the other.

        1. @ CASSANDRA: You’ve “been to France often enough” to understand that it’s illegitimate for Islamists to seize on Israeli injustice to Palestinians as justification for their attacks? First, that makes no sense logically. You’re not French and there are other French citizens here in this thread who know the country far better than you & who hold radically different views than yours.

          Second, I don’t think you’re in any position to know what Islamists think, & certainly not regarding the Palestine situation. Third, you’re still in no position to know how France will respond to this as a nation. For one thing, France has a much longer stronger tradition of tolerance than the U.S. Unless Marie Le Pen becomes the next President or her party takes over the legislature, France will not lapse into the abject paranoia that we did here after 9/11. And I thank my lucky stars that France will not become the automaton nation you hope it will be regarding terror.

          As for your histrionic exagerration of what will happen to the “French psyche,” I think we can put such nonsense where it belongs: in the trash bin.

          That crack about “retaining a sense of sovereignty in their own land” is barely concealed Islamophobia. I am a hair away from moderating you. Islamphobia, even expressed in a nuanced way is prohibited here. Keep it up & your privileges will be restricted. This is a warning.

    2. More profound was the assassination of a political leader and possible winner of the election days later: Pim Fortuijn. The first political assassination in Holland since Willem of Orange in 1584 in the city of Delft.

      Fortuijn was killed bij an animal activist with no clear motive accept to prevent Fortuijn’s rise to prominence. Indeed a “watershed moment”, but no fertile base to hate the animal rights activists in Holland or elsewhere. Contrary to the Theo van Gogh murder and the Charlie Hebdo attack. The first was a loner from a radical islam cell wanting to be martyred and in Paris the act was highly symbolic and well organized with links to the joined AQAP and AQIM united front. It is how society reacts and whether it will seek cohesion or division. The dooms scenario is factually seeding incitement and hatred to discriminate and risk violent acts against people who look like Muslims, but may be secular French citizens, male and female, assimilated in the culture of the French Republic.

      I don’t buy the whole propaganda of Islamophobia that has developed as an industry and political force in the US, Europe and Israel. It’s very, very ugly and can be compared to another era where nationalism and fascism led to a great war. The people of France are quite different in its history and culture from Holland, UK, US and Israel. France has a point to prove as a nation of great philosophers that led to the Enlightenment. Look for the optimistic signs in society instead of making the dark side larger than it deserves.

      The assassin Volkert van der Graaf has served his sentence and is now free on parole.

      1. Just a small point: Yes, political murders have been rare (if we set the period of the Nazi occupation apart) but don’t forget the lynching of the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt in 1672.

  17. [Comment deleted as conspiratorial nonsense. You have been moderated. Follow the rules if you wish to continue commenting.]

  18. I just saw images from French television channel BFM-TV (maybe second time ever): the channel spoke with Sherif Kouachi this morning (infos first released after the end of the hostage taking); he claimed he was financed and sent by Al-Qaida in Yemen (they already said so Wedneday) and the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a decision by Anwar al-Awlaki before his death.

    The second hostage taker in the cosher shop called the channel: he claimed to be linked to ISIS, he said there were four victims (that he killed but we don’t know when) and 16 hostages including children, and when asked why, he says to avenge oppressed Muslims, particularly in Palestine, and he confirms he tageted this shop because it’s Jewish.
    http://www.bfmtv.com/mediaplayer/video/bfmtv-a-ete-en-contact-avec-cherif-kouachi-et-amedy-coulibaly-recit-et-extraits-sonores-384343.html

    1. It`s always the same story: they kill somebody at random to avenge what was done to Muslims, Palestinians etc. These people feel they have a license to express their aggravation for something they don`t like by shooting people either specific targets or, more commonly, at random. The recent Gaza war was initiated by killing at random 3 Israeli youth and it was Bin-Laden who expressed his displeasure with the US by using civilian planes packed with ransom passengers to kill thousand random people in the offices in NY. In the Van-Goch case and it was a more specified target but in Paris they couldn`t know who exactly they shoot there in the journal`s office. In the Kosher store it was random again – with a hope that the gunned down will more likely to be Jews.

      1. @ RAMBO: It’s housecleaning time again. Phrases like “these people” and notions that Muslims are somehow more violent than other human beings are racist-Islamophobic. Tired of it. Since such attitudes seem to be inbred & you don’t seem able to express yourself here without it, you’ve been moderated. Future comments will be published which avoid such prejudices.

        And no, it isn’t always the “same story.” It’s different every time. It’s only the “same story” in the sense that BOTH SIDES engage in sociopathic behavior that negates the dignity of the other leading to senseless hatred & violence. The pathology is evident not just among the Islamists, but among the Hebdo types who believe they’re upholding some western value like free speech, when in reality they’re espousing base hatred. In a sense, the extremes deserve each other. The only difference between them is that the Hebdo types are slightly more “civilized” in that they spread their hatred through the media, while Islamists do it largely from the barrel of a gun.

        You got the summer war wrong as well: it was initiated after 3 Israeli youth were kidnapped & murdered, after which Israel engaged in massive pogromist operations in the West Bank having nothing to do with finding the murdered youths, but instead with collective punishment of the entire West Bank. 500 were arrested, none of whom had anything to do with the crime & 7 Palestinians were murdered. THis in turn led to Hamas launching rocket barrages to avenge the Israeli atrocity which in turn led to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. As usual with “you people,” you chose the fact that suits your prejudice and avoid the unpleasant or inconvenient facts which muddy things up & weaken your argument. That’s arguing in bad faith & hasbara is, by definition, arguing in bad faith.

        Yoking Palestinian resistance to European Islamist terror, as if they are one & the same is not only false it is mendacious. Since I’ve pointed this out multiple times here in the comment threads before and since I’m friggin’ sick & tired of rebutting this nonsense ad nauseam, this is yet another reason for your moderation.

        Not to mention that once again, as hasbarists always do, you offer personal prejudiced opinion as if it is factual, which it isn’t.

        Finally, I’ve always detested the comment name you chose & moderation seems more than justified as my reply to it.

        Note dear readers, when hasbara brigade members are moderated here they gradually disappear only to be followed by hasbara brigade members with different names & IP addresses. Hasbara Central seems to have an inexhaustible supply of members & IP addresses. Let’s see how long “Rambo”s comment continue after his moderation before he’s replaced with ‘Rambo,’ the sequel.

      2. @R: It`s always the same story:

        “… they kill somebody at random to avenge what was done to ….. , ….. etc. These people feel they have a license to express their aggravation for something they don`t like by shooting people either specific targets or, more commonly, at random.”

        Quite an original statement, one can fill in the blanks from biblical times to colonial times to the present: Jews, Christians, Huns, Muslims, Atheists, etc. Your statement “these people” is so personal to you and risks being bigotry as minimal. Revenge is the fuel for continued warfare not limited to medieval times. Humanity has failed many times over in the name of one’s g*d.

        I was reading about Voltaire and became quite disillusioned: Why I am Not Charlie.

  19. Richard wrote:

    The real reward for tasteless political exploitation of mass slaughter goes this time to Tzipi Livni, who said this:

    “We [Israelis] feel the same anger when terror hits us – and that is why we will not accept any attempt to sue our soldiers in The Hague.”

    Tzipi Livni blithely forgets Israel’s and, indeed, her family’s past in this holier than thou attitude. Sir Gerald Kaufmann thought fit to remind her of these on an earlier occasion:

    “The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.
    Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin.”

    Read or listen to his whole speech you hasbarists and hang your heads in shame

    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0013.htm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBprtOxuEtQ

  20. My predominant sentiment about this all is anger. Anger at the blind and ruthless murderers who have not only caused so much personal suffering but have set back community relations in large parts of Europe, and indeed the Palestinian cause, for many years. Anger at the unscrupulous Israeli and European politicians who try to use this tragedy for their own nefarious political ends. Anger also at the popular reaction “je suis Charlie” elicited among people who have little notion of the real character of this journal which has little to do with “freedom of speech” (in Holland, where there is a centuries old tradition of that freedom, they might nevertheless have been taken to court on the basis of the “sowing hatred” articles of the Duch criminal code for which Geert Wilders has been on trial several times and will be summoned to court again this year).

    1. [comment deleted: I don’t recall anyone asking what you thought of Oui’s comments. Make your own substantive & directly related to the post.]

    2. Well Arie, my husband said to me yesterday: “If you have to die for something it had better be something worthwhile”. If I look at some of these cartoons I just find them vulgar and a waste of talent. This whole affair is a tragedy without any redeeming aspects.

  21. RE: “Charlie Hebdo was under constant threat from Islamists. Yet the police offered two officers to guard the offices, both of which gave their lives doing their duty (one of the murdered policemen was a Muslim).” ~ R.S.

    AND YET:

    Masked terrorists entered the office building in Paris where they murdered 12 people Wednesday by threatening a young mother and her daughter, she said.
    Corinne Rey, a cartoonist for the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, says she was forced to enter the security code after returning from picking up her child at daycare, according to a local report.

    “I just went to get my daughter from daycare. As I got to the front door of the building, two masked, armed gunmen brutally threatened us,” she told L’Humanité. “They wanted to enter, go up. I typed the code.”
    Rey, who goes by “Coco,” said she hid under a desk while the gunmen shot and killed a dozen staffers inside the office. . .

    SOURCE – http://news.yahoo.com/young-mother-let-terrorists-into-charlie-hebdo-building-after-threat-against-daughter-190057740.html

    P.S. I’m very confused. Charlie Hebdo was under constant threat, yet they brought their children there? As “human shields”?

  22. Ahmed and the Values of the French Republic

    Don’t avenge Charlie Hebdo deaths, says victim’s family – video

    The family of one of the police officers murdered in Wednesday’s assault by Islamic extremists on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris has appealed for the public not to blame all Muslims for the attack.

    Ahmed Merabet, himself a Muslim, was one of the 17 victims of a three-day Islamist killing spree that has shaken France to the core. He was killed by Cherif and Said Kouachi as they escaped from the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine after having mowed down 11 people inside.

    “I am now telling all racists, Islamophobes and anti-Semites that one must not confuse extremists with Muslims,” his brother, Malek Merabet, said in an emotional press conference Saturday in Livry-Gargan (Seine-Saint-Denis).

  23. Chris Ladd who has been described as a “centre-right political pundit” and an “older style Rockefeller Republican” came up with some opinions on a Washington Times blog of which the common sense would have been worthy of Burke himself. His post was written after the Boston Marathon murders but it is equally relevant today:

    “The Boston Marathon attacks have revived old claims that Islam is inherently violent and all Muslims should face heightened scrutiny. When a Lutheran kid shoots up a movie theater or a Norwegian fundamentalist describing himself as a “modern-day crusader” slaughters kids at a summer camp, we take it in stride. When someone with a connection to Islam commits a crime, every Muslim faces suspicion.
    Perhaps this is a good time to investigate the question: Which religion is the most violent?
    The analysis presents some challenges. Should the answer be based purely on a body count? Professor Juan Cole casually estimates that Christians chalked up roughly 50 times more violent deaths than Muslims across the past century. That, however, doesn’t necessarily prove that Christianity is more violent. It just demonstrates a high level of efficiency. To answer the question we need more than a raw death toll.
    When measuring violence, should grievances count as mitigating factors? When a Christian Lebanese militia spent two days in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp raping and slaughtering civilians under Israeli supervision, ought they be excused by the previous Muslim slaughter that inspired it? And should the Muslim slaughter be excused by the Christian slaughter that inspired it? Who is guiltier, the chicken or the egg?

    And Atheists have no room to gloat. Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung tallied tens of millions of kills between them in the 20th Century alone. The absence of a religion is no more protection against fanatical rampages than blind faith.

    . Your culture’s violent rampages are representative of your faith. My culture’s violent rampages are committed by lunatics and outliers who represent no one.
    The most violent religion on Earth is any that have people in them. Those who are trying to win elections or ratings by telling us scary Muslim stories are playing a dangerous game. They are calling into question the basic humanity of others, making it easier for us to tolerate their persecution. They’ll get as far as our ignorance and cowardice will allow.
    No matter what a religion teaches, some bloody-minded believers will twist it to justify their own dark urges. Religion does what people tell it to do. There is a clear connection between religion and violence – human beings.

    Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/just-enough-city/2013/may/1/which-religion-most-violent/#ixzz3OT7WLiYd
    Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

    1. Thank you for link. I am deeply touched by the expressions of personal loss and grieving families.

      Secondarily, I read this part:
      Sharon Cohen, also took to Facebook to express her grief, “I hardly had time to open my eyes and I realized that you were no longer here. I still do not want to believe it, and yet I have no choice. Yohan, you were an example of kindness and goodness, you were the pride of your family and all your friends! And yesterday your life was torn away from you without scruples.

      “01/09/2015 will forever burn in our hearts and we will avenge all those whose lives were torn off by the barbarians, I promise you!”

      Quite a difference with the reaction from the brother of Paris policeman Ahmed Merabet:

      Don’t avenge Charlie Hebdo deaths, says victim’s family – video

      The family of one of the police officers murdered in Wednesday’s assault by Islamic extremists on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris has appealed for the public not to blame all Muslims for the attack.

      Ahmed Merabet, himself a Muslim, was one of the 17 victims of a three-day Islamist killing spree that has shaken France to the core. He was killed by Cherif and Said Kouachi as they escaped from the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine after having mowed down 11 people inside.

      “I am now telling all racists, Islamophobes and anti-Semites that one must not confuse extremists with Muslims,” his brother, Malek Merabet, said in an emotional press conference Saturday in Livry-Gargan (Seine-Saint-Denis).

      1. Great!! Oui found a quote about a cousin talking about ‘avenge… barbarians’ while reminding us a Muslim saved the life of 5 people (assuming an Israeli be shock to read that???).
        Why overlook all the talk about peace and love in the article? I did NOT attack Muslims or Islam and your comment seem to be an invitation for quotation contest (which RS is likely to shut down pretty quick) in which nobody can win as there are extremists on both sides.
        “A time to be silent and a time to speak” (Koheleth 3:7)

        1. @ Ariel:

          Muslim saved the life of 5 people

          You & I both know this brave act wasn’t important because he saved the lives of “people” (which would be fine enough), but a Muslim saved the lives of Jews. Can you tell me the last time an Israeli Jew saved the life of a Palestinian threatened by an act of terror?

          1. @Richard “…last time an Israeli Jew saved the life of a Palestinian threatened by an act of terror?” – Are we really going down this road? With all the talking about islamophobia, I am surprised you even brought it up. I would expect nothing less from a Muslim, equally to what I would expect from a Jew, Quacker, Mormon or anyone else. Those are extremists who terrorize and the normal people help each where they can.

            When is the last time an Israeli Civilian Jew extremist held Muslims as hostages at gunpoint? But here is something I found after a minute http://news.walla.co.il/item/2769445.

          2. @ Ariel: So your answer to my question is that you cannot find an incident in which an Israel Jew saved the life of a Palestinian threatened by terror? As I suspected. You made light of the brave act of heroism of the Muslim shop assistant but can find no corresponding act by Israeli Jews. That’s quite instructive. And you said you’d expect nothing less of an Israeli Jew in the midst of an act of terror but still can’t manage to find one who’s saved Palestinian lives.

            Israeli Jewish terrorists kill and maim Palestinians and destroy their property on a regular basis. And they always do it fully armed conforming to your definition “at gunpoint.”

          3. @Richard – I specifically attached a link to my previous post, an article from last year. You couldn’t bear the stupidity of my comment and didn’t reach the end? http://news.walla.co.il/item/2769445
            http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18204231 (Turkish, yet…)

            You accusations of Jewish terrorism is preposterous and are a different topic. I am not saying there is no violence from settlers but the type of circumstances at the kosher market have never been the similar in Israel or anywhere else where Israelis were the one one with the finger on the trigger (as far as I can remember).

      2. Always the people going about their daily lives that suffer from warfare. You are right, it’should not be a contest about extreme voices. I made it clear, I have no fear of media voicing propaganda. The article in Ynet News, the journalist writing the article has a choice to make. I shudder to think how devastating each precious loss of an innocent life is and the meaning for their loved ones, relatives and friends. This should be respected from all sides. I found the statement about revenge and barberians misplaced. Same for the political hey-day for PM Netanyahu, calling for all French nationals with Jewish roots to come home to Israel. Provocative and inapproptiate. I’m glad the politicians were kept in the shadow of the massive protests on the boulevards of the City of Lights, Paris. A great demonstration of unity for the Republic.

  24. The attack on the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo the satirical magazine which won international notoriety for publishing offensive cartoons pertaining to Mohammad, the founder of Islam. Two or three heavily armed men stormed into the building by forcing the woman at the gate to enter the access code of the high security building and fired 37 rounds of ammunition from Ak 47 rifles before making their escape they shot dead a critically injured policeman. That the attack was well planned and meticulously executed can be gleaned from the flawless getaway, escape from the scene into the woods surrounding the Parisian countryside. The French President, Francois Hollande declared that the killers would be hunted down and that the attack on the journalists was an attack on French Laws which guaranteed “freedom of expression”. The French, American and Western media have framed the attack in terms of the opposition between the liberal West which has the civilized approach to life and liberty and the barbaric totalitarian jihadists who kill in the name of religion. This way of framing the issue privileges the superiority of the West which is allegedly governed by “laws” and not “men”.

    Charlie Hebdo was known all over the world for its irreverence and indeed hostile caricature of non White/ Western cultures, religions and personalities. It may be pointed out that when one of the early satirical magazine, a predecessor of the contemporary, Charlie Hebdo, published a spoof on Charles de Gaulle way back in 1970, it was banned and all copies of the magazine forfeited and destroyed. It is therefore clear that the French claim that they respect Freedom of expression rings hollow. As long as the target of attack is not European or White then it is OK. This seems to the limits set to freedom of expression in France. Can the right to offend be subsumed under the right to freedom of expression.

    The western world has seen the disenchantment of the sacred and in most parts of the world people do regard certain personalities, beliefs and symbols sacred and beyond ridicule. Unfortunately in India where political discourse is derivative and based on the pretentions of the western world there is a tendency to equate the freedom of expression with the right to offend. Nothing can be more disingenuous than this argument. In the west only political and national symbols command allegiance of the people. In India we have a whole menagerie of animals, hosts of symbols, a horde of personalities all of which clamour for attention and respect and notional symbols of a recent transition to nationhood are at best second or third tier allegiances. Hence, there is no use of equating the freedom of expression with the right to offend. Reasonable freedom can exist only within the limits of mutual respect and the attack on Charlie Hebdo only demonstrates that the boundary between freedom and respect has been irrevocably broken or breached.

    There is a lesson in this tragedy for France. Even since Nicholas Sarkozy became the President of France it has followed a policy of intervention in the Islamic countries and in this there is a pattern of continuity between what was happening under the rights regime and the present pseudo socialist one. The attack on Libya, Tunisia and the provocations in Syria all anger the Islamic societies and added to that is the cultural arrogance of caricature.

  25. Just a few moments ago, I watched and listened to the commemoration broadcast from the Grand Synagogue of Paris. As the ceremony ended, Benyamin Natanyahu took center stage and made a speech. He started with a few words in broken French but spoke in Hebrew with a translator at his side. None of the TV channels were prepared and there was no English translation on CNN, BBC and France24. I turned to Al Jazeera which did an adequate job of translating Hebrew to English. The PM spoke quite well in the first 6-8 minutes but then he changed the subject to terror and counterterror. He started with the personal tragedy of the loss of his brother Yoni during the daring raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. It was a hijacked Air France passenger jet. As he moved along, it became an election speech with the usual propaganda. I had taken some notes, but I won’t bother you with his words.

    He made allowance for ‘normal’ Islam and separated the ‘radical’ Islam of Hamas, Boko Haram, al Nusra, Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab and the Islamic State. In the translation I didn’t hear AQAP or AQIM, nor the mention of Hezbollah and Iran. I will look for a transcript to get the exact speech.

    Netanyahu speaking at Paris synagogue – ‘Enough with terror’ | JPost |

  26. This article just perfectly points out that it was the publishers own fault. So everybody who makes satire about muslims, christians, jews, fascists or anyone else better watch out!

  27. Dear Richard
    I am a 54 year Muslim living in London, originally from Bangladesh. You are probably the first person of Jewish origin who has expressed his views with 100% honesty! Whenever I try to start a discussion with my Muslim friends or relatives, I am always forced to shut my mouth. They would not give me any chance to say an iota of positive thing about Israel! I am not an highly educated person but through my little knowledge I think Israel & particularly the Jewish people, must increase & build a close relationship through their commonality. Because the nazism is more scarier than these few brain washed beardos. by some vicious clerics (and off course fueled by the equally vicious Natenyahu and similar gang). Muslim in general, fear God. And this really make an impact and neutralise their mind and to commit horrible crimes. In my opinion, a ‘proper’ religious Muslims are less dangerous than these pseudos like Saudis/Qataris etc.

    I am not a 100% practicing religious man but I think these so called free speech moaners must at least leave all prophets & God of all religion beyond this type of vile portrayal. You mentioned the cartoon of prophet Moses. You know that its not only Jewish people but the Muslims will be extremely saddened & heartbroken and who knows they even could resort to violence for this. There are lot of other cartoons which has a religious connotations but not an outright attack on their sacred God or prophets. For example, I saw a cartoon where one bearded figure stopping gun toting queue of martyrs saying : STOP, WE HAVE RUN OUT OF VIRGINS!! I laughed for the entire day. It was hilarious. Anyway, please keep up the good, honest work. Hope for the best for this already screwed up world! Regards.

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