At the historic anti-terror rally in France Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly angered some of the French and European leaders by giving an open invitation to French Jews considering migrating to Israel.
In its report of the “awkward” moment, Reuters slapped the wrist of Netanyahu for being “out of step” with his French and European counterparts:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to ruffle a few feathers while taking part in the "Charlie Hebdo" rally in Paris on Sunday, an event his office initially said he would not be attending for security reasons.
Perhaps most awkward was his invitation to French Jews -- alarmed by the Paris attacks and the killing of four people at a kosher supermarket -- to migrate to Israel if they wanted, leaving French Prime Minister Manuel Valls scrambling to reassure the community it was safe and an integral part of France.
One of the European leaders who was "particularly stern" in his rejection of the invitation was the European Jewish Association's Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who insisted that migration to Israel was "not the solution for anti-Semitic terror."
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls expressed his concern about a mass exodus of Jews from the country, telling the Atlantic, "If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France."
Reuters notes that only “a few” French Jews migrate to Israel each year, with 7,000 of the population of 550,000 moving last year. However, the number is expected to jump above 10,000 this year due to growing fear of attacks from radical Islamists.
