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Israeli right campaigns on Paris terror attack

When calling on Europe to stand by Israel and when calling French Jews to immigrate to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is harnessing the Paris terror attacks for his electoral needs.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) talks with French Ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave after presenting his condolences, following a shooting by gunmen at the offices of weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, at Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem January 9, 2015. The two main suspects in the Charlie Hebdo killings were sighted on Friday in the northern French town of Dammartin-en-Goele where at least one person had been taken hostage, a police source said. REUTERS/Thomas Coex/Poo
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As I sat writing this article, a message popped up in my mailbox from a public relations firm of someone whose name I had never heard. It said that Uri Bank, secretary of HaBayit HaYehudi party’s Knesset faction, proposes that Israel mount “a heavy, armored international public information and diplomacy campaign” to explain to the world that Islamist terrorism is “a real danger to the entire world, and not just a problem in Israel.”

Bank, according to the message, was running in his party’s primaries. He, too, wants to benefit from the series of Paris terror attacks. Are only the big boys allowed? One can compare the reactions of Israeli politicians to a producer of fire extinguishers, who runs an ad featuring a house that burned down the previous day with all its tenants.

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