HOLLANDE DID NOT WANT NETANYAHU TO ATTEND THE PARIS UNITY MARCH AND RALLY

The French president greeted Netanyahu with a limp handshake, but he hugged Abbas in a loving embrace

French President Hollande did not want Netanyahu to attend Sunday’s massive Paris unity march and rally because he did not want the Israeli leader’s presence to call attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At first Netanyahu agreed not to come, but on Saturday he changed his mind. That forced the French government to issue him a last minute formal invitation.

While Netanyahu received a cool reception with a limp handshake from the French president, Abbas was warmly received by Hollande who hugged the Palestinian leader in a loving embrace. Hollande and Netanyahu both attended a Paris synagogue service in memory of the four Jews killed at the kosher grocery store, but when Netanyahu got up to speak, the French president and his entourage got up and left.

Hollande’s contempt for Netanyahu is merely a reflection of the fact that France has been fully siding with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.

While the French government was unhappy with Netanyahu, Hamas was unhappy with Abbas for attending the rally. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar called Abbas a hypocrite for pretending to oppose terrorism.

This is an election season in Israel and Netanyahu is seeking another term as prime minister. The Israeli media, which loves to hate Netanyahu, reported that he was an embarrassment because he muscled his way from the second row to the first row to walk and stand with other heads of state alongside Hollande. That simply was not true.

ISRAEL, HAMAS SLAM ABBAS PARTICIPATION IN PARIS MARCH
By Ryan Jones

Israel Today
January 12, 2015

Israel and Hamas found themselves in rare agreement over the participation of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Sunday’s massive anti-terror rally on the streets of Paris.

An estimated two million people took part in the march just days after Islamic terrorists killed 17 people in three separate attacks in the French capital. The event was attended by numerous foreign dignitaries and heads of state, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several of his cabinet ministers.

But Abbas shouldn’t have been there, insisted senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar. “Abbas wants to seem as if he’s fighting terror but he doesn’t know the meaning of terror,” he told Arab media in remarks that were quickly picked up by the Israeli press.

Al-Zahar said that Abbas “thinks that in acting this way, he’s earning the sympathy of world nations. …This behavior is part of the hypocrisy and political acrobatics typical to Abbas.”

Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who was also present at the rally, came to a similar conclusion regarding both Abbas and the emir of Qatar.

“It’s hypocritical of those same Qataris and Arabs who are financing terrorism to come and demonstrate as if against terrorism,” Bennett told a Jewish youth group in Paris. “I don’t accept this. They’re hands are covered in blood.”

It was later revealed that, in fact, it was Netanyahu whom France didn’t want at the Paris rally, and that Abbas was only formally invited as a kind of slap in the Israeli leader’s face.

An unnamed official in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem told Israel Radio and Channel 2 News that France wanted to avoid any mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and so asked Netanyahu not to attend the historic demonstration.

Initially, Netanyahu complied with the request, but later decided that it was important for the Israeli prime minister to participate in the world’s largest anti-terror protest. France quickly issued an official invitation to Netanyahu to make it appear as though he’d been welcome all along, but also highlighted that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had likewise been invited.