'Wave of Islamisation' sweeping Western Europe, Benjamin Netanyahu says
Israeli leader's comments justifying expanding far-East trade risk stirring controversy following Right-wing anti-Islam protests in Europe
Benjamin Netanyahu triggered a potential new row with Europe on Sunday by claiming that “a wave of Islamisation” was sweeping the continent as police in Germany banned an anti-Muslim group from holding a mass rally amid a reported jihadist death threat against its leader.
The comments by Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, were made as he disclosed Israel’s plans to expand trade with the Far East because of perceived rising hostility in Western Europe, the country’s biggest export market.
They risked being interpreted as a vindication of populist European anti-Islamist protest groups and came as the biggest such movement, Germany’s Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident) was forced to call off Monday’s planned demonstration in Dresden.
“We definitely want to reduce our dependence on certain markets in western Europe,” Mr Netanyahu told a weekly cabinet meeting ahead of the visit by Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, who arrived in Israel with a vast Japanese trade delegation.
“Western Europe is undergoing a wave of Islamisation, of anti-Semitism, and of anti-Zionism. It is awash in such waves, and we want to ensure that for years to come the state of Israel will have diverse markets all over the world.”
The remarks were made against the backdrop of recent deadly attacks by French jihadists on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and a Kosher supermarket in Paris, which killed a total of 17 people, including four French Jewish citizens who were subsequently given state funerals in Israel.
They coincided with a police warning in Germany that a “concrete threat” had been made against the latest Pegida rally.
“Assassins have been called up to mingle among the Pegida protesters and murder one of the individuals leading the rally,” a police statement said, citing information from the German federal crime office.
Pegida earlier told its followers that its rally had been scrapped, citing a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group, and portraying the cancellation as its own decision.
“What in police jargon is called an 'abstract threat’ has changed to a 'concrete death threat’ against a member of the organising team. IS terrorists have ordered his assassination,” it said in a statement.
German authorities have become increasingly alarmed over Pegida’s weekly demonstrations, which are thought to have been infiltrated by far-Right and neo-Nazi elements. Last week’s rally – the 12th – in Dresden attracted an estimated 25,000, the biggest crowd yet, in an apparent upsurge of anti-Islamist sentiment following the attacks in France.
Sympathisers of German right-wing populist movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) marching in Dresden
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has denounced the demonstrations as led by racists who have “coldness, even hatred in their hearts”.
The complex European debate on Islam was further illustrated on Sunday by an opinion poll showing that more than four in 10 French people believed Charlie Hebdo was wrong to publish cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed in its first edition after this month’s killing because they risked offending Muslims.
The survey, published by Journal du Dimanche, found that 42 per cent of respondents thought the latest illustrations “completely unacceptable”, compared with 57 per cent who believed magazine was right to ignore Muslim sensitivities by publishing them.
Three-quarters of far-left supporters agree with Charlie Hebdo’s no-holds-barred approach to poking fun at religion, while 51 per cent of those who back the centre-right party of the former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, think the magazine went too far.
The poll revealed that women and people under 35 were most sensitive to Muslims’ concerns.
The two Charlie Hebdo attackers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, have been quietly buried in separate unmarked graves to try to prevent the sites from becoming terrorist shrines.
Said, left, and Cherif Kouachi
Chérif Kouachi was buried on Saturday night in the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers. His elder brother Saïd was buried the previous night in the eastern city of Reims. Local officials had been reluctant to allow the burials but were forced to do so by the government.
Since the attacks, François Hollande’s popularity has risen by 10 points as a result of his statesmanlike public appearances and organisation of a solidarity march in Paris attended by some 50 foreign leaders.
Previously the most unpopular French president since polling began, he now enjoys a more respectable approval rating of 34 per cent, eight points higher than Mr Sarkozy.
The remarks were made against the backdrop of recent deadly attacks by French jihadists on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and a Kosher supermarket in Paris, which killed a total of 17 people, including four French Jewish citizens who were subsequently given state funerals in Israel.
They coincided with a police warning in Germany that a “concrete threat” had been made against the latest Pegida rally.
“Assassins have been called up to mingle among the Pegida protesters and murder one of the individuals leading the rally,” a police statement said, citing information from the German federal crime office.
Pegida earlier told its followers that its rally had been scrapped, citing a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group, and portraying the cancellation as its own decision.
“What in police jargon is called an 'abstract threat’ has changed to a 'concrete death threat’ against a member of the organising team. IS terrorists have ordered his assassination,” it said in a statement.
German authorities have become increasingly alarmed over Pegida’s weekly demonstrations, which are thought to have been infiltrated by far-Right and neo-Nazi elements. Last week’s rally – the 12th – in Dresden attracted an estimated 25,000, the biggest crowd yet, in an apparent upsurge of anti-Islamist sentiment following the attacks in France.
Sympathisers of German right-wing populist movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) marching in DresdenAngela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has denounced the demonstrations as led by racists who have “coldness, even hatred in their hearts”.
The complex European debate on Islam was further illustrated on Sunday by an opinion poll showing that more than four in 10 French people believed Charlie Hebdo was wrong to publish cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed in its first edition after this month’s killing because they risked offending Muslims.
The survey, published by Journal du Dimanche, found that 42 per cent of respondents thought the latest illustrations “completely unacceptable”, compared with 57 per cent who believed magazine was right to ignore Muslim sensitivities by publishing them.
Three-quarters of far-left supporters agree with Charlie Hebdo’s no-holds-barred approach to poking fun at religion, while 51 per cent of those who back the centre-right party of the former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, think the magazine went too far.
The poll revealed that women and people under 35 were most sensitive to Muslims’ concerns.
The two Charlie Hebdo attackers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, have been quietly buried in separate unmarked graves to try to prevent the sites from becoming terrorist shrines.
Said, left, and Cherif KouachiSince the attacks, François Hollande’s popularity has risen by 10 points as a result of his statesmanlike public appearances and organisation of a solidarity march in Paris attended by some 50 foreign leaders.
Previously the most unpopular French president since polling began, he now enjoys a more respectable approval rating of 34 per cent, eight points higher than Mr Sarkozy.
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