They are fleeing Muslim anti-Semitism, which is just part of the steadily mounting Islamic jihad in Europe. The jihad against their new home of Israel is already fully raging. From CBS News, with thanks to “Allah”:
(CBS/AP) Just 10 days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enraged French leaders by urging France’s Jews to leave for Israel, a group of 200 French Jews arrived to start a new life in the Jewish state, with Sharon at the airport to greet them.
As one émigré told CBS News Correspondent Mark Philips: You wear something to say you are Jewish and you have difficulty. We are afraid. It’s simply that we are afraid.”…
Carol Ben Guigui, 41, carrying a dog in her arms, said: “In five or 10 years, all the Jews of France will be in Israel because of anti-Semitism.”
“Welcome to Israel,” Sharon said, “welcome home.”
Also at the airport to greet the immigrants were opposition Labor Party leader Shimon Peres and Israel’s two chief rabbis….
In a July 18 speech to visiting Jewish American leaders, Sharon told them France was host to “the wildest anti-Semitism.”
“If I have to advocate to our brothers in France, I will tell them one thing: Move to Israel, as early as possible,” he said….
France is widely viewed in Israel as biased in favor of the Palestinians. The French Jewish community “” at 600,000 the third-largest in the world “” tends to be strongly pro-Israel, creating friction with a Muslim population of almost 5 million.
The latest French Interior Ministry figures show 510 anti-Jewish acts or threats in the first six months of 2004 “” compared to 593 for all of last year.
While France has strengthened security at Jewish institutions and enacted tougher punishments for people convicted of such crimes, a sense of uneasiness and betrayal has some Jews questioning where they belong.
According to the Israeli government, 7,024 immigrants have come from France since 2000 “” from a low of 1,160 in 2001 to a high of 2,385 in 2002. In the first half of 2004, 647 French Jews immigrated to Israel.