France – About 10,000 people attended a rally in Paris Tuesday to mark the fourth anniversary of Gilad Shalit’s abduction.
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The protest, organized by the umbrella organization of French Jews, CRIF, was the first massive pro-Israel event since the Gaza flotilla incident. Speakers on stage condemned Hamas and urged the release of Shalit, who is also a French national.
Speaking at the event, CRIF President Richard Prasquier said: “We urge the French government, which supported the easing of the Gaza blockade, to call for Gilad’s release. De-legitimizing Israel is de-legitimizing part of who we are, and we won’t support that.”
Politicians from both the Left and Right spoke at the event. One of them, Paris Deputy Mayor Anne Hidalgo, said that city council has decided to grant Shalit honorary citizenship of the city.
“This is a symbolic act that will raise awareness and bring results on the ground,” she said.
With the exception of Jewish organizations, the rally was also attended by representatives’ of France’s black citizen federation, Armenian friends of Israel, and about 500 pro-Israel Christians
Kol Hakovod for France. We should have rallies in NY as well.
Here in the USa we only care about ganoovim like SMR.
We all need to unite and send a clear message, when you hurt any of us we are all coming after you.
Very nice to see and this follows the one in Finland last week. Very heartwarming. Now do you think we could get 50,000 people for a pro-Israel rally here in the US? That would be nice.
(reply to 1,2,4) if you think we should stage a rally in NY, go ahead and organize one.
Don’t criticize other people for not working on it, when you could do the same thing.
(reply to #1 ) Who should we rally to? Rallying in NY will only embolden hamas, when they see how much it hurts us.
In Paris they are rallying, that the French government should intervene, since he is a French citizen.
Hashem should have rachmonis on Gilad ben Aviva. I daven for him every day. Nebach.
Just for your info, I live in Paris, France and was there yesterday. It was a great demonstration, but do you believe that at the moment of my writing this NO French media on the Internet, including the major printed newspapers, have written a single line about that ? – Time for us all to get out of here.
go ahead organize, you will se many secular, MO, but I bet no ultra frum. You never come to protest unless it is against EY, or maybe some stupid thing that only concerns your little circle