Naftali Bennett wants to shoot the synagogue to the Palestinians – The Forward

Naftali Bennett, Israel's Minister for Diaspora and Far-Right Affairs, drew a parallel Sunday night between the gunman who slaughtered 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue during Shabbat morning services and Hamas militants.

Addressing a commemorative vigil sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, Naftali Bennett said, "From Sderot to Pittsburgh, the hand that fires missiles is the same one that fires on the faithful." We will fight against Jewish hatred and anti-Semitism wherever he raises his head. And we will carry it. Sderot is a town near the Israeli border in Gaza, regularly attacked by rocket fire from Hamas.

From lynchings to mass shootings: the story of murderous attacks on Jews in America ■ Opinion: Trump does not only feed the anti-Semitism that kills Jews in America

Bennett, who is also the Minister of Education and Habayit Hayehudi's party leader, aligned with the settlers and Orthodox, was sent to Pittsburgh as the highest representative of the Israeli government at the commemoration ceremony. In addition to attending the vigil, he met with leaders of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, and Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, spiritual leader of the congregation conservative attacked, Tree of Life.

The armed man, identified as Robert Bowers, 46, would have singled out this congregation because of its link with HIAS, a refugee advocacy organization targeted in several of its social media publications. A reconstructive congregation using the same synagogue was on the list of participants in a special event organized by HIAS and held a week earlier to welcome refugees into the Jewish community.

Bennett favors the deportation of African asylum seekers to Israel and lobbied Netanyahu six months ago to cancel an agreement that would have allowed thousands of people to remain in detention. permanence in the country.

Addressing more than 4,000 attendees at the Pittsburgh Vigil, Bennett said, "We are united, as Jews from all communities, united, as well as members of all religions. Together we are. Americans, Israelis. People who say "no" to hate together. The bullet of the murderer does not stop asking: are you conservative or reformist, are you orthodox? Are you the right or left wing? His goal is to kill innocent people. Innocent Jews. "

While Bennett spoke of the event as the official envoy of the Israeli government, another vigil attended by a hundred or so left-wing Jewish activists stood a few blocks away. It was organized by IfNotNow, an anti-occupation group that vehemently opposed Bennett's presence at official commemoration ceremonies because of the positions his party embraces.

Addressing the group, Moriah Ella Mason, a Pittsburgh group activist, said, "Tonight, our Jewish community in Pittsburgh has heard Naftali Bennett, a racist far-right Israeli politician whose party has Openly advocated for ethnic cleansing, described the "infiltrated" African migrants and brag about killing Arabs, she said. "These are the same types of politics and rhetoric adopted by Trump, and the same kinds of politics and rhetoric that triggered violence against my community."