JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue.
“Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe,” Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call made after attacks by extremists in Paris last month that killed 17 people, including four Jews.
Two police officers were also wounded in Sunday’s attack, one of two fatal shootings in the normally peaceful Danish capital on the weekend.
In the first attack on Saturday a 55-year-old man was killed at a panel discussion about Islam and free speech attended by a Swedish cartoonist behind controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
“Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,” Netanyahu said in the statement blaming extremists claiming to be fighting for Islam.
The Israeli prime minister said his government was to adopt a $45 million (39.5 million euro) plan “to encourage the absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine.”
“To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms,” Netanyahu said.
He had made a similar call after three days of bloodshed in Paris that started with the January 7 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were gunned down, followed the next day by the shooting death of a policewoman just outside the city.
On January 9, the gunman who killed the policewoman took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris and four Jews were killed during a police commando raid.
The bodies of the four were later flown to Israel where they were buried.
Officials in Copenhagen described the weekend attacks as an act of terror and said the man believed to be behind the shootings was shot dead after opening fire on police at a rail station.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent condolences to Danish counterpart Martin Lidegaard over the attacks, telling him Israel “appreciates Denmark’s cooperation in maintaining the security of Israelis and Jews in Denmark.”
A statement from the foreign ministry quoted Lieberman as telling Lidegaard that Israel was “ready for any cooperation required on this issue.”
Netanyahu urges Jews to move to Israel after Copenhagen attacks
Netanyahu urges Jews to move to Israel after Copenhagen attacks
Iran offers concessions on nuclear program
- Atomic energy chief says it will dilute enriched uranium if US eases sanctions
TEHRAN: Iran offered on Monday to dilute its highly enriched uranium if the US lifts sanctions.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, did not specify whether this included all sanctions on Iran or only those imposed by the US.
The new move follows talks on the issue in Oman last week that both sides described as positive and constructive.
Diluting uranium means mixing it with blend material to reduce the enrichment level, so that the final product does not exceed a given enrichment threshold.
Before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June last year, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent, far exceeding the 3.67 percent limit allowed under the now-defunct nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015.
According to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Iran is the only state without nuclear weapons that is enriching uranium to 60 percent.
The whereabouts of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that Iran possessed before the war is also unknown. UN inspectors last recorded its location on June 10. Such a stockpile could allow Iran to build more than nine nuclear bombs if enrichment reached 90 percent.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iranians on Monday to resist foreign pressure.
“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,” Khamenei said. “Show it again and frustrate the enemy.”
Nevertheless, despite this defiance, Iran has signaled it could come to some kind of deal to dial back its nuclear program and avoid further conflict with Washington.
