Editorials
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
24 September 2021
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/french-train-car-of-dreams-holocaust-vandalism/
Trains des Rêves ‘What Value Life,’ Greg Marshall, not subject to copyright
“Wiesenthal Centre urges vandal be brought to justice, while his lopsided swastika remains as artefact of hate for the comments of visiting tourists.”
American-born Greg Marshall had bought an abandoned train station 3 hours south of Paris, adding a number of train wagons, to serve as a hotel with restaurant cars, while presenting each of the carriages’ history.
Read more: French ‘Train Car of Dreams’: Holocaust Vandalism
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
20 September 2021
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/open-letter-to-french-president-macronjihadi-islamism-common-terror-factor/
Mr. President,
France’s recent terrorist history is marked from the 1980 Copernic synagogue bombing to the 1982 Goldenberg restaurant massacre, the Carpentras 1990 Jewish cemetery exhumation of a corpse hung on an umbrella, the 2006 torture to death of Ilan Halimi, the 2012 Toulouse Jewish school attack the 2015 Hyper Kosher supermarket killing hostages, the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi and in 2018 of Mireille Knoll and countless other victims of antisemitism.
Read more: Open Letter to French President Macron: “Jihadi...
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
9 September 2021
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/2015-paris-terror-attacks-a-jewish-perspective/
For the 20th World Summit on Counter Terrorism
Arab terrorism on French soil had predominantly focused on Jewish targets, especially since the October 1980 Copernic synagogue bombing.
This launched 73 shootings and bombings against Jews across Western Europe, of which 29 in France. The terror spree stopped in August 1982 with the attack on the Goldenberg restaurant in the Paris Jewish quarter, that coincided also with the sudden return of European terrorists from PLO training camps in Southern Lebanon, fleeing from an Israeli incursion to end cross-border terror.
Editorial by Shimon Samuels, Alex Uberti
published in The Jerusalem Post
1st September 2021
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/morocco-algeria-and-israel-on-peace-anniversary-opinion-678402
An important background impacting the Accords is the historic status of Jews in Algeria and Morocco, an indicator of each of these two countries’ contemporary attitudes toward Israel.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid speaks at a news conference in Rabat, Morocco, last month
(photo Youssef Boudlal/Reuters).
The Abraham Accords’ forthcoming anniversary will celebrate a growing interest in the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa.
Read more: Morocco, Algeria and Israel on peace anniversary...
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
19 July 2021
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/today-27th-commemoration-of-amia-bombing/
In 2006, a Franco-Palestinian organization sued me for defamation. I needed bona fides for my defence.
Among them was Hector Timerman, then Argentine Ambassador to the United Nations. He wrote about my visit to his father, Jacobo, during the military dictatorship. He added that this had helped him to find shelter in Israel.
In 2013, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, he called me to say that he had been implicated in a memorandum with Iran to forget the AMIA bombing in exchange for an exchange of large sums for Argentine ‘purchases’. He protested this as a lie.