'This Is Not How We Wanted to Welcome You to Israel'

4 victims of Paris terror attack buried in Jerusalem
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2015 7:26 AM CST
Updated Jan 13, 2015 7:57 AM CST
'This Is Not How We Wanted to Welcome You to Israel'
The mother of French Jew Yoav Hattab, a victim of the attack on a kosher market in Paris, is comforted during his funeral procession in the city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Jan. 13, 2015.   (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

"I am Charlie, I am Jewish, I am Israeli, I am French, I'm fed up." This was just one of the signs visible at a Jerusalem cemetery this morning as Israelis gathered to mourn four French Jews killed in last week's Paris terror attacks, the New York Times reports. The bodies of Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, and François-Michel Saada, all murdered Friday during a hostage standoff in a kosher market, were flown into Ben Gurion Airport this morning, then carried by ambulance convoy to the Givat Shaul cemetery, CNN reports. "This is not how we wanted to welcome you to Israel—we wanted you alive," Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said during the ceremony for the men, as per the Times.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke, stressing that "Jews have the right to live in many countries, and it's their right to live there with full security." But he also repeated a controversial statement he had made over the weekend encouraging France's Jews to move to Israel, adding, "I believe they know, deep in their hearts, that they have one country, the state of Israel, that is their historic homeland." There are about 500,000 Jews in France—Europe's largest Jewish population—but they've become increasingly unsure if they have a safe haven there, the Times notes. Bibi's words have peeved French officials, who believe France's continued support of its Jewish population serves as "a litmus test of the republic's legitimacy," Fox News notes. "If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure," French PM Manuel Valls told Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic. (More Paris stories.)

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