Jimmy Carter: Jews 'May Be Safer in France' Than Israel

(John Angellillo/UPI/Landov)

By John Blosser | Tuesday, 13 January 2015 03:00 PM EST

Former President Jimmy Carter, blasted in the past for taking the side of Palestinians over that of Israel, has stepped in the Mideast mess again.

Carter, responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invitation for Jews in France to emigrate to Israel, said that "on the average" Jews are "safer in France" than they would be in Israel, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

After the brutal murders of four Jews in a kosher supermarket by the Islamic terrorists who attacked the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and other anti-Jewish assaults, Jews have been leaving France in increasing numbers, migrating to Great Britain or Israel.

Carter told HuffPost Live: "My guess is that the Jews who live in France will maybe not take this as a positive step, and say the only way you can be safe is to go to Israel. I would guess that you may be, on the average, may be safer in France than some places in Israel, but I’m not trying to make a judgment."

Somehow, Carter even believes that the vicious assault on Charlie Hebdo can help people understand Islam and eliminate "Islamophobia."

"I think this is a positive turning point in some respects," Carter said, "because a lot of people now are trying to understand what do the Muslims really believe. Their beliefs are very similar to Christians as far as peace and harmony and so forth. But they have a few radicals who are misled ... But I think, now, we'll have a better approach to cure (Islamophobia) in general."

"I think this is going to give a lot of people incentive to look into Islamicism, what is it about this religion that makes it great, that makes it appeal to really billions of people and to understand that Islamic leaders condemn this kind of terrorism just like the rest of the world," Carter was quoted in the Free Beacon.

Netanyahu, noting that the families of the four Jews slain in the kosher market asked that their bodies be flown to Israel for burial, said: "I wish to tell to all French and European Jews — Israel is your home," The Washington Post reported.

Jewish immigration to Israel from France is increasing for more reasons than the Charlie Hebdo shooting, as attacks on Jews in France are on the increase, such as the murder of seven at a Jewish day school in Toulouse in 2012 and the killing in May of four in a Jewish museum in Brussels, Belgium both by Islamic extremists. Anti-Semitic violence is on the upswing, the Post reports, and so is emigration, up 64 percent between 2012 and 2013 and is expected to grow.

Carter inflamed Jews when he spoke at a Muslim rally last year, accused Israel of apartheid in his book "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid" and blamed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for causing terrorist attacks, San Diego Jewish World reports.