Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, where 11 Jews were murdered in a hate crime on Oct. 27, 2018.
In the wake of the Pittsburgh white-supremacist's terror attack on a synagogue, Israeli labor leader Avi Gabbay
called "upon the Jews of the United States to immigrate more and more to Israel, because this is their home."
This was an echo of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who in the wake of the 2015 Paris terror shootings,
messaged "all the Jews of France", indeed "all the Jews of Europe": "the state of Israel is your home".
This is hardly the first time that the opposition leader Gabbay echoes Netanyahu so precisely and in such similar contexts. Last year, he
approvingly cited Netanyahu's words: "The left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish". Gabbay was aware of the historical and racist context of Netanyahu's original statement, which was caught on hot mic in 1997 (Netanyahu also said that the left "think that our security can be placed in the hands of Arabs") - and Gabbay explicitly credited Netanayhu.
Gabbay's statements on Pittsburgh were regarded as "tone-deaf" by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (
JTA), and even centrist lawmaker (and former Israeli Ambassador to US) Michael Oren felt a need to damage-control Gabbay's words for being too nationalist:
"Avi Gabbay said things that should not be said because he simply does not understand. Through his words he adds insult to injury. The call to U.S. Jewry, especially after last night [massacre in Pittsburgh], deeply hurts their feelings and reduces their desire for Aliyah [emigration to Israel]. Gabbay does not understand anything about Israel's relationship with the Diaspora."
Comment: It's funny how, when Trump was a candidate, such figures were 'not the real unemployment figures' - which they aren't, because they exclude all sorts of unemployed people, like people who've been unemployed for so long, they've given up searching and have effectively dropped out of the system - but now they're political gold.