Israeli Knesset member Effi Eitam described the fight against extremist Islam as a holy war.
At a memorial service in New York on Thursday for the eight Israeli yeshiva students killed in last week’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem, Eitam said Jews and non-Jews soon will have to unite in the fight against the “extremist Islamic movement.”
“Let God help us win this holy, uncompromised war we are already in,” said Eitam, who is an alumnus of the yeshiva where the attack took place, Mercaz Harav.
Speaking at the service, Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit slammed recent international condemnation of Israel’s operations in Gaza. He said Israel’s responses to rocket attacks against its citizens are far more humane than other nations’ reactions would be in similar circumstances.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the U.N. Security Council’s inability to pass a resolution condemning last week’s terrorist attack shows that, “At the end of the day, we can count on no one except ourselves.”
Libya had blocked passage of the resolution.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Yeshiva University organized Thursday’s memorial service, which was held on the day the families of the eight victims concluded shiva observances.
“This is an expression of our unity with the people of Israel,” the Presidents Conference’s executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, told the assembled, most of them students from Yeshiva University.
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