Liberman: Scope of attacks shows French intel failure

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman says Friday’s string of attacks in Paris are an intelligence failure on the part of French authorities.

Noting that the perpetrators were apparently a well organized and trained cell consisting of at least eight assailants, the former foreign minister tells Channel 2 news the planners behind the attacks must number in the dozens.

French intel had failed if it had faced such a wide terror infrastructure and “intelligence services didn’t get a whiff of it,” Liberman says.

He says Europe has failed to internalize the scope of the threat posed by Islamic extremism, and has failed to act decisively against those who spread its ideology, including spiritual leaders. Israel has also failed in this regard, he says.

Europe “is not able to change the diskette,” Liberman says. “They’re not built to face up to this.

Liberman says the West needs to put “boots on the ground” to tackle Islamic State in Syria, notably in its stronghold in Raqqa. But, he adds, “Europe won’t do it.”

“We are up against Islamic extremism that is fighting western values; until that is internalized, nothing will change,” says the former foreign minister.