Ten days after provoking Netanyahu’s anger, Macron reignited tensions on Tuesday by announcing in the middle of the Council of Ministers that “Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a UN decision.”
Nothing is going well between Emmanuel Macron and the Israeli Prime Minister. As revealed The Parisianthis Tuesday, October 15, during the Council of Ministers, the French President of the Republic declared that “Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a UN decision.” Comments confirmed in the capital’s daily newspaper by several participants, who refer to repeated Israeli strikes against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in recent days. “Therefore he should not free himself from UN decisions,” said Emmanuel Macron during the same meeting.
Comments which were not intended to be made public, but which ultimately quickly reached the ears of the main person concerned. “A reminder to the President of France: it was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust – notably of the Vichy regime in France”, tackled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a press release published Tuesday evening.
An already tense relationship between Macron and Netanyahu
This new episode is not likely to patch up Emmanuel Macron and Benyamin Netanyahu, whose relationship had already become strained on October 5. During an interview given to France Interthe French president spoke in favor of stopping arms deliveries to Israel used in the Gaza Strip. “I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to carry out the fighting in Gaza,” declared Emmanuel Macron. And to assure: “France does not deliver any.”
Words which aroused the ire of the Israeli Prime Minister. “As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should stand firmly alongside” the Jewish state,” Benyamin Netanyahu responded in a video, adding: “However, President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. They should be ashamed!” Despite the Élysée’s attempts to calm things down, notably with the publication of a press release in which France was an “unwavering friend of Israel”, the name of Emmanuel Macron had was copiously booed during the speech of its Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, at the ceremony paying tribute to the victims of October 7 organized by Crif.
At the end of last week, Emmanuel Macron had already described it as “completely unacceptable” that UN peacekeepers had been injured “deliberately by the Israeli armed forces”, clearly raising the tone against the Hebrew State: “The France will not tolerate further shooting.” And added on Saturday, this time expressing “his great concern about the intensification of Israeli strikes in Lebanon and their dramatic consequences for the civilian populations”.