Tensions are mounting again between French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After a heated exchange on the issue of a possible embargo on arms deliveries to Israel, Macron was roundly rebuffed by Netanyahu after he claimed that the State of Israel owed its birth to a United Nations resolution.
In a statement not intended to be made public, on Tuesday, October 15th, the French president raised the situation in southern Lebanon where Israel is conducting a ground offensive against Hezbollah. He said during a weekly meeting with his council of ministers that Israel’s PM should not “ignore United Nations decisions”. France has repeatedly claimed that Israel has targeted UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, but Israel has repeatedly urged UNIFIL to evacuate its forces from combat areas.
“[T]his is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” Macron said, “Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN.” The French president was referring to the UN General Assembly’s vote in November 1947 on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Macron’s remarks leaked to the press and once again understandably sparked the ire of Netanyahu, who responded publicly to what he saw as a new French provocation:
A reminder to the French President: It was not a UN decision that established the State of Israel but the victory that was achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France.
The indirect virulent exchange between the two politicians was followed by another telephone call, some ten days after a conversation between the two men aimed at putting out the fire sparked by Macron’s comments on an embargo on arms delivered to Israel. Netanyahu informed the French President that he was categorically opposed to a “unilateral ceasefire” in Lebanon.
