PARIS, April 5: The French foreign ministry has soundly condemned Israel’s incursion into Bethlehem, saying that France has a special responsibility for the Holy Land in general and for the Basilica of the Nativity in particular, and that if necessary it plans to exercise its historic right to protect the places of worship located in the Holy Land.
According to Francois Rivadeau, the Quai d’Orsay spokesman, France was accorded a special status as protector of the Holy Land and notably of its religious sites, by an exchange of letters with Israel dating from 1948, the year of its founding, and that the agreement derives from accords that date back to the Ottoman Empire.
At the time of the exchange of letters, France was accorded a special responsibility by Israel over the religious establishments located in Bethlehem, a responsibility that France says it still holds to this day, and which, says the spokesman, France still intends to exercise if it finds itself obliged to do so.
Rivadeau admitted that it might seem paradoxical that France would exercise such a religious responsibility today, especially since the signing of a special accord in 1905 establishing the separation of church and state in France - an historic accord that transformed France into a lay republic - but nevertheless France had historically always been considered the “eldest daughter” of the Catholic Church.
As a result of the responsibility that rests on its shoulders, France said it considers the extension of the Israeli operations into the Holy Land as “dramatic,” and that “we find particularly upsetting the information that has been coming in from Bethlehem.”
According to reports an Israeli tank fired into one of the gates leading into the Basilica of the Nativity, this in spite of Israeli denials that the incident had ever taken place.
